Newsletter CLT

First Newsletter of the Centre for Liberation Theologies!

 

 

Dear reader,

The Centre for Liberation Theologies of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies (KULeuven – University of Leuven, Belgium) exists for almost 25 years, and is probably one of the few such centres remaining worldwide! Founded in 1988 by involved students and Prof. dr. Georges De Schrijver – its first dynamic coordinator – the Centre continues to provide a forum for liberation theologies and theologians worldwide.

At the occasion of our 25^th anniversary, we want to launch our renewed website (www.theo.kuleuven.be/clt) and this newsletter, which we intend to bring to you three times a year, in order to keep you up to date with our activities and research, as well as with developments in liberation theologies worldwide. We do hope that you will contribute to this newsletter to make it truly informative on a global scale!

The website collects a vast archive of texts, pictures and audio of many of the guest speakers who visited the Centre over the past 25 years. We have tried to make available as much information as possible online. In the near future, more documents, pictures, and audio will be made. In addition, our website presents both the research that has been conducted in the past and our current research projects. If you wish, you can also contribute information about your own research, or other research and events you think are important to all of us.

In this first newsletter, we want, first and foremost, to reflect on our ‘vision and mission’ statement, by including an interview with the current coordinator of the Centre for Liberation Theologies, Prof. dr. Jacques Haers. In the future, each newsletter will contain an interview with a liberation theologian, the red thread through the interviews being the relevance and the future of liberation theologies. In addition, we offer one or more reviews of recent publications in the field of liberation theologies, to which we invite you to collaborate in sending us hints for books, articles, or reviews of them!

This newsletter also aims at building a network of liberation theologians and interested people. This is also your newsletter and one that will benefit from your input! In forthcoming editions we would love to include news from your own region. Do you have information or updates that would be of interest to other readers of this letter? Interesting links, books, reviews and all other information can always be passed on to clt@theo.kuleuven.be.

We thank you cordially for your interest and for your cooperation to forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested in its content. Subscribing to this newsletter is possible via clt@theo.kuleuven.be or http://theo.kuleuven.be/page/centr_bevrijding_newsletter/. The next issue of this newsletter can be expected by the end of May, 2012.

You receive this newsletter because you are a member of the faculty of theology of the K.U. Leuven, because you have been involved in previous activities of the Centre, or because you have indicated that you are interested in the activities of the Centre. If you wish to be unsubscribed from the mailing list, please send an email to clt@theo.kuleuven.be.

Thank you!

Upcoming Activities of the Centre

Forum for Liberation Theologies

The Forum has a tradition of gathering once a month and inviting a speaker.

March 8, 2012, 8pm: Christine Bruggeman, coordinator of the ‘Ark’ community in Flanders and the Netherlands. The spirituality of its founder, Jean Vanier, aims at integrating handicapped people in society by living together with them.

April, 2012: Joe Drexler-Dreiss on the actuality of post-/and decolonialism and Frantz Fanon (exact date to be confirmed by e-mail and on our website).

Conferences

May 20-22, 2012: Concilium Colloquium on ‘Reconciliation: Empowering Grace’. Opening lecture by Jon Sobrino SJ! For more information and online registration, please refer to the website, www.theo.kuleuven.be/concilium.

Publication announcements

Kristien Justaert, Theology After Deleuze (Deleuze Encounters), London & New York: Continuum, August 2012.

Deleuze’s relationship with theology is a complex one. Indeed, there seem to be many possible objections to such an ‘assemblage’ taking place. In the first book of its kind to engage with this seemingly problematic dialogue, Kristien Justaert shows the ways in which Deleuze’s thought can in fact advance issues in political and feminist theology in particular, while also exploring the important theological and spiritual aspirations contained in Deleuze’s philosophy itself, as part of his lifelong quest for the ‘Absolute’.

If you are interested in announcing your own publication in the field of liberation theologies, please send practical information, as well as a short description of your own (upcoming) publication(s) to clt@theo.kuleuven.be, and we will announce it in our next newsletter!

Vision and Mission of the Centre for Liberation Theologies

At the CLT, we believe that the reflection on and the practical commitment to liberation in ever changing local and planet-wide contexts, as well as in sustained dialogue with those who support the same ideals, represent a constructive academic and practical endeavor towards dignified life together for the whole of creation.

