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영어

This paper discusses some ideas about the founder of Liberation Theology, who is Gustavo Gutierrez, now the worldly known thinker. My area of interest here is, especially, in his understandings about the self-world relationship as described in his writings. My reading points out that there are three main persectives from which he makes his arguments and also relates to other areas of his discussion. The first one is the poor’s perspective. According to him, the feelings and thoughts of the poor tends to be ignored in the real life world. Hence they do not have their own voices. Their voices are not fully supported not only in the economic settings but also in the religious settings. They need to be heard. This condition affects other areas of their life as well and it helps us to see the second way of his analysis about Latin American situation, that is, the theory of oppression. He believes that oppression is the main source of their suffering and problem along with the poverty. According to him, the poor experience their relationship with the world as structurally oppressed. It is because mainly the socio-cultural structure is made in general by the people of power, white and european. The Latin people are not strong enough to build up the structure on their own. They do not have socio-political power yet. Gutierrez addresses the issue of social, cultural, historical, psychological and spiritual oppression, of course from the perspective of the poor. What is the condition in which the poor can function optimally? Here comes the third and the final point of view, which is what Gutierrez considers as the spirit of liberation, especially in the religious and theological areas. His argument is that the poor need to claim their own voices about their faith experiences. The religious and theological liberty would make difference in the socio-political and psychological ones as well as in the religious one. Through the reinterpretation of Job, above all, Gutierrez suggests a new theology, the theology that is constructed by the subjective experiences of the poor or the suffering of the innocent poor in this oppressive world. Gutierrez believes that the poor do not talk about God but to God. This is the theology of doing which is different from the theology of speaking.