The Poor in Society, Resurrection from Social Death, and Latin American Liberation Theology

Abstract

Does Latin American liberation theology, with its option for the poor, still have something to contribute in a global scenario marked by neoliberal globalization and the discussion of identity politics? Based on the practices of Father Júlio Lancelotti against aporophobia (phobia against the poor) and the hostile architecture in Brazil, this article discusses the notion of the priority of orthopraxis over orthodoxy, the process of reordering the place of the poor in society and in the state budgets, and the notion of liberation practices and criticizes the process of dehumanization in neoliberal culture, in which personal identity and belonging to a community are marked by the pattern of consumption and wealth. Finally, it shows how the practices of recognizing the humanity of the poorest can been seen as a resurrection from social death, as a form of liberation within history, and as the affirmation of faith in a God who does not distinguish between human beings, while the idol demands sacrifices of life from the poor.

1. Introduction

After more than 50 years, does Latin American Liberation Theology (LALT) still have relevance or the ability to contribute to Christian churches and society? Should we not, as many people say, leave LALT and its option for the poor in the field of theological history and replace it with other critical theological currents, such as postcolonial or decolonial theology, or other theologies that discuss issues of identity in contemporary theological debates?

The answer to the second question depends on the answer to the first: can LALT have something to contribute today? I think so. The originality of LALT, which marked its emergence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, was the dialectic articulation between (a) the ethical–spiritual experience of ethical indignation in the face of the sufferings of the poor in a capitalism that concentrates wealth in the hands of a few; (b) a theological reflection on these experiences and the practices of liberation of the popular and pastoral movements that leads to the affirmation that God made “the option for the poor”; (c) the use of the social and human sciences to theologically understand the causes of the suffering of the poor and the possible paths to liberation for a dignified and pleasant life for all; and (d) from a new reading of the Bible, a critical analysis of the ambiguous role that the churches assumed in the history of oppression in Latin America and in the world. In sum, LALT is characterized by a “path” of an ethical–spiritual choice and a theological method rather than a specific set of social theories or theological concepts applied to social problems.

In other words, we can say that LALT will continue to serve the cause of the poor and oppressed people as long as it is capable of correctly reading the “signs of the times” (Matthew 16: 1–4). Juan Luis Segundo, in the article “Capitalismo-Socialismo: crux theologica” (Capitalism-Socialism: crux theologica), reminds us that Jesus opposes the theologies that search for the “signs from heaven”—the signs that offer certainty, whether about divine or metaphysical realities, whether absolute truths about history—and offers the signs of the times, the “concrete transformations carried out by him in the historical present. And equally entrusted to his disciples for then and for the future” (Segundo 1974, p. 787). Therefore, LALT has always made it clear that the role of theology is not to defend orthodoxy, the a priori correct doctrine that must be accepted and applied in real life, but, rather, to seek orthopraxis, the truth that is achieved (see John 3: 21; 1 John 1: 6) within history and produces justice between human beings, no matter how ephemeral and contingent.

When we oppose the signs from heaven to the signs of the time, we need to be clear that the debate of Jesus is not taking place in the modern world, in which what is called the signs of the supernatural world (which would be an object of theology) and those of the natural world (object of the natural sciences) are opposed, just as it does not discuss the signs of the times from the perspective of the modern social sciences in which relevant themes, such as immigration or poverty, are analytically studied or the analysis of the subjectivity and identity of a given social group. What Juan Luis Segundo highlights in Jesus’ dialogue with the Pharisees and scribes is the reading of the signs of the times in which the conflict appears between the liberating actions of Jesus or the Spirit of God within history and the oppressive forces of injustice, of sin.

In other words, what LALT can, and needs, to contribute is a reading of the signs of the times in which struggles appear between the liberating spiritual forces, which generate life and freedom for oppressed peoples and groups, and the spiritual forces of death, which cover themselves with sacred characteristics, what the Bible calls idolatry (Richard 1982; Assmann and Hinkelammert 1989). It is the struggle between the God of Life and the gods of death or the struggle between the Spirit of God in history and the spirit of the world. The spirit of the world that drives globalization today is not the same “spirit of capitalism” (Weber) of the 19th and 20th centuries but the spirit of neoliberal capitalism that has dominated the world since the end of the 20th century, with a new myth of the “free market” and the idolatry of money that denies the notion of human rights (Sung 2018).

