The thrill of encounter: cultural contamination as humanity's creative destiny

 

 

 

Paolo Cugini

Humanity has never been an immobile statue, carved once and for all in the stone of its origin. Rather, it resembles a mosaic in perpetual motion: a set of living, fragile, and luminous tiles that brush against each other, collide, move away, seek each other, sometimes breaking, sometimes merging, generating shapes no mind could have foreseen. Every people, every language, every ritual, every collective memory is a piece of this unstable design, but the design is never complete, because history knows no definitive framework. Where a boundary seems to close, life opens a path; where an identity claims to be self-sufficient, the encounter with the other forces it to question itself, to tremble, to be reborn.

In this diverse and restless landscape, cultural contamination appears to be one of the most vital forces of human progress. It is not a marginal accident of history, nor a simple ornament of coexistence: it is one of its profound laws. Cultures exist because they are transmitted, but they survive because they transform. A tradition that rejects all contact becomes rigid; a civilization that fears any mixture ends up confusing purity with sterility. Conversely, in dialogue, in exchange, in the very friction between different worldviews, the creative energy that allows humans to imagine new forms of life, new languages, new institutions, new beauties is produced.

Contamination should not be understood as a mechanical loss of self, but as an experience of the threshold. Every authentic encounter occurs on a frontier: not only geographical, but symbolic, emotional, and spiritual. At the threshold, identity does not disappear; rather, it is exposed to its own incompleteness. The other, with their different language, their gestures, their myths, and their questions, reveals to us that what we called "the world" was perhaps only one of its possible interpretations. In this sense, alien culture is not simply what lies outside us: it is an oblique mirror, capable of showing us what remained invisible within us.

This is where the exhilaration of encounter arises. It is not only enthusiasm, but also vertigo. When cultures touch, observe, sometimes compare and intermingle, the horizon of possibility expands. What seemed natural suddenly appears historical; what seemed necessary reveals itself as contingent; what seemed foreign slowly becomes part of our internal vocabulary. Exhilaration is precisely this fertile disorientation: the moment when man discovers that he is not a prisoner of the form he has received, but capable of inhabiting other forms, translating them, reinventing them.

Throughout history, the great flourishes of humanity have often arisen from intersections, borrowings, and crossings: trade routes, migrations, translations, conquests, exiles, schools, ports, libraries, cities open to passage. Languages ​​have been enriched by foreign words; cuisines have invented unexpected flavors by incorporating ingredients from afar; the arts have generated new styles by intertwining diverse techniques and symbolism; even philosophical thought has often found its strength in engaging with what exceeds it. No civilization is truly an island: even when it imagines itself autonomous, it already bears within itself traces of forgotten encounters.

Yet, it would be naive to celebrate cross-fertilization without acknowledging its shadows. Every encounter also carries the risk of oppression, appropriation, and the reduction of the other to a commodity, an ornament, or an exotic curiosity. Not every intermingling is dialogue; not every exchange is reciprocal; not every openness is just. For cross-fertilization to be truly generative, it must foster an ethical dimension: listening, respect, awareness of asymmetries, and the will not to devour what is encountered. Authentic encounters do not assimilate the other by erasing them, but rather allow them to resonate in their difference.

Here the most profound philosophical problem arises: how can we remain true to ourselves without closing ourselves off, and how can we open ourselves without dissolving? The answer cannot be found in the nostalgia for pure identities, because such identities are often retrospective fictions, constructed out of fear of change. But neither can it consist in a memoryless fluidity, in which everything becomes interchangeable and nothing retains depth. Humanity needs roots and wind: roots to avoid losing its memory, wind to avoid turning it into a prison. Culture is alive when it can both remember and allow itself to be moved by.

Cultural contamination, then, is not a threat to the beauty of the world, but one of its conditions. It makes visible the plural nature of humanity: no one possesses the entire grammar of existence alone. Every culture holds a partial answer to the fundamental questions: how to live, how to die, how to love, how to remember, how to give meaning to pain and celebration. When these answers come into contact, they don't always immediately harmonize; sometimes they produce dissonance, conflict, and fatigue. But even dissonance can become music, if it is listened to not as noise to be suppressed, but as the possibility of a broader composition.

Ultimately, the exhilaration of encounter is the experience of a greater freedom: the freedom to not entirely coincide with what we have been, to discover that our identity is not a fortress but a journey. The other doesn't come to take something from us; when the encounter is right, they come to multiply our way of being in the world. It teaches us that belonging doesn't necessarily exclude openness, and that difference is not the opposite of communion, but its living substance.

Thus, the mosaic of humanity continues to shift. Its pieces do not lose value because they change position; on the contrary, they acquire new reflections in their proximity to others. The beauty born from contamination is not the cold beauty of perfect symmetry, but the fiery beauty of the unexpected: a beauty made of transitions, wounds, translations, grafts, recognitions. It is the beauty of a world that cannot be reduced to a single voice, but seeks, in the plurality of its voices, a harmony that is always provisional and always necessary. And perhaps human progress is nothing more than this: learning, from era to era, to transform conflict into dialogue, fear into curiosity, distance into creation.

