Christ For Us Today – Promeity in the Christologies of Bonhoeffer and Kierkegaard

In 1944, Bonhoeffer famously asked ‘Who is Christ really, for us today?’ This question is ambiguous: ‘Christ for us’ points to an objective claim concerning the personal identity of Christ, while ‘for us today’ signals the need for ever new subjective value judgements and contextual appropriations. Does emphasis upon the promeity of Christ, like that found in the work of Bonhoeffer, volatilize the identity of Christ? Examination of the theme of promeity in the work of Bonhoeffer himself, as well as that of Kierkegaard, demonstrates that in the hands of both these Lutheran theologians promeity is acknowledged to be intrinsic to the fides quae creditur. The subjective appropriation and contextual character of Christology then proves to be a function of a prior and more decisive reality, namely the very identity of God in Christ for us.     

Christ‐Centered Concreteness: The Christian Activism of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr. were both pastors and theologians who wrestled with the meaning of Christ‐centered faithfulness for their time. They were advocates of social justice and human rights who resisted the temptation towards a secularizing two‐realms split that makes Christianity a private life religion; they defied contemporary laws and cultural norms, and they faced opposition to their work from many of their fellow Christians. We may learn from their prophetic witness for Christian faithfulness in our contexts by paying attention to their respective interpretations of the way of Jesus.     

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Asian Contextual Theology in relation to Minjung and Prajna of Inter‐being

Abstract: Dietrich Bonhoeffer remains an influential figure in inspiring Asian contextual theology of minjung (the poor). In addition to political reading of minjung, a Buddhist wisdom (prajna) offers a basis for understanding of religious dimension of minjung. However, there has been no discussion about Bonhoeffer's legacy of theology after Auschwitz in critical dialogue with Asian contextual theology.     

基督教关于成圣的思想及方法

基督教义中有关“成圣”的思想及其方法是指导基督徒意识形态的基本要素。“成圣”与终极关怀密切相关。本文阐述了新旧约圣经有关成圣的内容及多位有重要影响的神学家的观点,从而总结出基督教成圣的思想及成圣方法,继而找出基督教关于人生终极关怀(成圣)的路向。     

Christ as Culture 3: Christ as Drama

Abstract: Personal identity cannot exist without narrative coherence – without, that is to say, drama. Two sets of narratives make up the identity of Christ: a narrative of a human being among other human beings; and a narrative of the Son with the Father and the Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity insists that these narratives are the same. A culture is necessarily dramatic: a story of persons and their relationships. Thus Christ may be understood as drama and as culture. This identification has implications for the liturgy of the church.     

Christ as Culture 2: Christ as Art

Abstract: Art can be understood as experimenting with possible worlds. There is, however, a real world underlying the possible worlds – the world created by God. We do not have unmediated access to this world, and so must, and can, continue to be artists, and a loss of faith in the existence of the real world leads to a loss of the possibility of art. If Christ is to be understood as art, then the Father is the artist who experiments with a possible world, which is thus defined as the real world, through his Son, the Logos.     

Assumption,Union and Sanctification: Some Clarifying Distinctions

In this article I engage with the notion that Christ ought to be understood to have a fallen human nature because Christ sanctifies human nature, and it is fallen humanity that needs sanctifying. In opposition to this line of thought, I argue that the Son of God assumed an unfallen nature, but with the powers of fallenness operative within it, and that this notion is consistent with a distinct account of sanctification. In support of these claims, I develop distinctions between a conjoining union and a transferring union, and between the Chalcedonian union at the incarnation and the extension of that union on the cross. At the assumption a conjoining union occurred, not a transferring union. Christ sanctified his own nature, prior to a transferring union.