Therefore, we hold it to be our mission:

· To retrieve the empowering treasures from our traditions and histories;

· To present the work of liberation theologians worldwide;

· To advocate for those who are involved in liberation struggle and to commit at their side;

· To promote research in the field of liberation theologies;

· To initiate, explore and network new avenues of research and commitment, particularly at a planet-wide scale;

· To stimulate transdisciplinary collaboration and encounters as necessary for the further unfolding of liberation theologies;

· To provide spaces for interaction and collaboration amongst those working in the field of liberation theologies;

· To stimulate young theologians in the direction of liberation theologies by teaching programs and providing support for research up to the postdoctoral level.

 

Interview with prof. dr. Jacques Haers, Coordinator of the Centre

 

What are – according to you – the main tasks of the Centre for Liberation Theologies?

First of all, the Centre wants to continue making students aware of the many varieties of liberation theologies.  It wishes to support interested students in their research, here in Belgium but also internationally. It is also a task of the Centre to network internationally, and to connect diverse contexts with one another.

Conducting research is another main task of the Centre: in which directions do liberation theologies navigate today? Topics such as feminist concerns, migration, globalization, environment, violence etc. are of paramount importance to the Centre, but I would like to see them studied also within the context of the question: what does planet-wide liberation theology mean today? Indeed, I think the international and planet-wide context is crucially important for the further development of liberation theology: the north-south relations, global poverty, environmental challenges, etc.

The Centre also wishes to provide the opportunity for students to express themselves theologically concerning the meaning of theology in their own contexts. How can theology truly become liberative, healing, hopeful, empowering? A positive result is achieved when students compare their contexts and ideas with one another. 

What is the Centre’s vision on ‘liberation’? Is liberation a modern concept, has it changed through postcolonial and postmodern theory, and what can it still mean today?

Although the word ‘liberation’ has a universal range, its meaning also depends on the context in which it arises. The question that needs to be asked is: What offers people the possibility to live in a way that is dignifying both as regards their humanity and their belonging to the whole of creation? The answer to this question is concretely diverse depending on different contexts. In contexts in which people are depressed by discouragement, liberation addresses hope; where people live in material poverty, liberation addresses poverty and its consequences; where people suffer violence, it is liberation from violence and its consequences that is intended. We have to keep in mind that liberation theologies are concerned with matters of life and death. Therefore, material conditions of  life and death remain a huge challenge! Liberation from the material humiliation of not being able to take care of one’s own existence and that of one’s children, for example. Liberation is not a noncommittal and vague word, it is very focused and ever concrete. It is always also a question of justice and the preferential option for the poor, so crucial to liberation theologians, targets the transformation of unjust relationships. Therefore, liberation addresses structural challenges, since we live in structures that allow the exploitation of certain groups of people.  Liberation theologians will ask the questions: How do such structures work and what can we do about them? This is a much more difficult process than merely pointing to a particular person who is blamed for his or her part in oppression. This structural aspect of liberation theologies is sometimes insufficiently emphasized, and it is connected to our understanding of sin. Sin is too easily interpreted as only a personal responsibility, as focused on one person; the kind of sin one talks about in the confessional. Liberation theologies use a broader and more complex concept of sin: we are prisoners of structures that we ourselves maintain and of which other people and also we ourselves are the victims. Thus, a theological critique on neoliberalism, for example, requires a complex understanding of sin and the analysis of structures of sin. How can we think from the perspective of those who pay the material price for the neoliberal logic? And how do we understand the meaning of this neoliberal “logic”?

So the concept of liberation is on the one hand dependent on the context, but on the other hand, there also seems to be a very universal understanding of what liberation means: how are these two connected to each other? 

How we understand liberation and how we phrase it, is indeed always dependent on place and time. But it is also and at the same time connected to worldwide phenomena, such as, for example, the struggle for land in Latin-America or the Philippines: this is a local issue, but at the same time it is connected to structures of international trade, economy, the capability to study, etc. In this sense, the ideas of Amartya Sen on the development of capabilities is very interesting. If local development of capabilities is detached from planet-wide problems, the help or assistance provided to people in their local situations runs the risk to become very paternalistic and to perpetuate the unjust global relationships.

Because of their materialist basis – their connection to the very material living conditions of people –, liberation theologies have to use transdisciplinary methods, that allow for complex analyses of situations and structures, and are in touch with the concrete realities and living conditions of people. As a consequence, liberation theologians cannot but be team-workers. Theologians who work for liberation can gather those who are willing to think from the perspective of the people who pay the price. Again, this is a matter of life and death – think about the consequences of the failed climate conference in Durban, for instance. One doesn’t think about people, nor about nature, one deeply commits to them. Gutiérrez would say: we are dealing here with people who die because injustice is being committed, and this is simply unacceptable. These matters of life and death concern us all, not only the victims. Convenors pay special attention to those who risk being excluded from the table of negotiation where new and dignifying relationships are elaborated that constitute life-giving communities for us all.

