Thinking Christ: Christology and Contemporary Critics

Description

Jane Barter Moulaison's remarkable book engages contemporary critical understandings of Jesus Christ including postcolonial, feminist, pluralist, ecological, and socialist to argue that the core convictions of traditional Christology remain a viable, valuable, and even indispensable witness to the gospel in an imperiled world. Contemporary theology often makes a virtue of deconstructing traditional claims about the person and work of Christ. Claims about the central significance of Jesus Christ appear to be oppressive, intolerant, and even violent. Jane Barter Moulaison engages several contemporary christological critiques of classical Christology and argues that such critical theologies are not undermined by the claim of Christ's central significance but are rather radicalized by it. She ably re-reads the tradition that seeks to interpret Christ's saving activity in light of several contemporary theological and political concerns. In so doing, she suggests that there are extraordinary resources available to those who long for political and material transformation precisely through the abandonment of spiritualized answers to Jesus question: "Who do you say that I am?" Acknowledgments vii Introduction. “Pay the Debt” 1 Transcending the Limits of Privilege 2 The Importance of Incarnation 3 The Gifts of Nicene Theology 5 Christ as Exemplum and Sacramentum 8 The Virtue of Humility 10 Reading the Text of Scripture and the Text of the World 11 What Is Theological Critique? 14 The Design of This Book 17 1. “We Believe in One Lord, Jesus Christ”: Proclaiming Christ’s Lordship in the Midst of Empire 21 Postcolonialism and Empire Analyses 22 Contemporary Responses to Empire 23 Augustine’s Ambiguous Relationship with Imperial Power 27 Augustine’s Political Theology 28 Conclusion: Confessing Christ as Lord in the Midst of Empire 39 2. “Begotten of the Father before All Worlds”: Jesus Christ and Creation 41 Ecotheology and Sacramental Christology 42 Basil on the Diversity and Design of Nature 45 The Imago Dei and Likeness to God 48 Creation as Sign and Sacrament 49 Conclusion: Asceticism, Incarnation, and the Flourishing of Creation 56 3. “By Whom All Things Were Made”: Use and Enjoyment of Theological Language 63 Religious Longing and Linguistic Representation 66 Using the Things of the World 72 Critiquing and Ordering Desire 75 Scripture and Signs 78 Conclusion: Gender as Provisional Sign 80 4. “Very God of Very God”: Proclaiming Christ’s Divinity in a Pluralist Age 83 Unity and Particularity in the Meaning of Religion 84 Tolerance as a Secular Value 87 Athanasius and What It Means to Be Human 92 Divine Immanence and Transcendence 93 Conclusion: Confessing the Crucified One in Humility 102 5. “He Was Crucified for Us under Pontius Pilate”: Proclaiming the Cross in a Violent World 105 Models of Atonement 106 Demystifying the Cross 108 Atonement as Recapitulation 110 Conclusion: God’s Power in Suffering 119 6. “To Judge the Quick and the Dead”: Christ and the Redemption of Memory 121 Augustine and the Gift of Memory 125 The Problematic Nature of Forgiveness 130 The Economy of Forgiveness 132 Memory and Charity 135 Memory and Eucharist 136 The Eternal and the Mundane 138 Conclusion: Memory and the Future 140 Conclusion. “Inventory the Heritage”—Christology and Critique 141 Notes 145 Bibliography 169 Indexes 179