Truth be told, a lot of my understanding of what
Socially Aware Media is comes from Latin American Theology. While I
have not studied this much or claim to know much about liberation
theology, it seems to jive a lot with how I try to live life and make
media.
So I was pretty excited to hear Gustavo Gutierrez speak last Friday
night. Gutierrez is a well-known liberation theologian from Peru, who
has written several books, including “We Drink From Our Own Wells.” I
haven’t read it, but it’s evidently pretty good.
Here are a couple points I thought I’d pass along from Gutierrez’ speech:
Poverty is more than just lack of money- it also means a lack of resources, a lack of rights and freedoms.
Poverty is not the will of God. Therefore, we must work towards ending
poverty, and helping people rise out of their poverty (while we also
recognize both the ways we are impoverished as well as the ways we
impoverish others.)
How do you do that? Gutierrez maintains that it takes two things:
friendship and working for justice. While many people have argued for
one or the other, Gutierrez said that both are needed together to make
any progress. Friendship alone accomplishes little, and working for
justice without being connected to the people you are working for also
does little. I appreciated his idea of doing both.
Gutierrez also said that the preferential option for the poor also includes non-human creation, in other words, nature.
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