vol. 12 núm. 1 (2021)

Man is a relational being, built and maintains the relationships that he establishes with other. This condition comes from having been created in the image and likeness of God, who is a community of people, a God who is in relationship with love and who imprints this seal on his creature. However, he can ignore this condition and wish to live in the illusion of autarky, of the complete autonomy that leads him to the denial of his being, to loneliness, fear and death, which are at the root of all types of disagreement in which humanity lives today and from which only the personal closeness of someone who loves him can save him. This is precisely what God, in Christ, does for humanity. He shows the way to recover the relationship with the Other, that starting from the meeting leads to the intimate experience of communion in love. This can be today, a hopeful way in front of the multiple signs of the postmodern culture, especially, to the fragility of the personal ties, which plunges many people into loneliness and nonsense; at the same time a challenge for the disciples of Christ.

Many movies and TV series released in recent years have become very popular some chiefs of the drug trafficking. We find among them the well-known Colombian capo Pablo Escobar Gaviria. This paper, written originally for European readers, proposes a reflection about the figure of Escobar from the point of view of the virtue of courage. ¿Is a man like Escobar a heroic model of that cardinal virtue?

Talking about the Global Educational Pact implies deepening the thought of Pope Francis, the genesis and the consequences of a truly revolutionary proposal. That is why I am going to make my presentation in a small "Decalogue" of three sections, each of them tripartite, which I have called "Text", "Context" and "Posttext" (the latter as a kind of neologism that projects the text and its context into the future). In the last part, the conclusion, I will refer to its implications for theological work. Following the scholastic method, I will begin this first part with a necessary clarification of terms.

The realities of the new communities of New Evangelization and Christian initiation, lay and apostolic movements and groups, grouped under the Diocesan Pastoral Plan of New Evangelization, this year exceeds 25 years of existence in the diocese of Pereira, in fulfillment of the proposed challenge by Pope John Paul II to promote in Latin America a renewed effort of New Evangelization, after the fifth centenary of the encounter with the American continent. This has been a long and complex period, of sowing and replanting the Savior message of Jesus Christ, which has had moments of growth, and others, most of them, of stagnation and decay. In this article of theological reflection, it is intended to address the reality of what this evangelizing journey has been in the diocese of Pereira, very similar to other ecclesiastical circumscriptions in Colombia. Taking as a point of reference and reflection the Gospel of Mark, 4,1-20, the pericope of the sower as an illuminating text. Under a quali - quantitative methodology, and from the theological method of "seeing, judging and acting" to inquire with those who are part or have participated in this evangelizing process, what have been the main causes of desertion or abandonment of this continuous process that leads to the encounter with Christ and the constitution of communities as epicenters of this encounter. To show in the end, the verification of the absence of community sense that, together with the disfigurement of the meaning of being Christian, add causes for the dichotomy between daily life and religious praxis. At the end of the writing, some proposals for action are presented, which in the light of the evangelical pericope can reorient this evangelizing strategy, illuminating the great challenges of persevering and remaining in the follow-up.

This article analyzes the Islamic liberation theology against Islamic traditionalism from the various reflections of the Indian academic Shadaab Rahemtulla. Rahemtulla's main thesis lies in postulating the reading of the Koranic surhas as a liberating action, that is, without rigid political or social ties. This in order to achieve a true emancipation from all those conditions that have made it impossible for many Islamic countries to have significant projects aimed at improving the indeces of social equity, political participation and freedom of expression. Therefore, the methods of interpretation of the sacred text are analyzed, in addition to the hegemonic practices that the traditional discourse has implemented in order to preserve the status quo.

The present work offers a proposal for an approach to mysticism from the category of profaning device present in the thought of Giorgio Agamben. Agambian desecration is rooted in the consideration that capitalism, as a socio-economic and political model, is understood from a religious and sacred structure, fundamentally visible and univocal, and, therefore, marked by the fundamentalism of its practices. Given this, mysticism would come to constitute a device that desecrates the religious mechanism of the market from apophatic language, the experience of recognizing the Mystery or of thinking about new possibilities of understanding and living the religious experience. These elements suppose, in turn, the recognition of an openness to new religious-social modulations that come to unblock and look critically at the religious and political fundamentalism of market religion. In this way, we seek to offer a reflection that allows interreligious dialogue to be worked as a suggestive way of thinking from other voices, in a clear plural opening and contrary to the closed vision typical of capitalist religiosity.

In the search for a possibility of spirituality in the contemporary world, the relationship that exists between the current conception of the individual with the basic anthropology of ancient Christian monasticism is discovered. For this reason, an approach is proposed to the personal capacities of the monk and they are related to the qualities of the contemporary individual. This link leads to a possibility of spirituality based on the personal capacities of the subject in search of a spiritual meaning for the human being in terms of integral well-being and fullness of life.

The central thesis of this reflection study considers the times of the coronavirus as a relevant historical event for the exercise of a new theological apologetics. The thesis presupposes an apologetic exercise capable of helping to integrate the gift of God's love in these times of crisis for the whole human family and is based on the Petrine programmatic exhortation to be "always ready to give an account of our hope to anyone who asks us. But to do so with humility and respect" (1P 3,15-16). The study concludes by emphasizing the vehemence of the good news of the Lord's resurrection as an event capable of igniting the heart of suffering humanity with a flame of hope.