 

Contamination: prophecy of a reborn identity

 

Paolo Cugini

 

 

A time will come, and it has already begun, when peoples will no longer be able to save themselves by closing doors, raising walls, or guarding their traditions like immobile relics. A time will come when what we now call contamination will no longer appear as a threat, but as the secret place where life prepares new forms of humanity. For every culture that claims to remain pure ends up sterile, and every identity that fears encounter reveals, precisely through fear, the fragility of its own roots.

Contamination, in its negative sense, arises from a defensive outlook. It is thought of as a loss of original identity, a symbolic infection that undermines the purity of a people, a culture, a faith, an idea. It is the prejudice that arises when a community perceives itself as complete in itself and considers only what comes from within as valid: its values, its codes, its memories, its ways of life. Everything that comes from outside then becomes suspect, because it does not bear the mark of belonging, and what does not belong is easily transformed into danger.

From this perspective, the other is no longer a face to be listened to, but a contaminant to be rejected. Difference is not a promise, but a risk. The border is not a space of passage, but a line of separation. Thus, culture becomes a fortress, and identity an armed garrison. Modernity, with its need for order, classification, and stable belonging, has often fueled this vision: it has imagined compact identities, homogeneous peoples, linear traditions, uncontaminated origins. But this image is more myth than reality.

Indeed, there is no culture born pure, no tradition that does not bear within it traces of encounters, exchanges, conflicts, migrations, translations, borrowings, and wounds. Even the cultures most jealous of their origins are, upon closer inspection, the result of contaminations sedimented over time. Languages ​​are archives of words from elsewhere; cuisines are maps of travels and conquests; religions have traversed peoples and territories, transforming through contact; the arts have continually learned from foreign forms. What is defended today as authentic is often the fruit of ancient, forgotten grafts.

For this reason, the word contamination must be freed from its negative prison. It does not necessarily indicate corruption, loss, or decay. On the contrary, it can indicate fertilization. It can be a sign that a culture is alive, because only that which is alive enters into relationships, absorbs, transforms, and gives back. No living organism grows by remaining identical; it grows because it exchanges, breathes, receives, and assimilates. Likewise, a culture that does not allow itself to be challenged by what it encounters fails to preserve its own identity: it freezes it.

Identity is not a statue placed in the center of a square, immobile and untouchable. Rather, it is a journey, a story, a voice that changes tone without losing its depth. Being faithful to one's origins does not mean repeating the same gestures over and over, but rather recognizing the promise that origins held within. True faithfulness is not immobility; it is the ability to generate the future. A tradition that is incapable of encountering the other becomes traditionalism; a memory that refuses to be questioned becomes nostalgia; a sense of belonging that defends itself from otherness becomes ideology.

When a society calls something simply different "contaminated," it paves the way for exclusion. First comes the word: impure, foreign, dangerous, incompatible. Then comes suspicion. Then comes distance. Then comes the moral justification for rejection. The rhetoric of purity is never innocent, because it establishes who can belong and who must remain outside, who is a bearer of value and who is reduced to a threat. Thus, cultural fear becomes social fear, and social fear can become symbolic, political, even religious violence.

Yet, history teaches another law: what is mixed is not always lost; it is often fulfilled. Cultures die not because they are crossed, but because they cease to cross. They are not impoverished because they receive new words, new gestures, new symbols; they become impoverished when they no longer have the strength to reinterpret them. Cultural contamination then becomes a school of humility: it teaches that no one possesses the entire truth, that every identity is also indebted, that every people has been touched by gifts from afar.

The prophecy of our time, therefore, consists in moving from the fear of contamination to the wisdom of encounter. It's not about dissolving identities into a global blur, nor about renouncing the roots that gave us birth. Rather, it's about understanding that roots are not chains: they are nourishing organs. And a living root doesn't fear the soil it encounters; it passes through it, absorbs it, transforms it into sap.

This is why we must proclaim forcefully: do not be afraid of cultures arriving, of words knocking, of faces bearing different narratives. Rather, be afraid of closed identities, of memories rendered idolatrous, of traditions transformed into walls. Because the future will belong not to the pure, but to the fruitful; not to those who have preserved a form intact, but to those who have been able to generate life from encounter. Contamination, when lived in freedom, discernment, and justice, does not erase identity: it reveals it as a promise still unfulfilled.

 

 

There is no inculturation without (mutual) contamination.

 

Reflections on intersections, acceptance, and transformation in cultural dynamics

Paolo Cugini

 

In contemporary debates on forms of cultural encounter, the term "inculturation" is often used to indicate the process through which one culture incorporates elements from another, reworking them and intertwining them with its own identity. However, this concept is too often presented in an idealized way, as if it were possible to assimilate what is external and new without a real transformation, a mutual contamination, of the parties involved. In reality, there is no inculturation that is not also contamination, a profound and two-way exchange in which no one involved remains identical.

