Contemporary Christologies: A Fortress Introduction

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Contemporary Christologies

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Contemporary Christologies

A FORTRESS INTRODUCTION

Don Schweitzer

Fortress Press

Minneapolis

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CONTEMPORARY CHRISTOLOGIES

A Fortress Introduction

Copyright © 2010 Fortress Press, an imprint of Augsburg Fortress. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Visit http://www.augsburgfortress.org/copyrights/ or write to Permissions, Augsburg Fortress, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.

Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible are copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America and are used by permission.

Cover image: The Art Archive / Haghia Sophia Istanbul / Gianni Dagli Orto / The Picture Desk.

Cover design: Laurie Ingram

Interior photos: Roger Haight: © Ron Hester; Carter Heyward: © Susan B. Sasser; Mark Lewis Taylor: © Kim Schmidt, courtesy of Princeton Theological Seminary.

Book design: PerfecType, Nashville, TN

eISBN 9781451406924

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

Schweitzer, Don, 1958-

Contemporary christologies : a fortress introduction / Don Schweitzer.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-8006-6463-3 (alk. paper)

1. Jesus Christ—Person and offices. 2. Theology, Doctrinal—History—20th century. 3. Theology, Doctrinal—History—21st century. I. Title.

BT203.S252 2010

232’.809045--dc22

2009053475

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CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

1    Jesus as Revealer

Karl Rahner, Dorothee Soelle, Roger Haight

2    Jesus as Moral Exemplar

Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carter Heyward, Mark Lewis Taylor

3    Jesus as Source of Ultimate Hope

James Cone, Jon Sobrino, Elizabeth Johnson

4    Jesus as the Suffering Christ

Jürgen Moltmann, Douglas John Hall, Marilyn McCord Adams

5    Jesus as Source of Bounded Openness

Raimon Panikkar, John B. Cobb Jr., Jacques Dupuis

Conclusion: Fifteen Christologies Later …

Glossary

Notes

Index

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PREFACE

Jesus’ question to his disciples, Who do you say that I am? (Mark 8:29) continually recurs to those who believe in him as the Christ. Each generation answers it in a variety of ways. This is born out in the Christologies studied in this book. Each reflects something of the context it comes from and how its author experienced this. Yet each also reflects something of Jesus, who first asked this question. These diverse Christologies add new voices to the conversation about Jesus, his saving significance, and the meaning of life that has been ongoing since his ministry began. Each of these new voices is worth listening to.

Each of these Christologies chooses a way or ways of understanding Jesus’ saving significance. These choices reflect varying assessments of how Jesus as the Christ relates to the present. This book divides these ways into five types and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each. A guiding conviction behind this arrangement is that each type primarily addresses a distinct kind of sin or evil. By lifting up the different kinds of sin and evil that different ways of understanding Jesus’ saving significance address, this book shows how these can correct and supplement each other. The different atonement models studied here should be seen as unfolding different aspects of Jesus’ saving significance rather than as mutually exclusive alternatives.

Many people, places, and institutions played a role in the writing of this book. Melanie Schwanbeck and then Brittany Dove, library technicians at St. Andrew’s College library, were a great help in getting books and journals from other libraries in the Saskatoon Theological Union. The interlibrary loans department at the University of Saskatchewan was also tremendously helpful in getting essential materials. Melanie Schwanbeck helped me repeatedly when I had trouble with my computer. St. Andrew’s College provided me with a very able and industrious research assistant in Jeff Martens-Koop for the fall of 2008. Ministry at Turtle River Larger Parish and then Wesley United Church in Prince Albert led me to appreciate how different atonement models address different forms of suffering, sin, and evil. Teaching Christology at Serampore College, Serampore, and Dalit theology at the United Theological College in Bangalore, India, gave me insights for chapter 5. Students in the Christology classes I have taught at St. Andrew’s College and St. Stephen’s in Edmonton have helped shape my appreciation of the Christologies discussed here. Tatha Wiley, Gord Waldie, and Harold Wells read part or all of the manuscript, offering valuable suggestions, corrections and encouragement. I thank all of the above for their help with this book. Leslie cheered me on to finish it. I dedicate it to her, and to Simon and Ian.

