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The Disciples' Jesus: Christology as Reconciling Practice
The Disciples' Christology as Reconciling Practice by Tilley, Terrence...
302 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 1, 2017
Few theologians are able to bring top cutting edge insights from New Testament scholars, formidable knowledge of the major theologians, detailed points from Patristics, and bring these together into a constructive Christology that offers something new to the church. Tilley has done that.
His ability to work Fiorenza, Dunn, Sobrino, and McClendon into a short but satisfying reorientation of what Christology fundamentally is, is a noteworthy achievement.
His central point is that the Christ of the Gospels is known by practice. The Gospels were written in and through communities of recitation, the Gospel narratives point to belief as indivisible from the practices they imply, and thus, to confess Christ today is not to engage in the propositional nomenclature of the creeds so much as to carry out new embodiment of Christ's identity.
Some of the most interesting arguments of the book were sketching out how he understands the Gospels as not historical reports or literary accounts so much as scripts to re-embody Christ. Also his argument that we can no longer uphold a simple "two-natures" Christology because these terms in the original culture are fundamentally different from how we understand them today. So, he advocates new concepts to be faithful what he sees the older language approximating.
At some points I think Tilley reduces Christology to mere practice. He treats the healing miracles and exorcisms as reconciling practices, which seem to be skeptical towards them, but I think the average theologian that reads this book is in a place where they are not practicing Christ enough rather than too much!
His ability to work Fiorenza, Dunn, Sobrino, and McClendon into a short but satisfying reorientation of what Christology fundamentally is, is a noteworthy achievement.
His central point is that the Christ of the Gospels is known by practice. The Gospels were written in and through communities of recitation, the Gospel narratives point to belief as indivisible from the practices they imply, and thus, to confess Christ today is not to engage in the propositional nomenclature of the creeds so much as to carry out new embodiment of Christ's identity.
Some of the most interesting arguments of the book were sketching out how he understands the Gospels as not historical reports or literary accounts so much as scripts to re-embody Christ. Also his argument that we can no longer uphold a simple "two-natures" Christology because these terms in the original culture are fundamentally different from how we understand them today. So, he advocates new concepts to be faithful what he sees the older language approximating.
At some points I think Tilley reduces Christology to mere practice. He treats the healing miracles and exorcisms as reconciling practices, which seem to be skeptical towards them, but I think the average theologian that reads this book is in a place where they are not practicing Christ enough rather than too much!
January 23, 2010
This promised to be a very interesting look at Christology, but was ultimately very disappointing (and annoying!). He developed the promise of the basic idea well. The question he asks, basically, is "instead of looking as Christ through a creedal lens, what if we looked at Christ through the practices he engaged in and empowered his disciples to engage in?" These practices, as he shows, are through-and-through reconciling practices. From exorcisms and healings through teaching, forgiveness, and table-fellowship, it is clear that Jesus and the disciples reconciled social outcasts and women in a new community of equals. These sections basically rehash a lot of scholarship that has recently shown this to be true.
Yet Tilley's basic problem is that once he's laid this foundation, he never follows it up. We actually don't get to see what a "Christology" based on these practices is. Who is Jesus, given this? That is a question he just never answers, and by the end, this seems like a text that basically shows us what Tilley's political and ethical views are, without any moorings in his Christology (not that I disagree with his politics or his ethics - I don't - but they don't follow from his earlier argument).
In the end he simply gives up on the Christology part.
Yet Tilley's basic problem is that once he's laid this foundation, he never follows it up. We actually don't get to see what a "Christology" based on these practices is. Who is Jesus, given this? That is a question he just never answers, and by the end, this seems like a text that basically shows us what Tilley's political and ethical views are, without any moorings in his Christology (not that I disagree with his politics or his ethics - I don't - but they don't follow from his earlier argument).
In the end he simply gives up on the Christology part.
October 27, 2014
A keynote for Tilley is his reading of the sheep and the goats. Sheep and goats alike fail to recognize Jesus when he confronts them on earth, but sheep perform Jesus' practices anyway and so are commended.
So the method here—Christology through practice rather than conceptual doctrine—is intriguing enough in its own right. It leads him back to extensive Gospel exegesis (relying heavily on Schüssler Fiorenza, Dunn, and Hurtado, among others), and frankly I'm glad to see it. Where the book really shines, however, is in the concluding chapters, where Tilley shows why he doesn't care for the standard systematic treatment of either Chalcedon or ecclesiology under the Christological rubric. The material on Chalcedon, in particular, is good enough I want to teach it, ideally in conjunction with something like the last chapter of Rowan Williams' Arius to show more directly the practical stakes in the conciliar decisions.
So the method here—Christology through practice rather than conceptual doctrine—is intriguing enough in its own right. It leads him back to extensive Gospel exegesis (relying heavily on Schüssler Fiorenza, Dunn, and Hurtado, among others), and frankly I'm glad to see it. Where the book really shines, however, is in the concluding chapters, where Tilley shows why he doesn't care for the standard systematic treatment of either Chalcedon or ecclesiology under the Christological rubric. The material on Chalcedon, in particular, is good enough I want to teach it, ideally in conjunction with something like the last chapter of Rowan Williams' Arius to show more directly the practical stakes in the conciliar decisions.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews