“I have come to proclaim good news to the poor…” (Luke 4:18)
The provocative title of these essays plays on a traditional Catholic slogan: “No salvation outside the church.” But as Fr. Sobrino notes, salvation has many dimensions, both personal and social, historical and transcendent. Insofar as it implies God’s response to a world marked by suffering and injustice, then the poor represent an indispensable test, a key to the healing of a sick society. Drawing on the radical hope of Christian faith—the promise of the Kingdom of God and the resurrection of the death—Sobrino presents a bold counter-cultural challenge to a “civilization of wealth” that lives off the blood of the poor. Inspired by the witness of Oscar Romero and Ignacio Ellacuría, and the church’s preferential option for the poor, Sobrino offers these “prophetic-utopian” reflections on faith and the meaning of discipleship in our time.
Jon Sobrino, a Spanish-born Jesuit theologian, has spent the past 50 years in El Salvador. He is the author of many works, including the award-winning 2-volume Christology, Jesus the Liberator and Christ the Liberator, as well as Where is God? Earthquake, Terrorism, Barbarity, and Hope, and Witnesses to the Kingdom: The Martyrs of El Salvador and the Crucified Peoples.
