2000 Christological Controversies

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process of evangelization has been defective andincomplete, leaving the pre-Christian animisticbelief-system and practices virtually intact butfused with some Christian elements.The Australian anthropologist-missiologistALAN TIpPETT has vividly described his own careful observation of the phenomenon in parts ofMexico and Guatemala. In these nominallyChristian communities Tippett saw stark evidence of the old animistic belief-system and associated practices in the devotion of Catholic Indians of Mayan descent. He watched them ontheir knees approaching shrines more Aztecthan Christian, and others putting paper orcloth under their bloodstained sic] knees getcharged with power for magical or healing purposes, all being done as Christian ceremony.

Tippett also discovered Christian strands ofthought in the dominantly animistic context,which he found to be typically portrayed in thenative Mexican autobiography, Juan the Chamula.Juan, who saw himself as a faithful Catholic, believed, among other things,

that the Savior watches over people on theroad. He died on a cross to save the wayfarerfrom the Jews, whom he equates with devils,and who were supposedly cannibalistic.

Originally the sun was cold as the moon ,but i t grew warmer when the Holy Child wasborn. He was the son of a virgin among theJews, who sent her away because they knewthe child would bring light. st. Joseph tookher to Bethlehem, where the Child was born.The sun grew warmer and the day brighter.The demons ran away and hid in the mountain ravines . (pp. 21-22)

Christo-paganism may manifest a variety of elements: the survival of discrete cultural complexes; the persistence of the old mythical beliefsystem; the demand for a therapeutic system;and a vivid notion of the living dead. Many casescould be cited from various parts of the world,both Protestant and Catholic. Many Catholics areintensely aware of the problem; not all instancesare as extreme as those mentioned above, but resemble more what DAVID HESSELGRAVE calls multireligion. For example, some Batak ProtestantChristians in Indonesia visit the gravesites of important ancestors at Easter; they make food andother offerings to them and seek their blessing onthe temporal affairs of their descendants . ThoseBataks from the more profoundly converted regions shun such things. Tippett observed a vividexample of Christo-paganism in Australia: aboriginal dream ime paintings displayed behind theCommunion Table.

Such phenomena are the very antithesis of pos-sessio which is the investing of an existing practice with specifically and exclusively Christiansignificance. They represent an ANIMISM merely

Christological Controversiessubmerged, not replaced. The indigenous paganculture has been suppressed by an external cultural power, not converted. The pagan worldviewhas been neither adequately critiqued nor displaced by a Christian one; the old associatedpractices have been neither converted to authentically Christian use nor supplanted by appropriate functional substitutes.

JOHN McINTOSHBibliography. J. Bavinck, Introduction to the Scienceof Missions; D. Hesselgrave, Communicating ChristCross-Culturally; P Hiebert, Anthropological Insights forMissionaries; L. Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures; W

Madsen, Christopaganism A Study of Mexican Syn-cretisms; A Tippett, Christopaganismor IndigenousChristianity? pp . 13-34.Christological Controversies. Owing to the central place of Christ in Christian thought (quitedifferent from, say, the place of Buddha in Buddhist thought), there has always been controversyover his person and work. The early centurieswitnessed the rise and virtual demise of severalChristological heresies which in their day threatened the developing stream of orthodoxy. TheEbionites thought of Jesus Christ as a human,Jewish Messiah, to the neglect of his divinity. TheGnostics argued that the incarnation was atemporary donning of human flesh, for appearance's sake, by some deity less than the high God.The Arians conceived of the Son of God as alesser deity. Denying the two natures, they arguedthat the nature of the Son took the place of thehuman soul in the historical Jesus Christ. Bycontrast, Apollinarius, while agreeing with theArians that Christ had but one nature, held thatnature to be thoroughly divine, displacing anyhuman soul , such that the human properties ofChrist were nothing more than the animal elements found in human nature. Monarchianism,in both its forms, preserved the unity of the Godhead by embracing merely functional distinctions between the Father and the Son, effectivelydenying the Son's subsistence as God. The Nestorians, eager to preserve Christ's human experience, effectively divided his humanity and divinity so sharply that it was difficult to see how theyavoided embracing two persons.

Some of these heresies have resurfaced in newforms during the last one hundred years or so.Arianism, for instance, lies at the heart of theChristological convictions of the Jehovah's Witnesses; some forms of New Age thought seem remarkably similar to some features of ancientGnosticism. The reason for the chasms that divide people with one set of Christological convictions from those with a quite different set is thatall sides have insisted that Christology matters. tmatters, finally, for how one understands Christianity, and thus salvation itself-and thereforethe church's mission. The same sorts of things

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Christological Controversiescould be sa id about the more radical of the assorted Christologies generated by skeptical application of the historical-critical method during thelast two centuries cf. Henry; Runia) .

