Christianity in a pluralistic society: considerations from the book "If God Were a Human Rights Activist", by Boaventura de Sousa Santos.

Abstract

This article discusses the issue of Christianity in a pluralistic society on the basis of the book "If God Were a Human Rights Activist", by Boaventura de Sousa Santos.  In this book the author confronts the challenges that the "movements that demand the presence of religion in the public sphere" place for human rights in the context of ”ecology of conceptions of human dignity." This article begins by presenting the problem of Christianity in a pluralistic society and indicating two fundamental forms of dialogue and interaction between religious traditions and society as a whole. The text goes on to show, from the aforementioned book, how traditions and religious movements are (or can be) a privileged place of affirmation and defense of human dignity and how theologies that sustain them constitute a 'defense grammar of human dignity. The article concludes by showing how the affirmation and defense of human dignity, understood and lived in the context of social struggles for justice, constitute the core of the Christian experience of God or, in any case, one of its fundamental features or marks.