Kindle Notes & Highlights
The almost technical formula en christō, “in Christ,” serves as a main soteriological category in Paul. Although often read individualistically, for Paul it is a deeply communal conception: it denotes the whole body of Christ, the church. Both individuals and (local) churches can be found to be in Christ.
Nowadays, we hear so much about the need for theology to be contextual, to relate to the questions that arise in a particular context. We have to understand that, in fact, these early christological disputes were in themselves contextual responses to the culture of the day, the Greek/Hellenistic culture, which was philosophically and conceptually oriented, in contrast to the Hebrew/Judaic culture, which was less philosophical and more holistic in its approach to divine things.
Fittingly, Barth’s theology is often called “dialectical theology”—or “theology of crisis”—as it presupposes both a gulf and an incompatibility between humanity and God. Only God, in his love and freedom, may reach across the divide.
A helpful definition
Roman Catholic commentator Hans Urs von Balthasar brilliantly called Christ the “hour glass” in Barth’s theology: all dealings of the Triune God are filtered through Christ.5 Similarly, Anglican commentator Alister McGrath says, “Every theological proposition in the Church Dogmatics may be regarded as christological, in the sense that it has its point of departure in Jesus Christ.”6 As a result, Barth did not give any credit to “revelations” outside Christ.
8 Where he sharply diverged from his own tradition was his novel idea of the Christ as both the electing God and the elected human being: Christ is “not only the Elected. He is also Himself the Elector.”
One of my favorite ideas from Barth
In other words, in contrast to the traditional Reformed position, it is not individuals who are the object of election but rather Jesus the Christ.
While not limited to the African context,58 a distinctive feature of African Christologies is engagement with the ancestors.59 The reason is simple: “In many African societies ancestral veneration is one of the central and basic traditional and even contemporary forms of cult.”
