Thinking Christ : Christology And Contemporary Critics

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?”