What is the Centre’s relation to the Christian tradition? In the ‘Vision and mission’ of the Centre, we can read that the Centre wishes ‘to retrieve the empowering treasures from our traditions and histories’: could you clarify this line a bit more please?

Of course, there are also liberation theologies outside of the Christian traditions or outside of the Roman Catholic traditions – it would for example be very interesting to see what Muslim theologians write about the ‘Arab Spring’. Christian liberation theologians fall back on the biblical tradition. For Leonardo Boff, there are three levels on which theology works: the level of theologians, of ‘common’ people, and of pastoral agents (bishops etc.). Grassroots communities articulate their faith, read the biblical texts, the texts of the tradition, and celebrate their rituals close to life. These communities have roots. Christians express their roots by attempting to answer questions as: how would Jesus of Nazareth act now? How does God reveal Godself in the face of the oppressed? How do we recognize the crucified there? How can we carry the cross together with the crucified (Ellacuria’s question)?

Liberation theologies are clearly referring to traditions, but they may clash with some of the church traditions when these develop power structures that support or even produce injustice. We must not be blind to that. However, the protest that liberation theologies enact, is deeply based on the Christian traditions they hold dear. Liberation theologies are not mere academic exercises – they emerge in the context of ‘common’ people. This is sometimes neglected. When this happens, the ecclesiological and liturgical aspects of liberation theologies are pushed into the background. But, the building of the kingdom of God and of the communities of faith has its being in processes that are driven by these ecclesiogenetic and liturgical concerns. The question is: how can we survive, how can we gain access to water? So, the doctrines may sound very traditional, but they are reflected upon in new and radical ways. For example: what does it mean when Jesus includes someone from outside the decent group (e.g. the Samaritan)? These life-related questions become the heart of Christianity again. And while reflecting on those challenges the power structures that have evolved in the course of history and that produce injustice, are unmasked/uncovered/unveiled.

Sure, there have been and still are big dogmatic conflicts between liberation theologies and what one may want to call ‘classic theology’, but those are not the core of the debate. The worldwide Church (Pope John Paul II illustrates this more than once) discovers and knows that liberation theologies are concerned with the heart of what it means to be church in a concrete world where people aspire for the Kingdom.

Liberation theologians remind us of the fact that it is never easy to recognize that we too may have blood on our hands, even if we don’t know it or don’t want to admit is. It’s not easy to discover a reality of poverty that is unacceptable, while at the same time having to admit that one is part of this unjust world – or even that one may (unconsciously or not) lend support to structures that maintain injustice and inequality.

What is today’s liberation theology’s relation towards Marx and (more in general) to a leftist/socialist political engagement?

Liberation theologies can never be a mere ideology or a mere political movement. They emerge amidst the wounds of and the care for suffering human beings, especially in places where structures decide over life and death. That emergence defines liberation theologies, not one or other ideology. Of course, one uses helpful analytical tools to analyze what is going on in a certain situation, to discover how one deals best with such situations, and to keep being engaged with seemingly hopeless situations. It is not a matter of left or right politics, but a question of how to respond to injustice and exclusion.

But doesn’t this neglect the potential political power and even the duty of liberation theologies to act politically?

People indeed start collaborating with political parties and they know political power is an important part of the game. The visions of liberation theologies require the conversion to practical political goals, knowing that those will always fall short. There are political projects here, but they are not in principle dictated by the perspective of a particular political party. Aloysius Pieris says: liberation theology is about the kingdom of God for everyone, but it emerges from the poor. There is no exclusion, but a very clear point of departure that cannot but be political.

The engagement with actual politics also depends on the kind of analysis or mediation that is required. If we are dealing with cultural tensions, the situation has to be analyzed in those terms. This is also true of economics, religion, etc. Liberation theologies have often been reproached for being an application of Marxism to theology. I don’t think this is true. Leftist action groups may be the best ‘allies’ of liberation theologies at a certain point and in certain circumstances, but they are not so all the time and in all places. What is at stake is the cause of God in the service of the poor, and how we change our way of life-together in the service of a more just treatment of everyone, especially of the poor.

I do realize that it is easy for me to say all this from behind my computer and in my cozy office… the people in the field and their dedication deserve huge admiration. For me as an academic theologian, the need to remain close to lived reality produces a difficult tension.

