
Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time

The image of Jesus that emerges from the Gospel of John is hieratic and transcendent, moving always in the divine sphere.
Leonardo Boff • Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time
Jesus is the one who demonstrates the will of God better than anyone and in a definitive manner—where to find it and how to realize it.
Leonardo Boff • Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time
The only aspect of interest to faith is that he existed.
Leonardo Boff • Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time
he is a myth,3 created by the human unconscious longing for liberation, a phenomenon observable in all religions.4 Perhaps one can even say that Jesus Christ is a projection originated by a social movement of slaves and poor en route to social liberation and in the process of developing a consciousness of their alienation.5
Leonardo Boff • Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time
Jesus is the cosmic victor over death and the devil, liberating the earth of its alienating forces and inserting a divine peace, though he refuses to reveal himself explicitly and publicly as the Messiah.
Leonardo Boff • Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time
Jesus is presented as the liberator of the poor, the sick, sinners, the socially and religiously marginalized.
Leonardo Boff • Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time
The Gospels are above all a theological interpretation of the events rather than an objective and disinterested description of the historical Jesus of Nazareth.
Leonardo Boff • Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time
How do we distinguish preaching concerning Jesus from an ideology built around the figure of Jesus by a group of people? What force is behind, propelling the preaching? An idea or a historical person?
Leonardo Boff • Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time
Can we reconstruct a history without at the same time already interpreting it?