Rubem Alves

Life

Alves was born on September 15th, 1933 in Boa Esperança, Minas Gerais. He obtained his Bachelor of Theology (B.Th.) degree at the Presbyterian Seminary in Campinas, Brazil, in 1957. He went on to obtain a Master of Theology (Th.M.) from the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, United States, in 1964.

After completing this degree, Alves returned to Brazil amidst a U.S-sponsored military coup against the democratically elected Brazilian government. At the time, the new military regime was attempting to purge Brazil of communist sympathizers. The Presbyterian Church of Brazil provided the new government with the names of six intellectuals to serve as scapegoats and to avert persecution themselves. Immediately upon his return to Brazil, Alves went into hiding. More than forty accusations were made against Alves and others, including claims that they taught that Jesus was sexually involved with a prostitute, celebrated when their children denounced Americans, and were funded by the Soviet Union. Alves reports that these accusations were ineffective, saying, "the positive side of the document was that it was so virulent, that not even the most obtuse could believe that we were guilty of so many crimes." Alves continued to elude government authorities and within two months of his arrival in Brazil, he returned to the United States covertly with assistance from Brazilian Freemasons and the Presbyterian Church in the United States, which secured an invitation from Princeton Theological Seminary for him to commence doctoral studies there.

Alves did not enjoy his studies at Princeton. He sorely missed his homeland. He also felt constrained by the requirements of the doctoral program. Although he ultimately wrote his dissertation according their requirements, Alves was not pleased with it, saying, "I wrote uglily, without smiles or poetry, for there was no other alternative: a Brazilian student, underdeveloped, in a foreign institution, must indeed submit himself, if he wants to pass." He completed his doctoral dissertation, "Toward a Theology of Liberation", in 1968, and received “the lowest possible grade” needed to receive his doctorate (Ph.D.) at Princeton in 1968.

Alves later critiqued the direction some writers took liberation theology, saying "it has little to say about the personal dimension of life. If a father or mother comes with their dead child, it’s no consolation to say, ‘In the future just society there will be no more deaths of this kind.’ This brings no comfort!" However, he also described liberation theology as "absolutely essential," describing his own version of liberation theology with these words: "The origin of my liberation theology is an erotic exuberance for life. We need to struggle to restore its erotic exuberance, to share this with the whole world."

Academic career

1. Alves trained as a psychoanalyst through the Brazilian Association of Psychoanalysis of São Paulo.
2. Assistant professor of Social Philosophy, in the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Rio Claro (1969)
3. Assistant professor of Philosophy, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) (1974). He was promoted to professor (1979) and associate professor (1980), both at Faculty of Education, UNICAMP.

Career as writer

Besides his activities as a university professor and researcher, Alves is a prolific writer of books and articles in journals and newspapers on education, psychology and life in general. Since 1986, he has been a regular columnist at the Correio Popular, the main newspaper in his hometown, Campinas, in São Paulo state. He has published more than 40 books, several of which have been translated into German, French, English, Italian, Spanish and Romanian. He is also a very popular lecturer and is much appreciated by educators in general for his humanistic views on education.

During his career, he collaborated with notable personalities include Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day, and Paulo Freire.

His book, The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet, is an important text in the field of theopoetics.

During the last years of his life, Alves wrote several childrens' books. Alves died on Saturday, July 19, 2014 in Campinas, Brazil.

Legacy

Alves has been described as an "unsung hero", and is often omitted from brief descriptions of liberation theology.

International

In Portuguese