Inculturation, a term dear to the social sciences, theology, and anthropology, differs from acculturation in that it represents more than a superficial adaptation, but a true process of assimilation and creative reinterpretation. In this context, a culture does not simply passively receive foreign elements but makes them its own, transforms them, and, in doing so, is transformed in turn.

Consider, for example, the spread of religions, such as Christianity, in African, Asian, or South American contexts: liturgy, symbols, chants, and even divine representations are tinged with local nuances and sensibilities. This is not a mere overlap, but a profound dialogue, in which the original message is "contaminated" with pre-existing rites, languages, and worldviews, giving rise to new forms of expression and, at times, new interpretations of the sacred.

When two cultures meet, cross-fertilization isn't just a possibility: it's the inevitable result of interaction. No element, even the most seemingly foreign, can enter a context without provoking reverberations, adaptations, resistance, and unexpected welcomes. Food, fashion, language, and music then become living laboratories of experimentation, where the boundary between "us" and "the other" becomes porous, shifting, and unstable.

Italian cuisine, for example, is the product of cross-fertilization: just think of tomatoes and corn, which arrived from America after 1492, or the spices that arrived thanks to trade with the East. Today, speaking of "traditional cuisine" actually means speaking of a layering of encounters, grafts, and reinventions. Likewise, the Italian language is a constantly evolving melting pot, welcoming and transforming foreign loanwords, youth slang, and digital jargon.

We often make the mistake of viewing inculturation as a one-way process: there are those who give and those who receive, those who teach and those who learn, those who shape and those who are shaped. In reality, every act of openness to the other produces a double transformation. The "host" and "hosted" cultures both emerge modified by the encounter, generating something new that no longer entirely belongs to either.

Jazz, born from the encounter between African traditions and Western music, is an emblem of this reciprocal process. So are the mixed-race neighborhoods of large cities, where influences mingle and refract, creating diverse identities. This process can also occur silently and subtly: a saying, a way of dressing, a recipe, which from marginal becomes customary, testify to the power of mutual contamination.

Resistance, however, is not lacking. Throughout history, the obsession with cultural "purity" has generated closure, discrimination, and conflict. It has been feared that openness to others could mean the loss of one's identity, the dissolution of one's roots. But history demonstrates the unfounded nature of such fears: no tradition exists that is not the result of stratification and intermingling. Culture is nourished by encounters, divergences, and adaptations. The desire to maintain the integrity of what is perceived as "ours" is often accompanied by a rejection of the new, which is seen as a threat. But if we look carefully, we discover that the vitality of a culture is measured precisely by its capacity for contamination, for allowing itself to be influenced by other histories, other sensibilities, other knowledge. No civilization has grown in the shadow of closure; all have thrived thanks to encounter.

Today, in the age of globalization, cross-fertilization accelerates and multiplies. Migration, technology, and digital networks amplify the potential for encounters between different worlds. While new fears are emerging—related to the loss of identity, standardization, and social fragmentation—unprecedented spaces for creativity and citizenship are opening up.

Global culture is never uniform: it's a constantly evolving mosaic. Even in the age of digital platforms, local cultures reinvent, reinterpret, and give new meaning to what comes from elsewhere. Consider Italian trap music, which fuses American styles with the experiences of young people growing up on the outskirts of Milan or Rome. Or the food festivals that, across the peninsula, celebrate the marriage of Italian products and recipes from around the world.

Recognizing the value of mutual contamination also means rethinking education. School, far from being a monolithic bastion, can become a laboratory for dialogue, a place where differences are not denied, but confronted and experienced as opportunities for growth. Intercultural education is not just about learning about "other" cultures, but about experiencing firsthand encounters, listening, and transformation.

Giving voice to the stories of those from diverse backgrounds, challenging one's own prejudices, experiencing the richness of plurality: this is the true educational challenge of our time. In this sense, cross-fertilization is not a threat, but a horizon of possibilities.

There is no inculturation without (mutual) contamination. Every authentic encounter between cultures brings with it the risk and wonder of transformation. It is from contamination that the new is born, that tradition is regenerated, that the space for the unprecedented opens up. In a changing world, the challenge is not to defend a presumed purity, but to learn to navigate the currents of hybridization, recognizing in contamination the very essence of humanity. Only by embracing mutual transformation can we hope to build a more open, creative, and supportive society, capable of preserving memory without fearing the future.

 

WHO DEFENDS WOMEN? When religion is complicit with patriarchal culture

 

 

Paolo Cugini

These days, as I'm attending the conference organized by SOTER (Society of Theology and Science of Religion) on the topic of Violence and Religion, many of the speeches are presented from a variety of religious, philosophical, and social perspectives. I'm particularly struck by the reflections of several feminist theologians, which have prompted some brief considerations, which I share below.

As Saffiotti argues: “the cruel reality of violence against girls and women is not an isolated phenomenon, but the concrete manifestation of deeply rooted sexist, patriarchal, misogynist and capitalist structures that have shaped and continue to shape society” [1] (Safiotti, 2024). Patriarchy is a system that manages inequality between the sexes, with sexism as its political technology, while misogyny is the hate speech that sustains this political technology and the patriarchal system. “There is no patriarchy without sexism, there is no sexism without misogyny” [2] .

