ABSTRACT
In the third chapter of Genesis, according to the Christian tradition, desire is ensnared by a serpent, with horrendous consequences. Life is now sustained only by the sweat of the brow; creation does not willingly yield its fruits. Human relations become agonistic; they are tainted with dominion and violence. Desire is corrupted, captured, bent from its true course. With the arrival of savage capitalism, desire has been ensnared in the coils of yet another serpent, with consequences no less dire. The veins of the earth are torn open and drained with impunity. Much of humanity languishes while a privileged minority revels in its cancerous consumption. Desire is entangled in a vast array of technologies that chain it to the global market’s processes of production and consumption. And the Latin American liberationists’ vision of a Church of the poor, a Church that opts for the languishing masses of marginalized and excluded, is unable to fund resistance. It is in crisis because it misconstrues both the nature of the struggle and the resources that Christianity may provide in waging that struggle. Its vision is simply not radical enough to meet the challenge of a savage capitalism that wages war against humanity on all fronts – at the level of ontology, desire – and not just at the level of political economy.
