In an increasingly secular, contemporary (postmodern) culture, many people have no understanding of Christianity or the importance and relevance of Jesus Christ. As a result, the Church’s traditional liturgical texts, as well as the church-oriented language often used by Christians to explain the Gospel, are not helpful or accessible to those outside the Church. To respond to this challenge, the author uses a semiotic method, based on the work of Robert Schreiter, to engage and describe the nature of contemporary postmodern culture. Using a narrative approach to the Gospels based on the work of the 20th century historical theologian, Hans Frei, the author derives a more modest, open-ended Christology which will ‘converse’ with its cultural context and continue to be interpreted within contemporary Christian communities. Using social values analysis from a particular contemporary culture, the author then forms biblical statements about the person of Jesus Christ that are congruent with those values, and uses them to construct a new Eucharistic Prayer. The result is a liturgical prayer that is accessible and enables members of that local culture to be embraced by, and to embrace, the identity of Jesus Christ.

Christology defines the very heart of the Christian faith. Traditionally the study of the person and work of Christ has been understood largely as an exercise in biblical exegesis or historical and doctrinal analysis. Rarely, if ever, has Christology focused on the changing cultural paradigms that have deeply influenced the development of human knowledge and self understanding. This unique volume by Colin Greene reverses that trend and, in line with developments in modern cultural theory, explores the interlaces between successive cultural contexts and the story of Jesus to which the Scriptures bear witness. Starting with an examination of the three main Christological trajectories that have dominated the history of Christology--cosmological Christology, political Christology, and anthropological Christology--Greene proceeds to concentrate on the subtle and complex linkages between Christology and the sociopolitical paradigms that have bolstered the epistemological assumptions of modernity. Greene's wide-ranging study closes with a creative exploration into how Christology might once again provide us with a Christ-centered vision of reality.

First Published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In a strongly worded "notification," in February of 2005, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith denounced Jesuit Roger Haight's award-winning, best-selling book Jesus Symbol of God as containing "grave doctrinal errors." Like a number of theologians before him-Hans Küng, Charles Curran, Anthony de Mello, Tissa Balasuriya, and Jacques Dupuis-Haight has been banned from teaching as a Catholic theologian. In its overall criticism of the book, the Congregation, still under the direction of the then Cardinal Ratzinger, charged that Haight "subordinates the contents of the faith to their plausibility and intelligibility in post-modern culture." For his part, Haight says: "I look at American Catholicism with a population more and more educated in the faith. Many college and university students are used to religious pluralism, and are asking how they can square it with the Catholic faith. I try to put critical words to their experience and keep their experience in touch with the tradition. My fear is that educated Catholics will walk out if there isn't space for an open attitude to other religions." The Future of Christology covers much the same ground as Jesus Symbol of God, though in a much more accessible and compact format. The earlier book was written as a textbook; this one, with a wider audience in mind. In the final chapter, Haight responds to the numerous reviews Jesus Symbol of God received, both pro and con.

This book is a theological/pastoral response to Vatican II's call to develop our cultures as outlined in section 2 of De Ecclesia in Mundo Huius Temporis: The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. It provides a historical perspective on the Church with brief outlines of the Church's relations to the Chinese, Jewish, Muslim, and Latino cultures. The author then reviews some of the defects in our present multiculturalism and suggests means for healing and developing our culture in the United States.

In the twentieth century a number of novelists, artists, and filmmakers, resurrected the life of Jesus genre made so popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by Renan, Strauss, and others. In addition, novelists Norman Mailer, Jose Saramago, and Ricci have written their own "gospels." Burns' collection--taken from a conference at a 2004 regional SBL meeting--explores the ways in which these portraits of Jesus continue to fulfill the familiar observation that people tend to depict Jesus in their own image. In several of the portraits of Jesus, the artists offer a creative response to the realities of the human condition of our time.

Troeltsch's struggle with historicism sets the stage for a proposal that Christology be done from within and from ahead. Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics and Schleiermacher's experiential theology inform a Christology from within that is rooted in tradition and experience, while Pannenberg's notion of proleptic eschatological fulfilment serves as resource for a Christology from ahead. This volume develops a hermeneutical Christology that takes into account the historical contingency of knowledge, and seeks a Christology beyond the objectivism of timeless truth and the relativism of absolutised contextuality. The book is concluded with an examination of the convergence of critical traditionality, experiential appropriation and eschatological prolepsis in the Christology of the apostle Paul. The author explores how Christology might respond to the scandal of universality in postmodernity without defaulting on its claim to transcontextual referentiality.

It is not a changing culture, reduced resources, or a rescinding Christian memory that creates the greatest challenges for the church in the West. It is the lack of a clear commitment to the intentional, authentic, and contextual expressions of missional disciple-making, which will shape current and future generations of followers of Jesus to express the values of the Kingdom today. This book offers stimulating historical, biblical, and theological reflections on discipleship and considers some of the possibilities and opportunities afforded to us by our post-Christian context. Missional discipleship allows the missio Dei to shape us in our engagement our practices and sustain us in the lifelong journey of becoming and developing disciples that follow Jesus today.

Already hailed as a landmark in contemporary Catholic theology, Jesus Symbol of God surveys scriptural data, the key moments in the development of doctrine, and the distinctive horizons of our contemporary world to develop a comprehensive and systematic christology for our time. The task of christology is to explain what it means to say that Jesus is the bearer and revealer of God in the Christian community, the decisive mediation of God's salvation -- or, in other words, the symbol of God.

Urban theology affirms the importance of context - notably the place of the city - in theological reflection. However, it has often been confined to particular contexts or theological camps and thus failed to engage with the fluidity of contemporary urban societies. 'Voices from the Borderland' presents an overview of urban theology, arguing that the twenty-first century demands a dialogical model of theology that enacts progressive change. The volume draws on studies of the multicultural and multi-faith British urban experience and situates these within the wider international context. The works of influential theologians in the field are examined and the dialogue between theology, globalisation, post-colonialism, postmodernism and "post-religious" urban culture critically explored. The volume is unique in bringing together urban liberation theology, urban black theology, reformist urban theology, globalisation urban theology, and post-religious urban theology.