Having provided this broader introduction to LALT, the objective of this article is, from the concrete liberating practice of a priest, Júlio Lancellotti, to propose some reflections on the signs of the times that we see in the struggle between the “god” of neoliberalism, with its dehumanizing spirit, and the Spirit of God, which appears in the struggles to affirm the humanity of all human beings. More specifically, this article aims to rethink the dialectical relationship between the praxis of liberation, which is always contextual and limited, and the utopian notion of liberation.

2. The Foolishness of a Priest and Orthopraxis

On 2 February 2021, Father Júlio Lancellotti, 74 years old, who has been working with people experiencing homelessness and the poorest and most marginalized in the city of São Paulo, took an action that many would consider foolish: with a sledgehammer, he broke the cobblestone blocks that the city government had placed under a viaduct in the city. He later posted the photos on social media. What is the motive for these stones and for the priest’s action? It was an action taken by the city government to stop the people experiencing homelessness from using this public space to sleep. This situation brought many complaints from the neighborhood residents, and from merchants, and businesspeople. On the other hand, the priest reacted prophetically against the great social inequality and the new role of the state in neoliberal society.

Before neoliberal hegemony, the role of the modern state was seen as being a promoter and guarantor of the promises of the myth of socioeconomic development for all. Of course, this myth, or ideology, was contradicted by the social reality in which social inequality was evident in most parts of the world. However, the idea was sold that with the technological and economic development of capitalism, we would all achieve a better life. Thus, while economic progress did not reach the poorest, the role of the state was also to take care of the poor, for example, people experiencing homelessness, with the offer of shelters or hostels. We know that these offers were always insufficient, but they were seen by the state and by society as necessary and a role of the state.

With the hegemony of neoliberal culture and the new myth of the “free market”—the market free from the interventions and regulations of the state—the role of the state changed. Now, the main roles of the state are no longer linked to guaranteeing the advancement of the population’s socioeconomic wellbeing, called the social rights of citizens, but rather to guarantee the fulfillment of the contracts made in the market, the freedom of capitalist entrepreneurs to expand the space of the market in society (for example, with the privatization of education and health) and, most importantly, the defense of the “inviolable and sacred” right to private property (which appears in article 17 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789, of the French Revolution). The other side of the coin of the neoliberal state’s new role is to become a police state, which must guarantee the security of the members of the market, the consumers, and property owners against the poor and other social groups considered second-rate people.

Faced with this new situation, Father Júlio, a defender of LALT and the option for the poor, when breaking the blocks, probably remembered the small book by Gustavo Gutierrez (1998), Onde Dormirão os Pobres (Where the Poor will Sleep), in which the famous liberation theologian takes up the question posed by Yahweh to Moses about where and how the poor who have no shelter will sleep (see Exodus 22: 26). If in the 1970s LALT had a more optimistic or hopeful view about the possibilities for the poor to free themselves from oppression in Latin America, today, with neoliberal globalization and the great increase in social inequality, it may seem that the practices of Father Júlio and other Christian leaders are being reduced to actions called “aid”. In other words, they would be leaving aside the so-called “liberation practices”, political practices that confront capitalist economic and political structures, and assuming aid-based or reformist practices.

In the 1980s, the brothers Leonardo and Clodovis Boff (Boff and Boff 2011) published a small book, Como Fazer Teologia da Libertação [Introducing Liberation Theology, Orbis Books, 1987], that influenced various generations of Christians who assumed the struggle for the liberation of the poor. In this book, they synthesized what was known as the “method” of LALT and, what interests us here, differentiated between and classified three types of pastoral and social practices: aid, reformism, and liberation. For them, “’Aid’ is help offered by individuals moved by the spectacle of widespread destitution. (…) helping the poor, but treating them as (collective) objects of charity, not as subjects of their own liberation.” (2011, p. 15). Unlike aid, reformism “seeks to improve the situation of the poor, but always within existing social relationships and the basic structuring of society, which rules out greater participation by all and diminution in the privileges enjoyed by the ruling classes” (p. 16). Finally, in practices classified as liberation, “the oppressed come together, come to understand their situation through the process of conscientization, discover the causes of their oppression, organize themselves into movements, and act in a coordinated fashion. (…) work(ing) toward the transformation of present society in the direction of a new society characterized by widespread participation, a better and more just balance among social classes and more worth ways of life” (pp. 16–17).