Patriarchy is, therefore, a form of social organization in which relationships are governed by two fundamental principles: women are hierarchically subordinate to men; young people are hierarchically subordinate to older men. Gender-based violence, therefore, is not simply the individual behavior of some men, but an institutionalized system legitimized by patriarchy, which is why it is so difficult to break the cycle of violence without changing the entire social structure.

Religious discourse, especially in traditionalist movements, reinforces the symbolic idea that the traditional family will save society. In the traditional family, the man is the head of the household, while the woman is the wife, always ready to serve her husband, and the mother devoted to her children. Violence against girls and women is reinforced by religious discourse, which is understood as the norm, the truth, because it is God who speaks through the pastor, the priest, the religious leader, as an integral part of patriarchal Christianity.

Christian religious leaders from traditionalist groups and those close to far-right political movements propose fundamentalist readings and interpretations of biblical texts, affirming women's submission and silence, discouraging reporting, advising women to pray for their husbands, because they must be possessed, or even stating that, just as Jesus carried the cross, women must also carry theirs, suggesting submission and the invisibility of violence within families. Many women obey and remain silent without questioning the religious leader's words, which can lead them to become victims of violence and even femicide. A pseudo-spirituality is encouraged by religious leaders who only reinforce the patriarchal cultural model, with its derivatives of misogyny and homophobia.

From this perspective and along this path, women's sexuality is torn from their bodies and confined to the sphere of motherhood, reproduction, and family. In short, sexuality and eroticism are not sacred. The sacred body is asexual; everything is reduced to the womb. Christian tradition has serious problems with the body and sexuality, denying them the sphere of the sacred. "In the symbolic incarnation of Eve the sinner and Mary the redeemer through submission and virginity, resides the 'rod of patriarchy' in the hand of God the Father, who punishes and redeems. This rod is directed specifically toward women's erotic dimension" (Jarschel; Nanjarí, 2008, p. 4).

At this point in the discussion, a question immediately arises: how can one participate in the Christian community and in the Eucharist or the Communion Supper when the bodies of girls and women continue to be violated, raped, and killed with the "spiritual" complicity of the very institution that should value and protect them?

The Church must prophetically denounce women's right to autonomy, power, and responsibility to decide over their own bodies, their spiritual well-being in all its dimensions, and sexuality understood as pleasure and not merely as a procreative purpose. Therefore, it is essential to question the exclusion of women from ministerial ordination in the various Christian traditions.

It is urgent to adopt a new religious and theological hermeneutic, as well as ecclesial and pastoral practices that guarantee the full inclusion of women at the table of communion, understood here as the totality of family, social, cultural, and spiritual life.

---

[1] SAFIOTTI, Heleieth.Gender Violence: Power and Impotence. São Paulo: Expressão Popular, 2024.

[2] TIBURI, Marcia.How to Defeat Turbomachismo. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2023.

 

Panentheism in Contemporary Theology

 

Brief presentation of some authors and the main quotations

Paolo Cugini

 

Panentheism is the theological position that holds that the universe is contained within God, but that God simultaneously transcends and surpasses the universe itself. From the Greek words pân (all), en (in), and theós (God), this view is clearly distinct from both classical theism, which sharply separates the Creator from creation, and pantheism, which dissolves the divine essence by making it coincide entirely with material reality. In contemporary theology, panentheism has assumed a central role in overcoming the notion of a God as a "static" and impassive monarch, offering a dynamic model capable of engaging with modern science, ecology, and the tragedies of contemporary history.

 

1. Jürgen Moltmann: The ecological Trinity and the suffering of God

One of the leading exponents of contemporary panentheism is the German Reformed theologian Jürgen Moltmann. In his masterpiece, The Crucified God, Moltmann undermines the apathy of classical theism by integrating the suffering of history directly into divine life. Subsequently, in God in Creation, he formalizes an explicitly panentheistic ecological doctrine of creation, founded on the idea of ​​Zimzum (God's withdrawal to make room for the other) and on the presence of the Holy Spirit as divine immanence in the cosmos. The pivotal work: The Crucified God (Queriniana, 1973). The key quote: On page 261, Moltmann writes that Christ's suffering on the cross is not extraneous to God, but rather " suffering in God ." This pain redefines the divine nature in a relational sense.

The ecological formalization: In God in Creation (Queriniana, 1986), on page 112, defines his approach as a «Trinitarian panentheism», stating that: « God creates the world not outside himself, but in his own infinity... The world is in God, and God is in the world through his Spirit .»

 

2. Charles Hartshorne and process theology

If Moltmann arrived at panentheism through theology and Trinitarianism, Charles Hartshorne (founder of process theology along with Alfred North Whitehead) approached it through philosophy and metaphysics. Hartshorne introduced the concept of a "dipolar God": God possesses an abstract and eternal pole (his potential essence) and a concrete and temporal pole (his interaction with history and the becoming of the cosmos). The key work: The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God (Yale University Press, 1948). The key quote: On page 89, Hartshorne explains that panentheism resolves the paradoxes of classical theism by admitting that God includes the reality of change without losing his original identity:

« Panentheism accepts the radical claim that the universe is part of God's being, but maintains that God's individuality exceeds the sum of the cosmo-temporal parts . »

The Mind-Body Analogy: On page 94, he formalizes the famous analogy: the relationship between God and the world is analogous to the relationship between the human mind and the cells of its body.

