Challenges to Traditional Understandings of Christology

Abstract

ABSTRACT The long-studied theological concept of Christology is re-examined. Two new books have been published and are reviewed. The first draws on South American Liberation Theology and argues that any new developments in understandings of Christology must originate from reflective listening to the ways in which poor people and communities approach the biblical text. The second book develops issues first raised at the Girton Conference of 1921 organised by what was then called the Modern Churchman’s Union. After debating Christology in Liberal Theology then and now, it draws on feminist theology, Hindu and Buddhist theology and Palestinian Liberation Theology. Arguments pursued concern a no longer “white” Jesus, colonialism and imperialism and the ways in which the powerful have used Christianity as a controlling and unifying force for their own ends. Traditional understandings of Christology are compared with these new contributions.