When we immerse ourselves in conflicts, we should avoid easy antagonisms, pitting the good against the bad, in a process of de-humanization of our enemies. Attempting to transform conflicts means also the effort to taking the other seriously as a person. Accusing someone of being an exploiter is not the same as throwing away another human being, it is appealing to this other human being in his/her humanity. The exploiter is also dehumanized by the exploitation (this is also an important insight of Frantz Fanon concerning the colonizer/colonized relationship). One can see this clearly in, for example, the situation of the refugees on the Canary Islands: the people lying on the beach, enjoying their holidays, take care of the refugees, but at the same time, they are partly and indirectly responsible for the poverty of the refugees.

Today, there are many liberation theologies: how can we integrate them – and is this necessary? Is there something that is keeping them together?

We do not need to “integrate” them as if they were under one umbrella. There is a common concern: one is touched by the fate of the victims of injustice – that is what all liberation theologies share. Just as in a war all parties share the mourning for the victims. Being moved, feeling compassion is essential.

Liberation theologies also share to a large extent a common fundamental methodology, in their approach of seeing, judging, acting and celebrating, in their compassionate immersion in concrete situations, and in their capacity to connect with the Gospel and religious traditions. Immersion also refers to the capacity to analyze what is going on. They share an emphasis on orthopraxis as over against a one-sided focus on orthodoxy, as well as on the sacramental dimension of celebrating, which expresses hope, a vision for the future, and stimulates the building of solid communities geared towards the Kingdom of God.

The unmasking of structures of injustice is also a common element. Again, we are not talking merely about the injustice committed by one person towards another; liberation theologians also look at the structures that define, condition and maintain patterns of injustice and exclusion.

In the very near future (and already today), the common or shared consciousness that all of us, together with nature, are connected and interdependent on this one planet, will become very important. This consciousness is not yet very much developed today.  Structures of injustice are often much broader than we think. Contextual limits that we initially impose on ourselves, are often too limited to realize what exactly is going on. Concerning the environment and the north-south relations, this is certainly the case.

What is – according to you – the main question for a contemporary (liberation) theologian to answer? Or that should be the focus of any research?

“How do we empower and equip young people for a sustainable creation-worthy world in the future?”

Actually, I prefer to use the Dutch verb ‘toerusten’ here, instead of empower or equip: it contains a dimension of the future (toe-komst), there is also a component of rest and resilience (‘rust’) in it, it indicates the dynamism of a verb, and it suggests a common effort.

And finally: which question would you like to ask yourself and how would you answer it?

“Who have we forgotten?”  We may come to think that we have finally understood who are the poor, and then we realize that we meet someone else on our road, whom we are at risk to forget or to exclude. So, Gutiérrez admits: I didn’t think about women, when I started to write about liberation theology… We ourselves, today in the western church, had forgotten about the victims of pedophilia – and that omission is also a form of structural injustice.

(Interview by Kristien Justaert)

 

Research Interests and Projects of the Centre

Currently, the research focus of the Centre encompasses five areas: Liberation Theologies in their particular contexts and methods, Mediations, Global Issues (Politics, Economics and Environment), Migration, and  Queer/Feminist Theologies. We are working on formulating and executing projects in each of these areas. All projects listed are being executed or in preparation. In this section of the newsletter, we want to try to keep you informed about the status and progress of (some of) our concrete research projects. More (detailed) information about the content of the projects can be found on our website.

·         Hopelessly White? Feminist Struggles with God at the Crossroads of Racism and Sexism (doctoral dissertation by Anneleen Decoene, Research Group Theology in a Postmodern Context)

 

·         Gilles Deleuze and Theology: In Search for a New Mediation for Liberation Theologies (postdoctoral research project by Kristien Justaert)

 

Liberation theology used to be mediated by Marxist or neomarxist thinking in its reflection on a just society. Marx’s philosophy, however, lost a lot of its credibility after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. From this observation arises our research hypothesis, namely that the thinking of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze could be a new mediation for a contemporary liberation theology in order to develop an explicitly political

agenda. We structure the investigation of our hypothesis around three central notions of (each) liberation theology: the preferential option for the poor, the idea of liberation and the Reign of God. Each theme can be philosophically ‘grounded’ by Deleuze’s thinking. But there could also be a cross-fertilization in that Deleuze can alter the definition of liberation theology: by using his philosophy as a new mediation, we can investigate how the connection of Deleuze’s spiritual and political project with the core ideas of liberation theology can transform and renew this theology, so that it can strive again for a vision of liberation that is able to actually stand against contemporary structures of oppression.

 

·         Understanding indifference. Muslim and Christian feminist reflections on the restrictions and possibilities of interreligious dialogue. (Joke Lambelin, Research Group Christian Self-Understanding and Interreligious Dialogue)

 

·         Man and Society in a (too) rapidly changing physical world: Leuven expertise on climate and environmental challenges (Jacques Haers, Peter Tom Jones, Philip Volckaert)

 

We have reached the limits of our planet, the earth, and it has become clear that human beings and their societies are responsible for taking care of the planet and of the life that is possible on earth. We notice too that this responsibility reveals multiple aspects – scientific-technical, political, economic, philosophical, religious, bio-medical, psychological,… - and that we urgently need to take this responsibility.

This transdisciplinary project wishes to engage in and stimulate a university-wide conversation on the challenges of climate changes and environmental issues. It also wants to explore the possibility of collaborating with the city of Leuven.

 

·         Contemporary Liberation Theology and the Possibility of Collective Resistance (project in progress by Kristien Justaert & Joke Lambelin)

 

In this project, we wish to formulate new criteria for liberative practices within communities from a liberation theological perspective. The research is motivated by both a social and a theological observation. Or rather: by a social observation that has serious theological consequences. Whereas liberation theologies (plural) have become more and more fragmented in their focus on different groups of oppressed beings, there is one form of oppression that seems overarching nowadays: the financial and ecological crisis. It is a matter that concerns us all, and that asks for a new, common project of liberation.

The main research question that will lead us in our analysis of power structures and their effects on our being-human in the contemporary neo-liberal capitalist world is: what does the dominance of the economic discourse mean for our humanity? A specifically philosophical-anthropological perspective seems necessary to go beyond empirical observations on economy, beyond the logic of having and not-having (of money), and to reach the core of a new kind of oppression that often implicitly harms the freedom of (human) life and thought.

Both economy and ecology are thus approached from an anthropological perspective. From this, the quest(ion) for a ‘new humanity’ and a new kind of community emerges – a community that we want to call a ‘community of collective resistance’. Here and there, those kinds of communities already emerge. The research hypothesis of this project is that these new forms of communities offer a contemporary liberation theology the chance to reformulate itself and its notion of ‘liberation’, as well as to rethink the concepts of ‘community’ and ‘collective resistance’.

 

 

From Our Archives...2009: Paolo dall'Oglio SJ

In this topic, we want to highlight an interesting event from our broad archives. In this first newsletter, our attention goes to the visit of Father Paolo dall’Oglio SJ, who visited Leuven to receive a Honorary Doctorate at our university in 2009.  Recently, he was threatened to be expelled from Syria. This event demonstrates the actuality of the research of dra. Joke Lambelin (see above) on interreligious dialogue between Muslims and Christians from a feminist perspective.

 

Paolo Dall'Oglio was born in Rome in 1954. He is an Italian Jesuit who strongly believes in faith, justice and truth. In 1992, he turned the monastery of Mar Musa el-Habashi - situated to the north of Damascus and abandoned for centuries on end - into the home of a newly founded and ecumenical religious community. The monastery of 'Holy Moses', 'Mar Musa' in the Arabic language, is famous for its hospitality and for its commitment to the dialogue with Muslims. The community wishes to establish a positive relationship between the Islamic world and Christianity. The choice of the Arabic language for daily use and for liturgical life in Paolo dall' Oglio's ecumenical and international community springs from this goal.

Key priorities in Dall’Oglio’s vision of the monastery are spiritual life, simplicity and hospitality. He strives for a spiritual life that is rooted in both Christian and Muslim traditions, as a quest for an answer to today’s consumerism. Finally, the focus on hospitality, both a Christian and Muslim value (Abraham!) gives the monastery a political dimension. Many young people, who travel through the Middle East and are concerned with interreligious dialogue, visit the monastery on their way as a kind of place of pilgrimage.

Dall’Oglio spoke to the Centre for Liberation Theologies about ‘Opening Up to Interreligious Encounters: The Experience of the Deir Mar Musa Community in Syria’.

In the online archives of the Centre, we published two texts of Dall’Oglio on the inspiration of Louis Massignon and Charles de Foucauld on his life, thought and spiritual development. For more information, you can also visit the community’s website: http://www.deirmarmusa.org/

Liberation Theologies Worldwide

By offering a few reviews of works (articles, books or journals) on liberation theologies that have recently been published, and by listing relevant gatherings, conferences and other events on liberation theologies worldwide, we wish to create an updated community of liberation theologians. Please feel free to suggest books/articles that can be reviewed in upcoming newsletters, to send us a review of your own or to send us reports of meetings and gatherings (clt@theo.kuleuven.be)!

