Althaus Lorde "Indecent Theology"

1079 Words5 Pages
Althaus-Reid “Indecent Theology” In her essay, “Indecent Theology”, Althaus-Reid talks about the notion of theology and how it affects sexuality and society. This essay was very unique and was quite difficult to fully comprehend. The author talks about liberation theology and its presence in Latin America and other countries that are classified as poor. Althaus-Reid states that theology of liberation likes to locate itself at the point of the fall of the Grand Narratives of Latin America in the sense that it wants to locate its theological subjects in the concrete work of the people who made the centuries-old counter-discourse in Latin American from their suffering bodies. Poor have always been obliterated in Liberation Theology. Liberation Theology was meant to become a recognized theology with a clear denunciation of ideological and theological historical links, which perpetuated poverty in Latin America. Latin American theology, she claims, originated in a massive mutilation of symbolic knowledge, which was the result of the inscription of reality on the continent into the metanarratives of European conquerors. To begin her indecent move, she takes as her subject the lemon vendors of Buenos Aires, poor women who refuse to wear underwear and are thus deemed "indecent." This indecency is a marker of their location within society, as well as their location in theological systems. Althaus-Reid undresses the roles of economy and sexuality in the construction of theology. The author also talks about Liberation Theology exploiting the work of poor women. Poor women became part of the fashionable spectrum of Liberation Theology as it subsumed their work even if it were high productive. Althaus-Reid offers an easy example to the Liberation Theology of the poor’s sexuality: when poor workers march together under the figure of Mary, they are God’s option for the poor but

More about Althaus Lorde "Indecent Theology"

Open Document