Developing a New Christology for a Postmodern Culture - by Donald D Phillips (Hardcover)

About the Book

From a semiotic description of secular, postmodern culture, the author distills its primary social values; and using a narrative approach to the Gospel's description of the person and work of Jesus Christ, constructs a Eucharistic Prayer that is accessible to inquirers, and equips church members with the vocabulary needed to share their faith.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"Communication of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for transformation is Phillips' goal in Developing a New Christology for a Postmodern Culture: Knowing Christ Today. He knows what's been tried and failed in the past. On the one hand, faithfulness in the form of antiquated expression, while it is safe, leaves the Christian message hovering at 50,000 ft - it does not communicate to our time and place. The church is called to faithfulness for the time it is in. On the other, fitting in and uncritically reflecting the values of the time and place, while it aims at relevance, it hits redundance dead centre. It means that the transformative power of the Gospel is translated into cultural common sense for apologetic purposes. Deploying theological, social scientific and liturgical resources, Phillips articulates a missional theology that engages culture with the transformative message of the Gospel. And he shows us how it works in evaluation and articulation of Christologies of eucharistic prayers that are both faithful and intelligible for engagement now." --Richard R. Topping, President and Vice-Chancellor, Vancouver School of Theology

"Each generation of Christians needs to re-imagine what it means to believe in God and to be a disciple of Jesus. Not to do so is not only to utter nonsense in lieu of proclamation, but to traduce the gospel message by locking it in outdated forms or abandoning it to re-echoed familiarities. But this task of re-mythologisation is one that is frowned on by many as somehow impious - and many theologians and preachers baulk at the task. Donald Phillips has here taken up this challenge. 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 re-imagine and re-mythologise in each cultural situation is a failure of faith in the living God's presence in the world." --Thomas O'Loughlin, Professor Emeritus of Historical Theology, University of Nottingham

About the Author

Bishop Donald D. Phillips, PhD, is honorary fellow of St. John's College, University of Manitoba.