Reviews

La théologie de la libération, d’hier à aujourd’hui - Relations #752 (November 2011)

Those of us who are looking for a good introduction to liberation theology and understand French, will value the November 2011 issue of the French-Canadian periodical Relations, which devotes a set of articles to liberation theology on the occasion of the anniversary of the publication, in 1971, of Gustavo Gutiérrez’ Teología de la liberación. The various articles, written by Jean-Claude Ravet, Yves Carrier, Gregory Baum, Nidia Arrobo Rodas, Claude Lacaille, Carmiña Navia Velasco, Guy Côté, and François Houtart, focus on the history of liberation theology particularly in Latin America, on some of its methodological features such as the base communities and the use of the Bible, on special themes such as the indigenous theologies, the place of women and the challenges posed by the contemporary ecological crisis. Attention is also paid to the fact that liberation theological perspectives developed in several Christian denominations and also in Jewish and Islamic contexts. An evaluation of how liberation theology influenced the Christian social movement in Québec illustrates the on-going importance of its approach and methodology. Much information can be gleaned from a careful reading of the articles and one also finds a good introductory bibliography. This is a very well presented thematic issue of Relations.

Personally, I would have been interested also in ideas about how contextual theologies such as liberation theologies can be articulated in the face of worldwide issues and how theologies that are connected to particular geographic regions and particular challenges interact when they are responding to planet-wide realities that require addressing both at local and global levels. How can liberation projects in these new contexts be articulated in their mutual interactions?

Jacques Haers

Reimaging Christianity for a Green World, R. Odchigue & E. Genilo (ed.), Hapág. A Journal of Interdisciplinary Theological Research 8/1 (2011). 

This special edition of Hapág, a Philippine interdisciplinary theological journal, contains a selection of the proceedings of a Philippine conference on the global ecological crisis. The conference theme, ‘Reimaging Christianity for a Green World’ wanted to challenge the contributors to recontextualize Christianity so that it can play an active role in coping with the environmental crisis.

The volume is divided in two parts: a first, more general theological part, brings together analyses of the situation (the ongoing climate change, the inertia of the Philippine Church in the problematic) and theological images to cope with these analyses, such as Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the ‘Cosmic Christ’, and a re-envisioning of creation as an integrative process of partnership between humanity and God, so as to promote the concept of ‘integrity of creation’ beyond more static and anthropocentric frameworks. However, in this part of the volume, the connection between environmental facts and strands of Christianity sometimes seems a bit forced. The second part of the journal focuses more concretely on ecclesiological and sacramental approaches to the environmental challenges. Particularly this part is very interesting. Whereas the contributions of the first part could have gained focus and strength by not only discussing facts of the environmental crisis, but by also including the underlying anthropology and world view that occasioned those facts (which would also include a philosophical critique of neoliberal economic models), the second part starts from the inner power of Christian images and practices and from there tries to present transforming practices. The articles put forward concepts such as interconnectedness as a theo-anthropological framework, the Eucharist as a sacrament of communion of all creation with the Cosmic Christ, and the ‘ek-stasis’, the being displaced of the human being from the center in order to be situated within a web of inter-relationality. In this part, we can see how Christianity can actually be a transforming practice that engages actively with the environment.

Kristien Justaert

 

In Memoriam: Beatrice Higiro Kamusiime

On Sunday, January 8, 2012 when the Church celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany, our sister Beatrice passed away. Beatrice came to Leuven to study at the Faculty of Theology and completed her MA in Religious Studies in 2003. Her thesis was entitled Empowerment of Women as a Means of Poverty Reduction in Africa. She finished her MA of Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion, with a thesis titled The Relevance of the Bible in Social Transformation: Gerald O. West's Contextual Bible Study in 2006. She was a PhD student at the Faculty of Pedagogy. She published ‘Queen Mothers in the Old Testament: The Public Role of Women’, in Charlotte Methuen & et al. (eds.), Holy Texts: Authority and Language,  Leuven - Dudley MA: Peeters, 2005, pp. 155-167. Beatrice was a very committed member of the Centre for Liberation Theologies and the Centre for Women’s Studies.  Never tired of volunteering for a good cause she also participated in “Serve the City” in Leuven. For more than ten years, Beatrice was also a very active member of the University Parish International Community of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.