 

3. Wolfhart Pannenberg: God as the Future of the World

Lutheran theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg adopts an original panentheistic perspective linked to the dimension of eschatology and temporality. For Pannenberg, God is not a cause pushing the world from the past, but an attractive force operating from the future, understood as the " source of all possibility ." His key work: Systematic Theology (Vol. 2, Queriniana, 1994). Key quote: In the second volume of his Systematic Theology, on page 115, Pannenberg examines the spatial and spiritual relationship between Creator and creature:

« Creatures exist in the space opened up by the immensity of God... This being-in-God of creatures does not cancel their distinction from Him, but guarantees their autonomy with respect to pure material contingency.»

4. Arthur Peacocke and Philip Clayton: The Dialogue with the Natural Sciences

In contemporary science and religion, panentheism has become the dominant interpretive model. Authors such as biochemist and theologian Arthur Peacocke and philosopher Philip Clayton employ the concept of emergence: just as the mind emerges from the brain while not being reduced to it, so the world emerges from the essence of God, remaining biologically real yet spiritually enclosed within the Divine.

The cornerstone work: In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God's Presence in a Scientific World (ed. P. Clayton and A. Peacocke, Eerdmans, 2004).

Peacocke's quote: In the introductory essay, on page 12, Peacocke introduces the notion of sacramental panentheism: the cosmos physically manifests the continuous creative processes (creatio continua) of a God who permeates it intimately.

Clayton's quote: On page 82, Clayton summarizes the scientific effectiveness of the thesis:

« Panentheism offers the only coherent framework for theology in the scientific age, since it recognizes the natural laws discovered by the sciences, but sees them as operating within divine infinity.»

 

From Class to Existence: The Evolution of Liberation Theology Toward the Theology of the Margins

 

 

Paolo Cugini

 

Liberation Theology and the subsequent Theology of the Margins share the same generative methodological core: the conviction that reflection on God cannot ignore the historical practice and geopolitical condition of the oppressed. While Liberation Theology, formally born in Latin America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, identified its primary locus theologicus in the socioeconomic vulnerability of the proletariat and peasantry, today's Theology of the Margins represents a radical epistemological expansion of this locus. The latter transcends mere economic reductionism to embrace the multiple peripheries of existence: gender, sexual orientation, migration, and cultural diversity.

1. The Foundation of Liberation: Gustavo Gutiérrez's Orthopraxy

The methodological turning point of the entire liberationist approach is found in the seminal text by Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, Liberation Theology: Perspectives . Gutiérrez overturns the primacy of abstract orthodoxy in favor of orthopraxy, redefining the very task of the theologian: "Theology as a critical reflection on historical praxis in the light of faith does not replace the other functions of theology... but situates them in a new perspective." Gustavo Gutiérrez , Liberation Theology: Perspectives , p. 21.

Gutiérrez shifts the theological focus from Europe to the peripheries of Latin America, arguing that salvation is not a purely eschatological or spiritualized reality, but a comprehensive process that requires the transformation of the unjust structures of the present world.

2. The Theology of the People: The Argentine Way to Liberation

Within the broad umbrella of Liberation Theology, Argentina developed a distinctive current known as the Theology of the People ( Teología del Pueblo ). Its leading exponents, among whom Lucio Gera and Juan Carlos Scannone stand out, distanced themselves from the Marxist-based class analysis typical of the Gutiérrez school. They preferred to adopt a historical-cultural category: the people , understood as a collective subject united by a common culture and, in particular, by popular religiosity.

For this school, the faith of the poor is not an ideology to be reawakened, but an already existing wisdom that holds an intrinsic potential for liberation and resistance. Juan Carlos Scannone highlights how the culture of the marginalized and the subjugated possesses its own logic, an alternative to the technocratic and hegemonic logic of the center: "The people of the poor are not simply objects of economic oppression or evangelization, but are a historical-cultural subject that evangelizes itself and the Church through its vital wisdom and its practices of solidarity." Juan Carlos Scannone , Theology of the People. Theological Roots of Pope Francis , p. 84.

The Theology of the People enriches the relationship between liberation and the margins through three fundamental insights:

• Unity in Diversity: The concept of people rejects the logic of class struggle that divides, seeking instead a communion that begins with the least and integrates differences into a common historical path.
• Popular Religiosity: Popular mysticism (pilgrimages, patronal festivals, devotions) is not seen as alienation or superstition, but as the place where the poor express their dignity and their silent protest against injustice.
• Impact on the global magisterium: This vision has redefined the category of "margin" in Pope Francis's pontificate. The concept of the Church reaching out to the existential peripheries has its theological roots directly in this Argentine school.