As we return to this classification of the three types of practices so influential in LALT and in liberation Christianity groups and movements, I do not want to analyze these concepts in and of themselves here but to point out that this notion of a “liberation practice” was memorable in the understanding of what LALT is, remembering that all the important thinkers of LALT have always affirmed that this theology is born as a result of liberation practice, and that orthopraxis is prior to orthodoxy (Assmann 1976; Gutierrez 1975), and in the synthesis offered by the Boff brothers, the characteristics of the praxis of liberation, in opposition to aid and reformism, would be: (a) the coming together of the oppressed; (b) the process of conscientization; (c) the discovery of the causes of their oppression; and (d) the organization of political and social movements, aiming to transform society.

The practices of Father Júlio Lancellotti—of “aid” to people experiencing homelessness, which, with the social crisis increased by the COVID-19 pandemic, included providing food in the streets and his campaign against aporophobia (the aversion to and fear of the poor) (Cortina 2014), which began with the breaking of the blocks—do not fit the above definition of liberation practices. They explicitly criticize neoliberalism, which deepens society’s aversion to the poor, but a good part of his concrete actions could be classified as aid or, at most, reformism.

This question of classification is important in the field of theory, whether scientific or social, because the classifications and their relationships are what allow differentiating between objects or social practices and choosing the best existing options. Here we have a theoretical problem to consider. In order for us to differentiate aid-based or reformist practices from liberating practices, we need to assume the descriptions given are correct and, most importantly, assume the definition of the practice of liberation as the criterion for what it should be, that is, as orthopraxis, in other words, as a transcendental model or a necessary transcendental concept (in Kant’s sense) that allows us to perfect concrete practices in search of liberation (Hinkelammert 2022). Without this ideal model of the perfect practice of liberation, which would lead us towards complete liberation (liberation from all forms of oppression, such as class, gender, race, ethnicity, hierarchy, and so on), we cannot discern which step to take to move forward in the fight.

The problem arises when the criterion of discernment becomes a “must-be”, what must be sought and demanded, without taking into consideration the socio–historical context and the human and historical possibilities. In the context of Puritan Christianity, for example, the main must-be is “sexual purity”, or the denial of sexual desires, without taking into account the sexual impulses and desires that constitute part of the human condition. In the case of neoliberalism, it is the must-be of a free market economy that denies (a) the need for the intervention and regulation by the state in the capitalist market so the capitalist economic system itself can function in the long term; (b) and the need for social programs that enable the realization of the social rights of the poor, that is, the satisfaction of their basic needs to live and to reintegrate themselves into the market and society. This is what many economists call “orthodox” economic theory. A third example of what we call the logic of “orthodoxy” is the temptation, which is a form of desire, of demanding from oneself or from society fully liberative social structures and practices, without any form of oppression or domination, a type of orthodoxy of liberation or of critical thinking that loses the concept of the context and of what is possible, whether in terms of the limits of the social system, natural reality, or the human condition.

I have had many experiences of—when criticizing the sacrificial and idolatrous character of the current capitalist market and then presenting the inevitable problems and limits that will come in the new society—receiving criticism for not being sufficiently radical, for not taking seriously the promises of full liberation that would be in the Bible or in the thought of Marx or another “prophet”.

The assertion of the priority of orthopraxis over orthodoxy, made by the main theologians of LALT (for example, Gutierrez, Segundo, Assmann, Sobrino, and Hinkelammert) is not to oppose a conservative orthodoxy of Christianity or the neoliberal economy to an orthodoxy of liberation, but it is the assertion that the vision of the transcendental model or the utopian imagination of a reality that should be is necessary for us to move forward, but it is not feasible in history. This utopian imagination or the transcendental concept needs to be in a dialectical relation with the historical context and the limits of the conditions of the possibility (material, technological, systemic, and intersubjective relations) of the desired transformations.