But the most recent Christological controversies have been generated not so much by alternative interpretations of the sacred text, as by constructions that simultaneously recognize thevalidity of many elements of orthodox Christology while setting it in a framework that relativizes it. Thus Panikkar argues that, while Christis incarnated in Jesus, Christ cannot be identifiedwith Jesus: Christ is always more than Jesus.Christianity may have a monopoly on 'Jesus, butnot on Christ. God has disclosed himself inChrist, and doubtless for Christians the historicalconnection is Jesus . But for Hindus, Christ hasmanifested himself in a different form appropriate to that religious structure . Thus there is acosmic Christ. Rahner would add that this

means there are anonymous Christians, peoplewho are Christians without ever having heard ofChrist, or even in some cases who have repudiated Christianity as they have experienced i twhile accepting the (unrecognized) Christ intheir own religious heritage.

Something similar is done with some forms ofLogos-Christologies. f the Word is the light thatenlightens every person (John 1 9), then it wouldbe wrong to insist that Christianity has some decisive advantage. In an alternative construction,Hick argues that the only way genuine pluralismcan prevail among the religions is to postulatethat there is an ultimate Reality (not even God,since some religions have more to do with ritualand veneration of ancestors than with any deity)that stands more or less equivalently behind allreligions . Thus it is entirely appropriate forChristians to worship within the framework ofChristian theology; it is inappropriate for them totell others that they ought to do so too .In this way, some positions espoused in themost recent Christological controversies wipe outthe sense of mission, classically conceived, inwhich Christian believers share and proclaim theg06d news that in Christ God is reconciling tohimself a people from every tongue and peopleand tribe and nation. That is now likely to be dismissed as cultural imposition or, worse, colonialmanipulation. The only Christological heresy leftis the view that there is such a thing as Christological heresy. You may believe what you will. butyou must never say that the eternal salvation ofanyone is in any way tied to belief in a particularJesus Christ .

The issues at stake are extraordinarily complex. Here it is enough to say that the exclusiveclaims advanced by and in behalf of Christ cannot be so easily dismissed. Despite protests,Christians who ostensibly believe in the ChristianChrist while adhering to the views of Panikkar or190

Hick are not believing the Christian Christ at all.Some of the erroneous views are deeply rooted indemonstrably false exegesis. More importantly,Christ is not a cipher or an abstract notion thatcan be dropped into any religious structure.Jesus Christ belongs to the pattern of redemptivehistory that is reflected in the Bible's plot-line.Within the meta-narrative of Scripture the biblical Christ has a coherent place . Remove himfrom this plotline, and it is not the same Christ.To put it another way, one cannot properly appreciate the biblical Christ (whether to accept orreject hjm) apart from a firm .grasp of the Bible'sstory-line in which he is embedded. In that casethe urgency of mission is retained.One must also say that many Christologicalcontroversies around the world at first glanceseem less traumatic, since they have to do withthe attempt to anchor gospel presentation ofChrist in the Scriptures while finding lines ofburning relevance to local hearers. f the appealfor relevance is primary, however, the Christ wepresent may become domesticated to the culture.On the other hand, every generation, every culture, needs to continually ask the foundationalquestions regarding who Christ is, as the Bibleportrays him. t is not surprising that poor believers in forsaken barrios fasten on Jesus' sensitivity to the poor and his striking calls for justice.I t is not surprising that African believers note theemphasis on the corporate nature of the peopleof God. I t is not surprising that zealous believersin the Western tradition are struck by Jesus' urgent calls to active mission. This may be all to thegood. The test in every case is whether some elements of biblical Christology are being blown outof proportion while others are ignored. The finalsynthesis needs to be recognizably the Christ ofthe Bible. Alternatively, even if the emphases aredifferent, there must be a humble pursuit of biblical balance in the efforts of every generationand culture of believers to articulate who JesusChrist is, as he is disclosed in Scripture . Christological controversy that is seeking to recover theholism of biblical Christology in a world thatconstantly veers toward assorted reductionismsis a healthy thing.

DONALD A. CARSONE LSO Uniqueness of Christ .

Bibliography. R. F Berkey and S. A. Edwards, eds.,Christology in Dialogue; L. Boff, Je sus Christ Liberator;J. M Bonino , ed., Fa ces ofJes us: Latin merican Christologies; H. O. J. Brown , Heresies: Th e Image of Christ inthe Minor of Heresy and Orthodoxy From the Apostles toth e Present; D. A. Carson, The Ga gging of God; S TDavis, ed ., Encoumering Jesus: A Debate on Christo logy;S. Escobar, Miss iology 19 (1991) : 315-32; C. F H.Henry, Scriptu re Tra dition and i nterpretation pp.216-33; J Hick. The Metaphor o( God incarnate: Chri.s-to ogy in a Plu ra listic Age; P. Jones , Th e Gnos tic EmpireStrikes Back; K. Koyama, Missiologv 12 (1984: 435-47;


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L. Newbigin, SiT 31:1 (1978) : 1-22; R. Panikkar, TheUnknown Christ of Hinduism; J. Parratt, ReinventingChristianity: African Theology Today; K Runia, The Pres-ent-Day Christological Debate; S. J. Samartha, OneChrist Many Religions: Toward a Revised ChristologyE. B. Udo, Guest Christology: An Interpretative View ofthe Christological Problem in Africa.hristology . Every facet of biblical Christology

could be tied to mission, in that the biblical plotline that sets out God's mission to redeem from alost race a vast number from every tongue andtribe and people and nation is focused on JesusChrist, without whom the missionary plotlinewould be incoherent.