3. The Shift to the Margin and Queer Epistemologies: Marcella Althaus-Reid

While the first generation of Liberation Theology focused on the analysis of social classes, Argentine theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid led the crucial shift towards a true Theology of the Margins, integrating demands for liberation with post-colonial and gender theories. In her most famous and groundbreaking text, Indecent Theology , the author harshly criticizes the hegemonic center of traditional theology—European, masculine, and bourgeois—which has anesthetized the prophetic thrust of the Gospel:  "Theology needs to redefine itself no longer starting from the center of ecclesial or dogmatic power, but from the crossroads of lived marginality, where excluded bodies question transcendence." Marcella Althaus-Reid , Indecent Theology. Sexual Perversions and Theological Fulfillments , p. 45.

Althaus-Reid introduces the criterion of the margin as the preferred hermeneutic space. From this perspective, God's truth is not discovered within the closed confines of dogma, but is experienced and earned in the embodied and often uncomfortable encounter with the stories of the forgotten and marginalized.

4. The Concept of Existential Periphery in Magisterial Documents

The concept of the existential periphery represents the most mature magisterial development of the convergence between Liberation Theology and the Theology of the Margins. Systematically introduced by Pope Francis, this paradigm transposes the historical insights of Latin America into the official doctrine of the global Catholic Church.

Evangelii Gaudium (2013): The epistemological manifesto

In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium , the periphery ceases to be a simple place of marginalization to become the starting point for understanding reality and faith itself. The Church is called to a centrifugal dynamism: "Today and always, 'the poor are the privileged recipients of the Gospel'... We must state bluntly that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. Let us never abandon them." Pope Francis , Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium , n. 48.

The text specifies that reaching out to the peripheries is not a simple philanthropic impulse, but a theological necessity: the center (institutional structures, academic theology) can only be understood and converted by looking at itself from the margins.

Laudato si' (2015): The Intersection between Ecology and Marginality

The Encyclical Laudato si' expands the boundaries of the existential periphery by uniting human suffering with environmental suffering. The document applies an intersectional approach in which social margins coincide with ecological margins:  "Today we cannot fail to recognize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice into debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor." Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter Laudato si' , n. 49.

At number 139, the Encyclical formalizes the break with fragmented analysis: "We are not faced with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather a single complex crisis that is both socio-environmental ." The existential periphery thus includes those who suffer desertification, pollution, and the loss of their native lands without having a voice in global decision-making processes.

Fratelli tutti (2020): Citizenship of the Margins

In the encyclical Fratelli tutti , the concept evolves to challenge the illusion of a globalized world that professes to be united but actually produces human "waste." The existential margin is defined through the figure of "members and non-citizens":

"There are peripheries that are close to us, in the center of a city, or in one's own family. There is also an aspect of the universal openness of love that is not geographical but existential. It is the daily capacity to broaden my circle." Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter Fratelli tutti , n. 97.

The document (especially numbers 115-117) denounces the vulnerability of migrants, people with disabilities, and isolated elderly people, redefining the existential periphery as the space in which human rights are emptied of concrete meaning.

5. From theory to practice: The Synod on synodality

The Synod on Synodality marked the decisive shift from theory to institutional practice, translating the theology of the margins into concrete reforms of ecclesial governance . The breakdown of the rigidity of the pyramid was manifested primarily in the extension of voting rights in the Synodal Assembly to lay people, young people, and women, reconfiguring the criteria for representation and redefining the framework of ecclesial co-responsibility.

At the level of local structures, the Synod has made the method of shared discernment and conversation in the Spirit a structural one. This approach requires listening to the existential peripheries before any pastoral or administrative decision. Furthermore, the document emphasizes the reform and strengthening of parish and diocesan pastoral councils, understood as spaces where the voice of the marginalized, historically excluded from clerical decision-making centers, becomes an integral part of the institutional governance of the Church.

The integration of migratory realities and cultural minorities

The paradigm shift promoted by synodal governance finds one of its most radical applications in the Church's relationship with migrants, refugees, and cultural minorities. Traditionally considered mere recipients of charitable assistance, these groups are now being repositioned as truly active agents and bearers of a prophetic theological voice within local communities.  This institutional impact is expressed on three main levels:

• Inclusion in decision-making processes: The Synod's Final Document calls for the structural integration of representatives of migrant communities and ethnic minorities within Pastoral Councils. This presence prevents ecclesial decisions from being made according to a monocultural and hegemonic logic, forcing local Churches to rethink their identity based on the contributions of newcomers.
• Overcoming the assimilation model: The new governance promotes a shift from a pastoral approach based on assimilation (in which migrants must adapt to the customs of the host culture) to a pastoral approach based on interculturality. Cultural minorities are no longer relegated to isolated celebrations within the temporal and spatial confines of parishes, but become co-responsible for liturgy, catechesis, and community administration.
• The Peripheries as Centers of Evangelization: Reversing the historical flows of mission, synodal governance recognizes that migrants from the global South are not subjects to be culturally colonized, but often the main re-evangelizers of secularized societies. Their experience of vulnerability and uprootedness becomes the hermeneutic lens through which the entire Church rediscovers the original character of Christianity as a pilgrim and hospitable community.