Without the dialectical vision between the utopia that we desire and the limits of the feasibility of the actions, the notion of liberation tends to become empty. It is understandable that those who want a transformation of the systemic and intersubjective relations tend to believe that their desire is possible because it is good and just, and they can assume an excessively optimistic vision of history. In this sense, it is important to differentiate the optimistic vision of the possibility of “full liberation” and the hope, the spirit that maintains the struggle for justice despite so many difficulties. This hope is not the fruit of an “orthodox” certainty but of a spiritual experience of encountering the face of the oppressed, a spirituality that humanizes us.

In sum, it is necessary to constantly rethink, from the concrete and possible practices within a given sociohistorical context, what the practices of liberation are that reveal the presence of the Spirit of God in our history and combat the forces of oppression and death.

3. The Reorganization of Space and the Poor

Faced with the scene of Father Júlio breaking the blocks, which went viral on social media, the then-mayor dismissed the person responsible for this architectural change. However, as we said above, this action was not the fruit of an insensitive official but was in response to the tendency of society and the state, resulting from a new logic of the organization of public and private space in the current neoliberal culture. Before, the so-called public spaces, such as squares, were open to all people in society, independent of their wealth or poverty; however, with neoliberal culture occupying almost all the spaces of social life, the poorest, the completely non-consuming, are expelled from the last places where they could try to spend the night “in peace”, under the viaducts and bridges.

This neoliberal organization of urban space creates a border between, on the one hand, the neighborhoods of those who are well integrated into the market, the rich and the middle class, and the other poor neighborhoods, similar to the racial borders that existed in the neighborhoods or zones in the apartheid system in South Africa or the USA. With neoliberalism, the criterion is no longer race or ethnicity but wealth or the financial ability to consume.

At this economic–geographic border, a culture of “civil war” is established in which the police see the poor as the enemies of good society. As Z. Bauman (1998, p. 59) already said at the end of the 20th century: “Increasingly, being poor is seen as a crime; becoming poor, as the product of criminal predispositions or intentions […]. The poor, far from meriting care and assistance, deserve hate and condemnation—as the very incarnation of sin”.

In this undeclared civil war, the poorest are seen as enemies who must be expelled or killed. However, these poorest people insist on surviving in a space where they would not have the right to exist, which is why “civilized” society creates mechanisms of “voluntary expulsion”, that is, a situation in which these unwanted people can no longer survive and “freely” disappear from the sight of “good” people. One of the ways that society finds to solve this problem is what is called “hostile architecture”: a set of devices—such as stones, bars, and iron skewers—inserted into various public structures and buildings with the objective of preventing people from lying down, especially people experiencing homelessness, on park benches, in bus stops, on building facades, and other free areas of public space.

The hammer blows of Father Júlio Lancellotti were the beginning of a campaign against this hostile architecture, driven by aporophobia in a neoliberal culture, which does not recognize dignity and the fundamental rights of the poor to live with dignity.

This action and the campaign have various aspects or layers, but, for the sake of the limits of space, I want to point out just two. In the first place, the reaction of residents and businesses in the neighborhood makes sense. Nobody likes this situation, especially the leftover dirt, whether the residents of buildings and houses, those who work in the stores, or the people experiencing homelessness themselves. The question is how to solve it. Society’s first option is to assert that the residents of the houses and apartments have rights; after all, they own or pay rent, and the poor must go elsewhere. The immediate solution would be to expel the homeless, but to where? It is not enough to send the poor to a place where, theoretically, the owners would not be upset by the arrival of people experiencing homelessness, it is also necessary for the poor to be able to obtain, one way or another, food each day. The body requires food every day; the pain of hunger does not give them the freedom to be where they offend no one. They need to be in places where they can obtain their daily food. The practical solution for the managers of the system is to expel them from the view of the middle and upper classes. It solves the problems of those integrated into the social system but not the survival needs of the excluded.

