Desmond Tutu's Spirituality of Protest

Abstract: This essay interprets Desmond Mpilo Tutu's practice of protest as a spiritual practice in light of his regular participation in other spiritual practices such as prayer, silence, and Eucharist. Connecting these spiritual practices to his theologies of ubuntu and the imago Dei , I demonstrate that Tutu's life of protest was an expression of his spirituality and that his example challenges sharp distinctions between the "political" and the "spiritual." Rather, spirituality understood in the key of Tutu's ubuntu theology is always already political.