Conclusion

The Theology of the Margins does not deny its roots in Liberation Theology. On the contrary, it embraces its methodological legacy and purifies it of any dogmatic rigidity. Finally, it demonstrates that Christian revelation never speaks from a position of neutrality, but always manifests itself from and for the peripheries of history. Through recent structural reforms, the existential margin embodied by the stranger and the different ceases to be a social problem to be managed, becoming the resource with which the Church purifies its institutions to make them a reflection of a truly universal and multifaceted catholicity.

 

Bibliography

Althaus-Reid, Marcella , Indecent Theology: Sexual Perversions and Theological Fulfillments , London: Routledge, 2000 [Original edition: Indecent Theology , London: Routledge, 2000]. Citation on p. 45 .

Gutiérrez, Gustavo , Liberation Theology. Perspectives , Brescia, Queriniana, 1972 [Original edition: Teología de la liberación. Perspectivas , Lima, CEP, 1971]. Quote on p. 21 .

Pope Francis , Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium , Rome, Vatican Press, 24 November 2013. Reference to n. 48 .

Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter Laudato si'. On Care for Our Common Home , Rome, Vatican Press, 24 May 2015. References to nn. 49, 139 .

Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter Fratelli tutti. On Fraternity and Social Friendship , Rome, Vatican Press, 3 October 2020. References to nn. 97, 115-117 .

Scannone, Juan Carlos , Theology of the People: The Theological Roots of Pope Francis , Bologna, EMI, 2019 [Original edition: La teología del pueblo , Madrid, BAC, 2017]. Citation on p. 84 .

General Secretariat of the Synod , Final Document of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops: For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission , Vatican City, 2024.

 

THEOLOGY CONFRONT OF THE PROVOCATIONS OF PAUL FEYERABEND'S ANARCHIST EPISTEMOLOGY

 

 

 

Paolo Cugini

 

Paul Feyerabend's anarchic epistemology, epitomized in his famous motto "Anything goes," offers valuable tools for contemporary theology, allowing it to assert its intellectual legitimacy in a world dominated by scientism. Feyerabend argues that science possesses no universal method superior to other forms of knowledge. In theology, this method is used to legitimize religious discourse. While science does not have a monopoly on truth, theology can be seen as an equally valid approach for exploring the complexity of reality. Furthermore, Feyerabend's critique of science as an ideology allows theology to denounce when the scientific method is used as an indisputable dogma that a priori excludes the transcendent.

Methodological pluralism suggests that advancing knowledge requires the use of diverse tools, including those considered irrational or unorthodox. From this perspective, theology can apply this principle by combining rigorous textual analysis (exegesis) with aesthetic, mystical, or poetic insights, considering them all valid contributions to truth. Pluralism itself allows for a more inclusive and context-sensitive religious study, integrating historical and sociological analyses without diminishing the normative role of sacred texts. Feyerabend (along with Kuhn) argues that different theories can be incommensurable, meaning they cannot be compared according to a single logical standard. Thus, rather than seeking to prove faith with science, theology uses incommensurability to explain that religion and science operate within different conceptual frameworks, each with its own internal coherence that cannot be fully translated into the other's terms.

For Feyerabend, truth is not a fixed objective fact, but often the result of historical and rhetorical processes. This approach helps theologians see doctrine not as a closed and static system, but as a harmonious endeavor in progress, subject to constant revision and deepening through dialogue between different eras. Feyerabend does not suggest that everything is true, but that no methodological rule should limit the pursuit of knowledge. For theology, this means the freedom to explore the divine without apologizing for failing to employ the empirical-experimental method. The application of Feyerabend's epistemological anarchism transforms exegesis and interreligious dialogue into open and creative processes, rejecting the idea that a single correct method can exhaust the search for truth.

Traditionally, exegesis relies on the historical-critical method, that is, the analysis of sources, contexts, and philology. Feyerabend's approach introduces counterinduction: there is no single way to read a text. Alongside historical criticism, psychological, aesthetic, sociological, or purely spiritual interpretations become legitimate, without one necessarily invalidating the others. If a sacred text presents contradictions, anarchic exegesis does not seek to forcefully resolve them to preserve logical coherence, but accepts them as expressions of the complexity of reality and human experience. Exegesis is no longer an activity reserved solely for academic specialists; even the intuition of the believer or the perspective of the artist can reveal meanings in the text that rigid methods tend to obscure.

In interreligious dialogue, the thesis of incommensurability plays a crucial role in overcoming conflict and intolerance. Recognizing that religions are incommensurable systems means accepting that there is no external yardstick (such as universal reason or neutral science) to decide which is best. Rather than seeking the lowest common denominator (which often empties religions of their specific meaning), Feyerabendian dialogue encourages each tradition to express its radical diversity. Truth emerges from proliferation and comparison, not from uniformity. The principle of "Anything Goes" serves to prevent one religion (or secular vision) from imposing itself as the only rational path, promoting a free society in which each individual can choose the conceptual framework within which to live. Feyerabend's anarchism in these areas is not chaos, but an invitation not to be imprisoned by methodological dogmas, allowing texts and traditions to speak with all their original richness.