On the other hand, Father Júlio and other people who defend the poor are not asking for the maintenance of this situation of social crisis. Quite the contrary, they are asking for the intervention of the state, and civil society institutions, and organizations to resolve the serious social problems and, more immediately, to increase shelters and other programs to reintegrate them into society and into the job market. The common response of the state is the lack of funds in the budget. This is because, with the implementation of neoliberal policies, the budgets of the social programs were drastically reduced, and the solution of the social problems is no longer a priority of the state. And the restructuring of the neoliberal government budgets was supported in the elections by a society marked by a neoliberal culture, insensitive to the sufferings of the poor that also criminalizes the poor.

Father Júlio and others began the campaign against aporophobia and hostile architecture to break with this cultural–political–economic circuit that reinforces this social insensitivity in the face of the sufferings of so many people and concentrates its aesthetic sensitivity and interest in the field of consumption and the accumulation of wealth. Without modifying the current relationship between the neoliberal market and the role of the state, it is not possible to overcome this socioeconomic crisis where the question “where will the poor sleep?” is only the tip of the iceberg.

4. The Identity, Belonging, and the Exclusion of the Poor

The second layer of the problem appears in the struggles between the campaign in favor of the poor and against aporophobia and the campaigns of the sectors of civil society and of the leaders of various Christian churches against the “communists”, that is, the religious and social leaders who defend the poor. Behind this conflict, we find a theological–anthropological question fundamental for society and for Christian communities: “Are the poor human beings?”

Putting the problem another way, in this dialectic of inclusion and exclusion, which appears visible in the architecture hostile to those excluded from the system and in the essentially policing role assumed by the neoliberal state, we find the most fundamental separation: Who are the human beings socially recognized as human and the others who are treated as the “trash” of society to be discarded?

Being recognized as a human being by other people in society is one of the human needs (Allen et al. 2021; Baumeister and Leary 1995) The most fundamental level of human needs is, of course, the satisfaction of organic needs, such as food, water, and air, because this is the level of the condition of the possibility for survival. Therefore, the discussion about the identity of a person or of a social group presupposes belonging to a system of the production and reproduction of the material goods necessary to maintain life. To be expelled from this system of production and distribution is to be condemned to death or to a condition of misery. Without entering into a discussion of the hierarchy of human needs, we can assume here that having solved the problem of immediate survival, we have the importance of being recognized by other people who are also recognized by others.

The condition for the possibility of having self-esteem and the spiritual strength to overcome life’s difficulties is to be recognized as a human being by people who belong to a community or a social group, preferably, to be recognized by a group that is recognized, admired, and even envied by other social groups. That is, to have a sense of belonging and, thus, to have the identity of being someone.

In neoliberal culture, the condition of belonging to a social group that gives a person a good feeling of social recognition is their ability to consume and to flaunt the desired objects that generate envy or admiration (Sung 2007). Self-esteem depends on the recognition by others of their “quality”, that is, the possession of the object of desire (goods, prestige, social position, and so on) that generates admiration or envy. By definition, the objects of social positions that do not generate admiration or enby are not objects of desire. The concrete way in which a person is recognized by a group to which s/he wants to belong and remain within is fundamental for one’s self-esteem and identity. In this sense, in neoliberal culture, self-esteem, identity, and belonging are intimately linked to the pattern of consumption. I am what I consume and I flaunt!

To the extent that the feeling of belonging and self-esteem is linked to the possession of objects of desire that generate envy, these concrete social groups forge this feeling of belonging and of superiority in relation to others through the “othering” of members of other groups. Being more distant from the social groups that deny the fundamental values and criteria of one’s group is a necessity for affirming one’s identity and belonging. It is a logic of identity construction that presupposes and demands “othering” and exclusion, not only from the best urban spaces but also from the borders of what is considered the human species.

In this economic–cultural system, the poor, especially people experiencing homelessness, cannot be recognized as human beings as they are. For, if their problems were recognized as important by the society and the state, these people would be recognized as human beings with sufficient importance such that society and the state would spend a significant part of their budgets. In other words, here, we have a direct relationship between the construction of identity and belonging in neoliberal society and the neoliberal economic policy that opposes social programs in favor of the poor or the social welfare state. The classification of the social and economic problems to be cared for depends on the importance or lack thereof of the people who are suffering these problems. In this sense, to carry forward the neoliberal culture of consumption and the economic policy of the privatization of all aspects of personal and social life, so that everything is dominated by the free market, it is essential to expel the people experiencing homelessness.

