A Revolutionary Faith

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Written By Open Plaza

Amirah Orozco talks with Dr. Raúl Zegarra about his recent book on religious beliefs, politics, and advancing progressive social change via Latin American Liberation Theology

Chimbote's Festival de San Pedrito, in devotion to the patron saint of fishermen, Chimbote, Perú, 2018. A month before the 1968 Second Episcopal Conference of Latin America (CELAM II) in Medellín, Colombia, Gustavo Gutiérrez delivered his germane talk to priests and laity entitled "Toward a Theology of Liberation" in the city of Chimbote. Photo: Presidencia Perú

 
 

In this episode of OP Talks, Amirah Orozco, a doctoral student of Systematic Theology at Notre Dame, talks with Dr. Raúl Zegarra, Assistant Professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School, about his book A Revolutionary Faith: Liberation Theology Between Public Religion and Public Reason (Stanford University Press, 2023). The book, which is in conversation with the work of theologians Gustavo Gutiérrez and David Tracy, delves into how religious organizing and mobilizing can help enrich and strengthen democracy. 

Dr. Zegarra’s work “shows how liberation theology advocates have been able to produce a new balance between faith and politics that advances an agenda of progressive social change without reducing politics to faith or faith to politics,” writes Stanford University Press.

 
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Amirah Orozco

Amirah Orozco is a theology doctoral student at the University of Notre Dame in the area of Systematic Theology, with a minor in Gender Studies. She is also a Doctoral Student Affiliate with the Kellogg Institute of International Affairs. Her interests center on mujerista and feminista latine thought as well as Catholic ecclesiology. Orozco’s scholarship pursues liberation and emancipation of the poor and marginalized, focusing on decolonial theologies and feminist movements in the Catholic Church. Her work is anchored in how social movements relate outside of the Church and why those relationships are important to understanding the role of the Church in public life. Orozco originates from the Border between El Paso,Texas and Juárez, Chihuahua, has worked with Latine immigrants in Boston and Chicago, and conducted research in Zacatecas about the legacy of San Luis Batiz Saenz and Mexico’s post-revolutionary church-state relations. She holds a Master's of Theological Studies from Boston College School of Theology and Ministry (2021) and a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston College (2019).

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Raúl Zegarra

Dr. Raúl Zegarra is an Assistant Professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School and a member of the editorial and advisory team at the Hispanic Theological Initiative. Dr. Zegarra has held previous positions at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago. He received his PhD from The University of Chicago and holds master’s degrees in philosophy and theology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and the University of Notre Dame, respectively. His research focuses on the relationship between faith and politics, with particular emphasis on how the identity and commitments of minoritized groups are shaped. Awards recently granted include the New Scholar Essay Prize for Catholic Studies in the Americas (Fordham University, 2023), the Max Weber Kolleg Research Fellowship (University of Erfurt, 2022), and the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise (University of Heidelberg, 2021). Dr. Zegarra has authored four books, multiple book chapters, academic articles, and translations. His most recent book, A Revolutionary Faith: Liberation Theology between Public Religion and Public Reason (Stanford UP, 2023), highlights liberation theology’s contributions to a theory of social justice that welcomes the role of religious commitments. His current book project — Sacred Identities: Latines and the Intersectional Politics of Faith — attempts to problematize some of the assumptions of Latine theology regarding the relationship between race, gender, and religion in the Latine community. Dr. Zegarra is a regular op-ed contributor to the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio.

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