Feyerabend's critique of scientism provides modern theology with an intellectual weapon to denounce what he called "blind faith" in science as the sole source of truth. Feyerabend argued that modern science had assumed the dogmatic role that the Church had in the Middle Ages. Theology uses this critique to show how scientism has become a state ideology that imposes a spiritual monolithism. Theologians draw on Feyerabend's call for a free society where science is separated from the state just as religion is, allowing citizens to choose their own path to knowledge without institutional pressure. Feyerabend debunks the idea that science is neutral and purely rational. If science is also influenced by subjective desires, metaphysical prejudices, and aesthetic judgments, then the accusation of theology being merely subjective loses force. Theology claims that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, arises from an act of faith or an existential decision. In his later works, such as The Tyranny of Science , Feyerabend highlighted how scientism impoverishes human experience. Modern theology uses Feyerabend to argue that the reduction of reality to the measurable (reductionism) is a form of intellectual laziness. Feyerabend began to reevaluate the role of mysticism and religion as tools that satisfy fundamental human needs, such as love, reverence, and a sense of mystery, which scientific materialism ignores or suppresses. Feyerabend levels the playing field: he doesn't say that theology is science, but he demonstrates that science, when it claims to be the only Truth, is merely a myth more powerful than others.

 

IS A THEOLOGY INSPIRED BY THE THOUGHT OF KARL POPPER POSSIBLE?

 

Palo Cugini

 

 

Karl Popper's epistemology, centered on the principle of falsifiability, is usually considered the clear boundary between science and metaphysics. For Popper, a theory is scientific only if "it can be disproved by experience." At first glance, theology—which deals with absolute and transcendent truths—would seem the exact opposite of this model. However, applying Popper to theology doesn't necessarily mean demolishing it, but rather attempting to transform it into an intellectually honest discipline open to revision. This is what a Popperian theology might look like.

At the heart of Popper's thought is the rejection of inductivism: no matter how much evidence we accumulate in favor of a thesis, we can never be certain of its absolute truth.
In theology, this approach would attack rigid dogmatism. A Popperian theology would not consider its assertions as immutable truths handed down from above, but as bold conjectures about the meaning of existence. The believer would not be someone in possession of the truth, but a researcher who proposes an explanation of the world, aware of his own human fallibility.

The critical point is: is there an event that could disprove the existence of God? The philosopher Antony Flew, applying Popper, observed that theologians often die of a thousand qualifications: if something bad happens, they say God is mysterious; if something good happens, it is thanks to God. If nothing can disprove God's love, then the statement "God loves us" has no real informative content, since it is compatible with any state of affairs.

To be Popperian, theology must accept the challenge: what would have to happen for me to stop believing? A faith that doesn't accept the risk of contradiction (God's silence, extreme evil, the absence of signs) risks becoming an empty suit of armor. Just as the scientist doesn't observe nature with a virgin eye, the theologian doesn't read sacred texts or reality without presuppositions. To affirm that observation isn't neutral means recognizing that there is no interpretation of the Bible or dogma without a "pre-understanding" (hermeneutics). Every believer interprets the divine through specific cultural, linguistic, and philosophical lenses.

In theology, Truth (often identified with God) would become a horizon toward which to journey, rather than an object possessed once and for all. Theology would no longer be a system of static certainties, but a dynamic quest. As with Popper's scientist, it is the striving toward this absolute Truth that gives meaning to study, even if the fullness of knowledge remains metaphysically beyond human reach. The most radical aspect concerns the process of approaching truth through the elimination of error: It proceeds by falsifying inadequate images of God. Theology progresses when it recognizes that a past interpretation was erroneous or limited (think of the overcoming of certain theocratic or discriminatory visions). Dogma does not change Truth, but corrects previously misinterpreted facts, refining human understanding in an infinite evolutionary process. From this perspective, the distinction between revealed data (fact) and theology (opinion) blurs. Every religious fact is already mediated by human experience. This does not lead to relativism, but to epistemological humility: no one can claim a monopoly on objective truth, since we are all immersed in conjectures that must constantly be tested by dialogue and history.

Popper applied his epistemology to politics in The Open Society and Its Enemies . A theology inspired by him would be an open theology. Doctrines should be subjected to public and rational discussion, not protected by the enclosure of the "sacred." Just as science progresses through the clash of different theories, so the understanding of the divine would benefit from the confrontation of different faiths and visions, seen as alternative attempts to answer the same ultimate question.

Applying Popper to theology means stripping it of its claim to be an exact science of the spirit. The result is a theology of hope and risk, where faith is not a dogmatic endpoint, but a series of conjectures submitted to the tribunal of human experience and suffering. In this sense, the Popperian theologian is very similar to the scientist: both seek the truth, knowing that each of their conclusions is merely a not-yet-disproved proposition in the long journey of knowledge.