5. Idolatry, the God Who Resurrects the Dead, and Humanization

To the extent that a large part of society is living in a culture of phobia of the poor and is, at the same time, Christian or believes in God, and Western society defines itself as Christian, we have an explicitly theological–religious problem. What is the relationship between God and the poor? In the premodern Christian tradition, independent of whether the poor were considered sinners or not, the Church taught charity toward the poor as a moral virtue. With the expansion of capitalist culture in society and the adaptation of theologies to this culture, especially the neoliberal one, the care for the poor or the struggle for the liberation of the poor came to be seen by many as a heresy. In general, the basic argument is: God is omnipotent, has “control” over history, and is good. Therefore, the sufferings of the poor would be the result of their sins and God’s punishments and must be accepted as the necessary sacrifices demanded by God.

Here, we have a fundamental question of theological orthodoxy: who is God? As the main Latin American liberation theologians put it, in the early 1980s, the central problem of LALT is not modern atheism (“Does God exist?”) but, rather, the discernment between the idol (that is, the god who demands sacrifices of human lives) and the God of Life, who recognizes the dignity of all human beings and the right of all to live with dignity (Richard 1982; Sobrino 1986). For authors such as Assmann and Hinkelammert (1989), (Sung 2007, 2018) and Coelho (2021), the main theological disputes of our time do not take place within the realm of traditional dogmatic theology but in the theological debates present in or underlying the socioeconomic theories and practices. This is because, “in the economic theories and economic processes, there is a strange metamorphosis of the gods and a fierce struggle between the gods” (Assmann and Hinkelammert 1989, p. 11) (translation of these quotations by article translator). Inspired by the thesis of Max Weber (2004) and the biblical perspective, Assmann and Hinkelammert, in their classic work A Idolatria do Mercado (Assmann and Hinkelammert 1989) (The Idolatry of the Market), analyzed what types of gods we find in society and stated that “the idols are the gods of oppression. Biblically, the concept of idol and idolatry is directly linked to the manipulation of religious symbols to create subjection, legitimize oppression, and support the dominating powers in the organization of human society” (p. 11).

This critical theological analysis of the neoliberal economy is one of the most important contributions of LALT that remains valid and deserves to be continued. For, as Assmann says, “if we speak of idolatry and the ‘perverse theologies’ present in the economy, it is because we are concerned with the sacrifice of human lives that is legitimized by the idolatrous conceptions of the economic processes” (Assmann and Hinkelammert 1989, p. 12).

Idolatry and its demand for sacrifices justify and demand, in the name of a false god, whether the free market or the vision of a perverse Christian god, the exclusion and death of the poor. It is because they exclude and kill in the name of a necrophiliac god, a god who loves death, that so many idolatrous religious leaders accuse those who defend the right of the poor to live with dignity of being communists, atheists or heretics.

One cannot correctly understand Father Júlio’s theological arguments and actions without taking into consideration the concepts of idolatry and the God of life. I had the happiness of being his friend and classmate during four years of the theology course, and I also discussed these concepts with him. (Unfortunately, for non-Latin-American readers, a good part of this TLLA output is only published in Portuguese and Spanish.)

The actions and campaign in favor of the people experiencing homelessness is more than giving bread and a place to sleep at night, it is a practical and theological struggle over “who is a human being?”. In addition to the satisfaction of the need to eat and to have a place to sleep, these actions also aim to offer people experiencing homelessness a human recognition that permits them to feel and know themselves to be human. In this action, what counts is one’s gaze, face to face, with the gaze of another, the physical contact that warms the heart. Food kills the hunger of the stomach; human recognition, the solidary love for a human being in need, satisfies the hunger to be a “person”, of being recognized as a human being by another person.