On the basis of John 20:21, a substantialamount of contemporary mission literature conceives of the task of mission in terms of incarnation (see INCARNATIONAL MISSION). The Gospel ofJohn is perhaps the clearest in enunciating thedoctrine of incarnation, and here too the resurrected Jesus tells his disciples, As the Father hassent me, I am sending you .In general terms (i.e., apart from the meaningof this verse), a link between the incarnation andmission is valuable on two fronts. Christologically, it focuses on the unique humility of theeternal Son in becoming a human being in orderto perform his Father's will, accomplish his mission, and rescue God's guilty image bearers fromsin and death. Metaphorically, i t is a suggestivemodel of our mission: as the eternal Son enteredour world to accomplish his mission, so Christ'sdisciples in mission must, as it were, incarnatethemselves into the worlds they are called toserve and evangelize.

On the other hand , it is doubtful that John20:21 can responsibly be called on to support thisemphasis. As Kostenberger has shown in exhaustive exegesis, the analogical argument in thatverse draws in a major theme in the FourthGospel: the sencling of the Son, the sencling of thedisciples , with entailments in the authority of thesender and the obedience of the one sent.John's Gospel does not set forth our going as anincarnation. The observation is more than a

narrow point of picky exegesis: under the guise ofthe incarnation model of Christian missionsome now so focus -on '.'presenCe and identification with those being served that the proclamatory, kerygmatic, good news elements arelargely suppressed.

More broadly, the biblical Christology that depicts Christ as both divine and human developsan awareness of the wholeness of Christian mission. This mission is God s initiative; i t is undertaken with God s sovereign authority. Yet thismission signals more than divine presence, morethan information graciously provided about thisGod; i t signals the Son 's costly adoption of ournature, living our life and dying our death. In this

Christologylight, the many chapters of the canonical Gospelsthat describe Jesus' ministry during the days ofhis flesh betray a daunting concern for the wholehuman being. Addressed are questions of health ,justice, integrity, marriage , generosity, family,priorities, humility, truth-telling, death, compassion, and much more. Nor is this the exclusivepreserve of the Gospels. Elsewhere, for instance,Jesus' identity with the human race not onlyqualifies him to be our priest and our substitute ,but ensures that his own strong cries and tearsmake him uniquely fitted to empathize with ours,and thus also to save to the uttermost all whocome to God by him (Hebrews).Nevertheless, the wide embrace of Jesus' concerns for broken human beings must never obscure the fact that such concerns are set within aplotline that takes him to the cross. His socialand humanitarian passions cannot legitimatelybe given independent standing. They are tied tothe dawning of the kingdom, whose consummation awaits his return, and entry into which is finally secured by the new birth (John 3:3, 5), itselfpredicated on the cross. The Son of Man did notcome to be served, but to serve, and to give hislife a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Moreover,substantial elements in the ethics of Jesus turnon the critical importance of living with eternity'svalues in view. Thus Christian mission, whileproperly being wholistic, must focus on thepromulgation of the good news that men andwomen can be accepted by God, both now andforever, because of what God has done in ChristJesus.

Genuine Christian mission is impossible apartfrom genuine Christian love, and genuine Christian love is both modeled and impelled by the Father's sending of the Son out of love for this lostworld, and by the Son's willing sacrifice on ourbehalf. f we are all by nature children of wrath(Eph. 2:3), God's love for us is not a function ofhow lovable we are, but of how loving he is. Insofar as Christians learn to receive that love, andlearn to measure their poor love by his great love,so also they begin to learn that the love that impels Christian mission grows from within cf.2 Cor. 5:14-15). That is precisely the reason whyPaul thought of himself as a debtor to all (Rom.1: 4 ~ : always- there is the e ~ f love to .be paid,for Christ has paid it for us.

This elementary but fundamental Christologyhas a cllrect bearing on Christian mission. This isnot sentimentalism, as if the cross of Christ werea symbol of love and nothing more. f Jesus' sacrifice did not in fact aim to achieve something,then far from being an effective example of selfsacrificial love, it reduces to sheer insanity. But infact it did achieve something: the reconciliationto God their Maker and Redeemer of a vast number of God's image bearers , otherwise lost in pathetic and evil rebellion. In that framework,

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2000 Christological Controversies