Introducing the Author

Leonardo Boff is one of the world's best known theologians and is the author of more than 60 books on liberation theology, ecology, and spirituality. In 2001, Boff received the prestigious Right Livelihood Award. He is featured as one of S&P's Living Spiritual Teachers.

All Is Mystery

"All is Mystery and all may be bearer of Mystery," Boff states in the introduction. The universe evolves slowly after the sun is born and the creation drama unfolds with the celestial bodies, the stars, the planets, the minerals, the bacteria and complex cells, the reptiles, the mammals — and self-conscious beings. The Trinity goes out of itself with God the Father, Jesus the son, and the Spirit as the female generating principle.

Jesus and the Kingdom of God

The historical Jesus is a humble carpenter, an itinerant prophet, and a suffering servant who at one point laments that he has no home where he can lay his head. Truly, this man of sorrows identifies with the poor and the oppressed. His life ends on a cross between two criminals.

But the root experience of Jesus gave rise to the Jesus movement based on a dream (the reign of God), a practice (liberation), a message (Our Father and our bread), an ethic (unlimited love and mercy), a destiny (the execution of the liberator), and an anticipation (the resurrection scarcely begun).

The Future of Christianity

The Mystery of the Spirit is as unsettling as the radical Jesus with her love of the wayward wind and the joy of transforming and surprising people. She is to be found wherever new spiritual paths are being created and where virtues are being cultivated. Most poignantly, the Spirit lives in those who practice love, justice, peace, and solidarity with the poor.