RELIGION, POLITICS AND LIBERATION: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ, THE 14TH DALAI LAMA AND GIANNI VATTIMO

This paper explores the contributions to scholarship and to the globalized imagination concerning religion and politics by the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, the 14th Dalai Lama and the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo. Their common theme of "liberation," personal and political through a common humanity, love and compassion, with or without God, deserves a very detailed examination. The three of them have made an enormous contribution to conversations on religion and politics centred on a human commonality as human beings, and to the practice of religion and politics centred on the poor, on the commandment of love and of service to the marginalized as a way of life and in a new era of hermeneutics and commonality. This paper argues that the practice of a religion of love and a compassionate politics stressing commonalities rather than differences have a lot to offer to a contemporary practice and critical reflection on political theology.