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INTRODUCTION

This book is an introduction to contemporary Christologies. It examines how fifteen theologians from the past forty years have understood Jesus. It is divided into five chapters, each focusing on a particular way of understanding Jesus’ saving significance as featured in the Christologies of three theologians. These ways of understanding Jesus’ saving significance are sometimes called models of atonement. Each chapter analyzes the form of evil, sin, or suffering that a particular model addresses, how Jesus is seen to overcome this, how salvation is understood in the model, and assesses the model’s strengths, and weakness. The aim is to help students grasp the dynamics of different atonement models, their limitations, strengths, and versatility, and to provide samples of contemporary christological thought. The focus of the book is on the exposition of the Christologies studied. But questions, observations, and critical comments on these and the models of atonement they employ are scattered throughout, as critical debate belongs to the substance of theology. An introduction should give some assessment as well as an overview.

The Christologies studied here all belong to the post–World War II era and represent live options in contemporary Christian theology. They continue a tradition of thought going back almost two thousand years. The first Christologies arose in response to Jesus of Nazareth. The dates of his birth and death cannot be determined exactly. He was a Jew born in Palestine, probably in Nazareth, around 7 or 6 BCE.¹ Following in the footsteps of John the Baptist and after being baptized by John, he began an itinerant public ministry in Galilee, preaching the imminent coming of the reign of God, healing the sick, casting out demons, teaching, and gathering a following, at the heart of which were twelve disciples. After traveling to Jerusalem at the time of the Passover celebration, he was crucified by Roman authority, probably in 30 ce. Shortly thereafter, some of his former followers and others claimed that Jesus had risen to new life, proclaimed him to be the Christ, and began to worship God in his name.

Ever since then there have been Christologies reflecting on this. These typically have two foci. One is around Jesus’ person. He was a person like others and yet, as the Christ, was distinct in his relation to God.² Most contemporary Christologies continue the long tradition of trying to understand what this distinction was and how it came to be. The second focus of Christologies is on Jesus’ work, or saving significance. Jesus was understood to be the Christ because he was seen to save or benefit people, delivering them from various forms of sin, evil, and suffering, empowering them to do the good either through his teaching, his example, his death and resurrection, or a combination thereof. Contemporary Christologies seek to articulate what Jesus’ saving significance is in the present and how he effects it. These two foci are usually interrelated. Because Jesus is like others and yet distinct in relation to God, he is able to save.

Christologies tend to develop in relation to external factors like the social location of a church, the stability of surrounding society, and socially dominant ideals, assumptions, and practices. They also tend to reflect internal factors like the church tradition a theologian belongs to, theological developments and disputes within it, and the interests of those producing the Christology. These internal and external factors are usually related and yet cannot be collapsed into one another. In time, a combination of external factors like the church’s growing presence in the Roman Empire and internal factors like the Arian crisis and later christological debates led to the affirmations of the ecumenical Councils of Nicaea (325) and Chalcedon (451). Their teachings, that Jesus Christ was one with and yet distinct from God (Nicaea), fully human and fully divine, the two natures united without confusion in his one person (Chalcedon), would become basic assumptions for most Christologies up until the time of the Enlightenment (1700s). They continue to be considered normative in the teachings of some churches. In the centuries between the Council of Chalcedon and the rise of the Enlightenment a variety of Christologies were produced that continue to be influential today, such as those of Anselm, Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Luther, and Calvin.

The Enlightenment was characterized by a critical attitude toward Christian faith, church authority, and teaching. It was accompanied by spectacular developments in forms of knowledge like the natural sciences that often contradicted biblical traditions and church teaching. This helped create an intellectual ethos that challenged the authority of the affirmations of Nicaea and Chalcedon as basic assumptions for Christology and the veracity of biblical traditions about Jesus’ birth, miracles, and resurrection. A variety of distinctly modern Christologies developed in response to this, like those of Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Ritschl. Contemporary Christologies have developed in varying ways against this combined background of the biblical witness, the affirmations of Nicaea and Chalcedon, the challenge of the Enlightenment, and theological developments occurring over the course of church history.

Contemporary Christologies have also developed in relation to events in the twentieth century.³ These sometimes influenced Christian theology in contrasting ways. The challenge of the Enlightenment has continued to confront Christian theology with a crisis of cognitive claims⁴ regarding traditional affirmations about the person and work of Jesus Christ. With this came an increasing secularism in Europe that helped create a sense of the absence of God. The horrors of World War I contributed to this as well, yet also worked in a different direction, helping trigger the theological development of neoorthodoxy, which reaffirmed the transcendence of God and reclaimed a sense of evangelical freedom on the basis of a renewed sense of biblical authority. In the 1960s, Vatican II expressed a new openness to the world and optimism in Roman Catholic thought. In the 1970s, as the oppression of the poor in Latin America and the horror of the Holocaust became focuses of Christian theological reflection, this optimism was criticized. Reflection on the Holocaust led to criticism of anti-Jewish trends in Christology and reflection on the sufferings of victims of man-made mass death.⁵

Reflection on the suffering of the poor and their struggles for justice led to new attention to what can be known historically about Jesus and the connections between his public ministry and death.

