Most of us who participate regularly in worship are fairly good at conversing about Jesus Christ. We paraphrase pieces of a Creed, a Catechism, or share a meaningful prayer from one of our prayer books. However, increasingly, the people we rub shoulders with in contemporary living – at work, school, the supermarket, or our next door neighbours – have never heard about the Creed, a Catechism, a familiar prayer (to us) or even the story of Jesus in the Gospels! And yet, as disciples of Jesus Christ we should always be ready to give “an accounting for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15) – or at least be able to have an intelligent conversation about Jesus Christ with someone who inquires!
About 5 years into ministry as Bishop of Rupert’s Land, I became increasingly concerned about the fact that we were not equipping our members to be able to offer this conversation, even as the need in an increasingly post-Christian culture was becoming more acute. While obviously knowing that I couldn’t solve the problem myself, I nonetheless decided to make a disciplined effort to understand the challenge more fully and to be able to propose at least a few ideas in response. Knowing that I needed a lot of guided learning and rigorous critique, I enrolled in the extension PhD program at Durham University, UK. Eight years later (not easy to complete while doing full-time episcopal ministry) I finished my dissertation and graduated with a PhD degree in Theology, a better understanding of the problem, and a possible response.
The fundamental challenge was developing a faithful way to describe the person and work of Jesus Christ (a Christology) that was also intelligible to those with little or no background in, or knowledge of, the biblical story. I had to gain a good understanding of the (western) postmodern (or late modern) culture that we’re all currently immersed in. And part of that learning was coming to grips with the fact that all cultures are actually local expressions of living – very much dependent on place and time.
The next challenge was to then develop a Christology that was faithful to our inherited tradition, but was also accessible and meaningful to the people in our local communities. Many of our traditional Christological statements require some familiarity with classical Western philosophy as well as key portions of Scripture. And these statements are commonly couched in “apologetic” language – not meaning an ‘apology’, but rather a statement intended to convince the listener of its reasonableness with the hope of bringing them to accept the faith. But this could also be interpreted as being coercive. What about an honest description of the person and work of Jesus Christ as the Christian faith understands it, without any pressure on the listener to adopt it? For help with this I turned to the late 20th century historical theologian, Hans Frei. (Yale University) In his work, he stripped away what he referred to as the “front-loading’ of descriptive statements about Jesus Christ that introduced a subjective bias aimed at convincing the inquirer. Instead, he explored the Gospels to describe Jesus according to his words, his actions toward others, and his response to actions directed at him. The primary purpose of the Gospels was to describe the person and work of Jesus Christ to the listener (or reader) in such a way that they could “meet” the person of Jesus through the Gospel narratives if they were so inclined.
Keeping in mind what was important to members of our postmodern culture, descriptive statements about Jesus from the Gospel narratives could then be constructed that would be accessible and meaningful in understanding the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is all well and good but then I was faced with the challenge of putting these statements into the minds and hearts of members of our congregations. Compiling them in a book is a start, but how many of our parishioners are likely to even see, let alone read such a text? However, as Anglicans, one of the things that most of us have in common is participation in a liturgical worship service each Sunday. And in many of our churches, this principal service is a celebration of the Eucharist. Most of our Eucharistic Prayers follow an ancient format known as West Antiochene. And this prayer structure has two significant sections that are intended to be narratives describing God and specifically describing Jesus Christ — including his death and resurrection. So using this structure and many of the pieces that are familiar in our Eucharistic worship, I constructed a new Eucharistic Prayer that incorporates the culturally-accessible descriptive statements about Jesus Christ into these narrative sections. The result is a prayer text that can be used frequently, and in which members of the congregation will continually hear statements that describe Jesus in an intelligible way whether or not the listener has much previous exposure to the Christian faith.
In the years that followed my doctoral work, I prepared a manuscript proposal which was accepted late in 2022 by the publisher, Rowman and Littlefield, centred in Maryland, USA. My book became available in hardcover and in a Kindle edition in November 2024. It is entitled Developing a New Christology for a Postmodern Culture: Knowing Christ Today. I was encouraged by the comments from the peer-review – “his work is insightful and valuable because it draws us to the core questions of what it is to believe in God. Moreover, it is a warning that failure to reimagine and re-mythologize in each cultural situation is a failure of faith in the living God’s presence in the world.”
A book launch is planned for Sunday, February 23rd at 2:00 pm at St. John’s College, 92 Dysart Road, Winnipeg. You are all invited even if you have no intention of purchasing a copy of the book. Feel free to come out, to learn a little about the work, and to enjoy a post-launch reception in the College Cloister.
