Teologia : outros cheiros, outros sabores : a teologia na perspectiva crítica e poética de Rubem Alves : caminhos para uma teologia do cotidiano

Abstract

A reading of the process of construction of the theology in Rubem Alves, in his confrontation with the science and with the institutional structure of the theological orthodoxy, based in his biography and in his emphasis in the body, in the imagination and in the language. The first part presents biographical and bibliographical aspects of Rubem Alves, placing Rubem Alves' thought in time and space. The second part brings the critic of Rubem Alves to the idea of the theology to be science of the divine and to arrest the sacred. The knowledge of the Absolute is beyond the limits of the human understanding. The same critic is driven to the religious institution and theologians that are granted the representatives' of God title. The third part presents the main foundations that constitute Rubem Alves' theology: the emphasis of the body, the creation of sense universes mediated by the language, the creative force of the imagination and the religion as web of symbols that express the victory of the values in spite of an oppressive reality. The fourth part brings a reading of three texts of Rubem Alves that approach the theme of the theology. The author presents the theology as something intimately linked to the biography, to the history and the search for sense references. The theology is the speech of the hope for a new organization of the reality. Through the action of counting stories, the theology becomes an activity capable to question the established reality, capable to serve 'appetizers of the kingdom of God', capable to wake up the love, by the proclamation of their absences, by the nostalgia and the hope for a new order of the things, by games and smiles. The last part contemplates critically concerning Rubem Alves' theological thought and it searches questions that such thought could evoke. It contains with an abbreviation reflection concerning the practical theology and of some practical perspectives that Rubem Alves' thought can supply the theological walk.