This experience of being recognized by other people who are recognized as “important” in the community, such as a priest, resurrects these people who live in a state of social death, that is, an existence in which the person has no legitimacy (Patterson 1982). With this event of becoming a full person with dignity, they can enter a community of the “saved”, not from eternal hell but freed from a death in life. This identity of being saved, freed, and belonging to a community of people who mutually recognize each other leads them to new forms of intersubjective relations and action, and even to new social and political practices of struggle for other marginalized people.

The resurrection within history, the return to life overcoming social death, is a process of liberation from a dehumanizing relationship and/or structures toward a process of humanization, in which can or should be established a new level of the limits of what is acceptable and intolerable in society, whether in legal terms or religious and moral values. Contemporary society should not tolerate the most diverse social processes in which human beings are treated as nonhuman or subhuman just because they are poor (men and women), black, indigenous, or part of the LGBTQ+ community; however, we must recognize, it tolerates, and even justifies them. This is because many of the social groups that deny the humanity of the excluded are not even conscious of doing so. As Jesus said on the cross, “They know not what they do” (Luke 23: 34), because, for them, these people experiencing homelessness or others excluded from society are not human. It is not a problem of evil intentions or ill will but of a vision of the world and of life, or we can even say of a “metaphysics”, in which the human-animal species is divided into two categories: human-human beings and those who are not human, not civilized.

In this reflection on humanization and dehumanization, it is important to differentiate between the notion of dehumanization and that of prejudice, of disliking someone or a social group. This is because the distinction impacts the practices against this dehumanization.

Let us take as an example, the prejudice against Asian tourists in Western countries, especially in regions where the economy is not very good, or a feeling of dislike of an Asian person who occupies a position of leadership at work. Those people who dislike these Asians do not go so far as to classify Asians, or other ethnicities, as “inherently inferior”, whether in terms of intelligence, “civilization”, or morality. After all, they are consumers who are part of the market and are even recognized as being competent in their work. So, despite disliking them and holding prejudices, they recognize their humanity.

On the other hand, people or social groups who place social status as the central criterion for establishing a hierarchical differentiation between persons and groups tend more “to blatantly dehumanize low-status groups” (Bruneau et al. 2018, p. 1080). What is important for our reflection is the fact that this difference between the dehumanization of the socially inferior groups and the dislike of another person or group is not merely a difference of a certain degree (of liking more or less) along a spectrum. “Evidence that the neural processes associated with dehumanization judgments are distinguishable from those underlying judgments of dissimilarity and homogeneity (in addition to those underlying judgments of dislike) would enhance confidence that dehumanization is a distinguishable cognitive process […]” (Ibid, p. 1080).

When we know that the process of the dehumanization or the negation of the humanity of these people is a cognitive process neurologically distinct from liking or disliking a person, we need to be clear that we are in two distinct ways of relating. A person may, as a matter of “education” or a politically correct discourse, pretend that s/he is dealing with a recognizably human person, but a brain scan would show that s/he actually deliberately considers the other as qualitatively “inferior”. This has a fundamental consequence for social-intervention practice and what we think of orthopraxis and of liberation practices.

In terms of our discussion of the social insensitivity to the suffering of the poorest, we have here the central issue of the dehumanization of the poor. As the poorest are excluded from the set of human beings, beings with dignity, their sufferings and problems cease to be part of the moral field and even the religious field. It is worth remembering here that every human being is the bearer of fundamental dignity, independent from the social functions they may occupy in systems. Neoliberalism denies the notion of human dignity and reduces people to a set of social functions or roles in systems. Therefore, it does not recognize the notion of fundamental human rights in itself, which arises from the notion of dignity but only the rights that arise from the contract within the omnipresent market.

L. von Mises (2008), one of the principal thinkers of neoliberalism, radically criticized this modern thinking, of Christian origin, about human dignity and the fundamental human rights saying: “The worst of all these delusions is the idea that ‘nature’ has bestowed upon every man certain rights. According to this doctrine, nature is openhanded toward every child born. […] Every word of this doctrine is false.” (pp. 80–81). This critique by neoliberals of the notion of human rights—especially the social rights of the poor to have access to material goods sufficient to live—allies with postmodern thinkers who criticize metaphysical and modern thought for defending the notion of “human essence”. If there is no universal notion of what or who is human, there would be no way to base or justify the notion of human dignity and human rights.

