A liberation ethic for the one-third world: The preferential option for the poor and challenges to middle-class Christianity in the United States

This dissertation recovers the option for the poor as central to Christian identity and suggests how to integrate it into the practices of Christians in the United States. I ask: What is the preferential option for the poor today? Is the U.S. middle-class identity in conflict with the option for the poor? I suggest that middle-class culture presents an obstacle to understanding the option for the poor as defined by liberation theology and Catholic social teaching, making it hard to integrate into the existing middle-class ethos.; The historical and theological roots of the option for the poor suggest that it is a concrete and transcendental concept. Its application for Christian ethics requires critical engagement with the historical forces shaping Christian identity. The elements of individualism and consumerism shaped middle-class identity during the twentieth century. The middle class experiences a tension between values closely associated with the option for the poor and values such as individualism, self-advancement, and competition. I judge this tension in its theological and ethical ramifications from an anthropological lens, as it affects the development of a liberation ethic.; The anthropology of Jose Ignacio Gonzalez-Faus provides a corrective, placing filiation and fraternization as central to human identity. Christian identity demands a commitment to the project of eradicating the egoism that narrowly defines humanity based on material achievement and that alienates the self from other members of the human community.; I propose a liberation ethic that begins with a spirituality of critical self-reflection, such as exhibited by Dorothy Day, in a way that helps Christians in the U.S. integrate the historical and the transcendental dimensions of the option for the poor in our own context. This calls for a continued practice of the option within a range of minimum and maximum criteria, taking into account an understanding of Christian identity as liberation for others, surrender to bonds of filiation, and political action for the Kingdom of God.