Contemporary Christologies have also been influenced by the explosion of difference in the 1960s, as oppressed peoples and social groups began to articulate their specific sufferings and hopes and struggle against their oppression by dominant cultures in Western societies. Theologians in these groups began to develop Christologies in light of these struggles. Some theologians from dominant social groups began to think about Christ in relation to these struggles and in light of their own privilege. Feminist concerns about the impact on women of the way Jesus’ maleness and saving significance have been understood have been particularly significant for feminist Christologies. Christian-Marxist dialogues challenged theologians to develop Christologies that would make a difference in the world, particularly in peoples’ living conditions. The phenomenon of globalization and the persistence of many religions led some to ponder Christ’s meaning in relation to religious pluralism. Late in the twentieth century, the environmental crisis raised new concerns about the saving significance of Jesus for nature and his implications for how nature should be understood.

Developments within Christian theology in the twentieth century have also influenced contemporary Christologies. Gustaf Aulén’s classic book Christus Victor⁶ presented an influential typology of three models of atonement that directed attention to the different ways in which Jesus’ saving significance has been understood. The quest for the historical Jesus took on renewed life after World War II and became a significant factor for many contemporary Christologies. Karl Barth’s emphasis on Jesus Christ as the decisive revelation in terms of which all attributes of God must be understood led to Christologies being developed as a much more integral part of the doctrine of God. A number of the Christologies studied in this book also reflect Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s notion of Jesus as the person for others and Paul Tillich’s understanding of Christ as addressing the particular alienation or oppressions of a given age. None of the Christologies studied here respond to all these events or incorporate all of these influences, but all are influenced by some of them, and all are developed in contexts that these events and social movements helped shape. Because Christologies tend to develop in relation to external and internal factors, these need to be considered when studying them. For this reason, the overview of each Christology in the chapters that follow begins with a brief biographical sketch of its author, noting influences on and significant developments in their thought.

An attempt has been made to include a diversity of voices in this introduction. But it is unlikely that any book could give an adequate overview of all contemporary Christologies. It would be difficult for any individual to keep up on all the work being done in Christology at present around the globe, or on all the significant Christologies produced in the past forty years. Anyone familiar with contemporary Christology will see that a few of their favorite theologians are missing. The Christologies of significant North Atlantic theologians like Wolfhart Pannenberg, Edward Schillebeeckx, and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza are not included here. There is no representative of African⁷ or Australian Christologies. Only two representatives from Asian contexts are included and only one from South America. The choice of Christologies to be studied in this book was dictated by my sense of their significance in contemporary christological thought, a desire to have three examples of each model of atonement being covered, and the limitations of my knowledge. This book is intended to be an introduction. It makes no claim to be comprehensive. It provides a sampling of contemporary Christologies and a discussion of how they understand Jesus. Hopefully readers will find it useful.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Brondos, David A. Fortress Introduction to Salvation and the Cross. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007. An accessible and well-written survey of Western Christologies beginning with biblical traditions and working up to the present.

Macquarrie, John. Jesus Christ in Modern Thought. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990. An overview of twentieth-century Western Christologies.

Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology. New York: Continuum, 1994. An influential feminist interpretation of New Testament Christology.

Studer, Basil. Trinity and Incarnation: The Faith of the Early Church. Edited by Andrew Louth. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1993. A good overview of the development of patristic Christology up to the Council of Chalcedon.

Tuckett, Christopher. Christology and the New Testament: Jesus and His Earliest Followers. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001. An accessible overview of Christologies found in various New Testament traditions and writings.

Wiley, Tatha, ed. Thinking of Christ: Proclamation, Explanation, Meaning. New York: Continuum, 2003. A good introduction to contemporary issues in Christology.

Discussion Questions

1.   What are the criteria for assessing the adequacy of a Christology?

2.   Do you consider the teachings of the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon on the person of Jesus Christ to be normative?

3.   Which of the various events of the twentieth century listed as influences on contemporary Christologies do you consider most important in your context?