In the world of academic ideas, people can build theories without presupposing the ultimate criteria and values for making decisions in a macro social context. However, in the globalized socioeconomic world, one cannot make decisions without taking into account the ultimate criteria. And the ultimate and central criterion for neoliberal reason is economic value, and the scientific method is its calculation of economic values. In this sense, people experiencing homelessness are the most visible expression of what is worst in society and humanity. In addition to not producing economically, they do not consume in the market, and they disrupt the daily lives of “good” people in places where they should not be. More than being nonhumans, they are enemies of society and of God.

On the other hand, in the perspective of Father Júlio Lancelotti and of the tradition of original Christianity, especially the Apostle Paul, what the world calls wisdom is the foolishness of the world. As Franz Hinkelammert (2012, p. 32) says, “The foolishness that Paul talks about does not have the sense of an offense, being, in fact a characterization. […] Foolishness does not prevent intelligence or wisdom”. (translation of these quotations by article translator). When we criticize neoliberal reason or rationality (Dardot and Laval 2016), we need to be clear, as Hinkelammert says (p. 64), that it “is not irrationality per se. It is the irrationality of what is rationalized”. That is, when we critically analyze neoliberal rationality, we find within it a sacrificial theology that says: compliance with the law of the market (private property as a sacred right, free competition, the buy–sell contract, and the accumulation of value as the ultimate criterion of the system) is, or should be, the only path in life. However, this fulfillment of the law, in the perspective of Paul and Jesus, leads us to death, first of the poor and then to the death of nature and humanity itself.

Unlike the wisdom of the world, which, in Paul’s perspective, is the foolishness of the world, God’s wisdom confronts the calculation of utility of value. Calculations are necessary in real life; however, one cannot make the calculation of value the ultimate criterion of life. Human life only has meaning to the extent that we place life itself as the ultimate criterion. In this sense, the life of all human beings, however unproductive they might be, carries human dignity. More than that, the life of people experiencing homelessness is the most visible expression of the ultimate meaning of life: life “has worth” as life itself. That is, life cannot, and should not, be justified by something else, for example, wealth or power, but can only be justified by a faith that claims that life “has worth” in itself.

The practice of Father Júlio and of so many other people who defend the life of people who do not “deserve” to live is the testimony of following the path of Jesus, who became incarnate “that all may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10: 10), not just for a chosen few. By being able to see, through faith, beyond the lies of the world, that God shows no partiality between people (Romans 2: 11) and that, in Jesus, “there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female” (Galatians 3: 28), we, too, are saved from the lie and from death in life. In this way, we can say that by recognizing the humanity and the dignity of people experiencing homelessness, we confirm our faith in the full humanity of all human beings and faith in a God who makes no distinction between people.

6. Conclusions

Neoliberal economic rationality, which is the main theology in the world today, uses, when necessary, the theological discourses of prosperity or other forms of a theology of retribution to justify the economic and social policies that exclude the poor from the conditions of a dignified life. In this broad social process, in which the fight over “where the poor will sleep” is the tip of the iceberg, we also find how the foolishness of the world’s wisdom suppressed the truth with injustice (see Romans 1: 18). The truth is not opposed to error or ignorance but to injustice and oppression.

The way to know the truth about the human being and God, within the limits of what we can know, is not through orthodoxy but through orthopraxis, the praxis of the struggles against injustice. It is through the praxis of love for the poor and for the “little” people who suffer that we will know the truth that sets us free (see John 8: 32).

Thus, as we have seen, the orthodox truth that all human beings have dignity and the right to live with dignity needs to be contextualized and transformed into a praxis of liberation that is constantly transformed. In these social and political struggles, we learn that there are short-term and long-term objectives, the possible and the impossible, and some impossible objectives can be transformed into possible ones in the long term, but there are just and desirable goals that will never be completely realized within history. Recognizing this, the limits of our conditions, and still continuing to defend the dignified life of all human beings, is the wager of our Christian and human faith.