Jesus in the Power of the Spirit

by Choan-Seng Song

The pioneer of contextual theology concludes his trilogy on the person and message of Jesus with a profound meditation on the significance of Jesus for a post-Christian world. Probing and exploding the distortions of a religion too-long married to Western culture, Song finds Christians in the Third World who "are discovering that Jesus full of grace...is greater than the apostles and larger than Christianity." In their stories and insights, Song detects the Spirit of truth alive and well - although resisting domestication within the narrow confines of theologies that "curtail the magnitude of God's salvation" to suit their own preferences. In conversation with them and with Song, we are compelled - as was Jesus - by the Spirit to cross the frontiers of truth. After his explorations of the person of Jesus in Jesus, the Crucified People (1989) and of the message of Jesus in Jesus and the Reign of God (Fortress Press, 1993), Song here extends the picture in surprising ways. Whether in a Buddhist parable, a Rabbinic tale, a Yoruba drama, or the Tao Te Ching, Song finds the "open truth" of Jesus Christ at large in the world. In the end, for Song, the Incarnation is a more subtle, far-reaching, and earth-shattering event than one simple historical moment - or movement - can contain. As its Spirit-driven winds reach our shores, we are invited by Song on a theological journey to wherever it prompts.

350 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Professor Choan-Seng (C.S.) Song is Professor of Theology and Asian Cultures at the Pacific School of Religion at Berkeley, U.S.A. He is President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Professor Song has made seminal contributions to the exploration of interactions between Christian faith and contemporary social-political and cultural-religious situations in Asia. His many publications include Jesus, The Crucified People; Jesus and the Reign of God; Jesus in the Power of the Spirit; Third-Eye Theology; The Believing Heart; Invitation to Story Theology.

Reviews

[Ryan Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Song concludes his Cross in the Lotus World trilogy by putting Christianity to task for rejecting and warping the message of Jesus. This volume, more so than the previous two, is a withering critique of the ways that Christianity has denied the spirit of God working to bring to pass God’s reign in the world, by doubling down on its exclusive claim to salvation. Song peppers the reader with incisive and penetrating questions throughout and explains how the power of the spirit compelled Jesus to cross over and expand the frontiers of his religious and cultural institutions, inviting and demanding a faith that puts the expansive and loving vision of Jesus first and foremost in a way of life that leads to actual salvation in this world for the poor and oppressed regardless of religious affiliation, rather than a self-satisfied and smug monopoly on an eternal reward in the next life. Song is a prophet for our day calling Christianity to repent. His words ring with profundity, earnestness, and power.

[Deborah Brunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very excellent perspective of how Jesus lived and acted in the power of the spirit, shaking up our concepts of hierarchy and religious institutional power, and stressing the capacity for all humanity to live in this spirit, in relationship with each other, in life giving ways, whether they know Jesus or not.

I think this quote says it all.
"In his life and ministry he stressed over and over, in story after story, through parable after parable, by means of action over action, that salvation is not theological if it is not ethical. He was not tired of driving home to the religious authorities that salvation has little to do with God if it has little to do with people in need and in pain."