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CHAPTER 1

Jesus as Revealer

Karl Rahner, Dorothee Soelle, Roger Haight

As Western societies became increasingly secularized in the twentieth century, the existence of God ceased to be a basic assumption for many people. Experiences of the absence or eclipse of God became an important theme in Western thought.¹ This was partly caused by a major change in the way reality was viewed in Western societies.² In the premodern thought of Plato and Aristotle, Augustine, Julian of Norwich, and Aquinas, the world was seen as existing within a transcendent framework of meaning. It was in relation to transcendent reality that human life found its meaning and could find fulfillment. This view of the world came to be replaced in Western societies by another, in which reality is seen in an immanent framework with no intrinsic reference to any transcendent reality. In the dominant ethos of Western modernity, the world and humanity are seen as self-sufficient and comprehensible without reference to God. Here, life is conducted and found meaningful according to what can be calculated and planned. In this modern worldview, religion has an ambivalent place. It can be useful for moral instruction, character formation, and as an aid to social order. But it isn’t necessary as such and it can give rise to violence and impede social progress.

This new immanent worldview and the secular societies and lifestyles based on it helped give rise to a sense of separation from God that was not addressed by models of the atonement focused on how Jesus relieves one of guilt, strengthens one against moral weakness, or gives hope that counters fear of death. In this context of secular modern societies, the understanding that Jesus saves by revealing the presence and loving nature of God took on renewed relevance.

What follows will examine this as presented in the Christologies of Karl Rahner, Dorothee Soelle, and Roger Haight. The theologies and Christologies that these three produced are very different. Karl Rahner tended to write in a dense style, and was intent on showing how the Christian faith and being Roman Catholic were comprehensible in relation to the dominant forms of knowledge and experience in modern Western societies. He helped stimulate the renewal of trinitarian theology in the twentieth century and was concerned that theology be both continuous with church tradition and meaningful in the present. Dorothee Soelle wrote in a brief, accessible style that focused on the meaningfulness of Jesus in relation to contemporary experiences of the absence of God, injustice, sorrow, joy, and desire. Her theology draws on contemporary drama, literature, art, and her own experiences as much as church tradition. Her thought was immensely popular in peace and justice movements with church affiliations. Roger Haight is a contemporary revisionist Roman Catholic working in the United States, who seeks to show how Christian faith can be understood in what is now a postmodern era. He writes in an accessible style and works in an ecumenical context. Different as their theologies are, they share an emphasis on a particular way of understanding Jesus’ saving significance in relation to modern experiences of the absence of God.

The way in which these three see Jesus overcoming the experience of God’s absence is illustrated in the musical The Music Man. In this drama, a fraudulent traveling salesperson comes into a community and transforms it by revealing something that was present there all along but which its members had been unaware of. Through their encounter with him, the lives of many community members become filled with a new sense of purpose and joy. The potential for this had always been present. But it was not actualized until he disclosed it. A woman in the community describes the salesperson’s effect on her in the song entitled Till There Was You.

There were bells on the hill

But I never heard them ringing,

No, I never heard them at all

Till there was you.

There were birds in the sky

But I never saw them winging

No, I never saw them at all

Till there was you.

… … … …

There was love all around

But I never heard it singing

No, I never heard it at all

Till there was you!³

Rahner, Soelle, and Haight do not see Jesus as a fraudulent traveling salesperson, but each understands him as having saving significance in a similar way. In their Christologies, the main evil that people need to be delivered from is a lack of awareness of God’s presence. Jesus saves by making God powerfully present through his life, death, and resurrection. Though God is always present, Jesus gives people a new consciousness of this through the disclosive power of his person. In the encounter with him, a new awareness of God’s nearness and love is made available that empowers people to further express God’s love in their own lives. Though the Christologies of Rahner, Soelle, and Haight are multifaceted and have significant differences, central to each is a focus on how Jesus is preeminently the revealer of God.

Karl Rahner

Karl Rahner was born in Freiburg, Germany, on March 5, 1904.⁴ He grew up there and in 1922 followed his older brother Hugo in joining the Jesuit religious order. His theological studies began in 1929 in Holland. In 1933 he was sent to study philosophy at Freiburg. The philosopher Martin Heidegger was there, and Rahner participated in his seminar.⁵ However, he had to work under Martin Honecker. In some respects, this did not go well. Rahner’s thesis attempted a modern reinterpretation of Aquinas’s metaphysics of human knowledge.⁶ Honecker judged it unacceptable. Rahner published it anyway as Spirit in the World.⁷ Along with his subsequent Hearers of the Word,⁸ this provided the theoretical basis for his theology, as he went on to become one of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of the twentieth century. Rahner taught at the University of Innsbruck from 1937 to 1964. He retired in 1971 but remained active as a theologian until his death in 1984. His theology continues to be influential in Roman Catholic and ecumenical theology.

Rahner’s thought