• Offers a liberationst and pragmatic re-thinking of spirituality not as a ‘thing’ that one possesses but as dynamic process that can lead to significant social transformation and healing.

Contributor: Christopher D. Tirres Christopher D. Tirres is the Michael J. Buckley Endowed Chair at Santa Clara University. He is the author of The Aesthetics and Ethics of Faith: A Dialogue Between Liberationist and Pragmatic Thought and coeditor of Religion in the Américas: Trans-hemispheric and Transcultural Approaches.

I think reading this very interesting treatment of Spirituality in The Americas is provocative in its own right, but might also give all of us some insight into the faith and philosophy of Pope Leo XIV!---Barbara S. Stengel, Vanderbilt University --- Christopher D. Tirres’s latest book is a tour de force, addressing the most pressing issues in theology and in religious studies today by bringing key recent and contemporary thinkers from across the Americas into productive dialogue. --- Tirres has written a groundbreaking book of spirituality, certain to become part of every bibliography and recommended reading list in the field for years to come. --- Tirres is a skilled essayist, probing the lives and letters of six scholars on questions of justice, spiritual knowledge, and ethical purpose in an age replete with numerous trials and tribulations.... [This] study is sprawling and richly eclectic, distinguished by the author's ability to inhabit the minds of diverse scholars...---Alejandro Nava, Journal of the American Academy of Religion --- Liberating Spiritualities charts new ways of thinking about the interplay between spirituality, activism, and critical thinking. Focusing on six prominent twentieth-century Latine and Latin American thinkers, Tirres offers a compelling analysis that not only furthers our understanding of key figures across the Américas but also invites readers of all backgrounds to consider the deeper meanings and functions of spirituality writ large. This book is indispensable for people interested in liberation theology, liberation philosophy, and the history of religion and social movements in the Américas.---João B. Chaves, author of Migrational Religion: Context and Creativity in the Latinx Diaspora --- . . .Explores the philosophies of six 20th-century thinkers—among them Marxist philosopher José Carlos Mariátegui and educator Paulo Freire—who drew links between spirituality and social justice.---Publishers Weekly --- Broadening our understanding of spirituality beyond the interior life, Tirres argues persuasively that spirituality is a core feature of human identity and action that involves the whole person. Liberating Spiritualities: Reimagining Faith in The Américas reminds us of the interconnection between spirituality, faith, ethics, and critical thought in light of structural injustice and human suffering. Informed by six liberationist intellectuals, this text offers a much needed theoretical framework for liberating spiritualities, grounded in concrete history and everyday life in the Americas. Liberating Spiritualities is a critical development in hemispheric theology and philosophy.---Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, Ph.D., Provost & Sr. Vice-President for Academic Affairs, The University of Scranton --- In this invaluable and novel work of uniquely compassionate scholarship, Christopher Tirres adeptly voices a polyphonic mix of historical context, philosophical and theological analysis, and deeply personal reflections to illuminate profound themes in what he calls a 'critical theory of spirituality,' set in an expansive Latin American framework that extends into the US-Mexico borderlands. Liberating Spiritualities shows how Latin American religious thought, out of a tragic history and against great challenges, continues to be propelled by immanence—embracing the quest for social justice, indigenous cosmologies, mestizaje, eco-feminism, and a phenomenology of the sacred, in the project of re-imagining faith, banishing hopelessness, and reclaiming human meaning.---John Phillip Santos, Author of Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation