The Chilean Christians for Socialism Movement: Liberationist, Third Worldist, and Utopian

Abstract

This article examines the emergence, consolidation, and influence of the Cristianos por el Socialismo (CpS, or Christians for Socialism) movement as part of the overlapping political and religious transformations of the 1960s. The election of self-declared Marxist Salvador Allende in 1970 inspired a sector of the clergy to creatively converge the tenets of Marxism and Christianity. The notion of transcendence and the construction of a “New Man” appealed to the utopian aspects of both religious and Marxist thinking. The Chilean CpS had a Latin American impact, as evidenced by the First Latin American Encounter of Christians for Socialism in Santiago in 1972, and a transnational impact, as seen in the formation of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians in 1976. The analysis of CpS and its influence within and outside of Chile reveals an often-overlooked component of the Chilean road to socialism: the work of Catholics in Marxist-Christian rapprochement.