Gela

Gela
He leads me beside still waters

Monday 6 August 2012

Christology and Theology of Chaplaincy

Kate Bradford

Christology is the way of speaking about Jesus. This can be explicit or implicit, low or high Christology. As a broad Christian discipline, Christology seeks to explain the relationship between theology and anthropology.

At a particular level it explores the relationship between the human and divine natures of the historical person Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, or the Anointed One. To hold a high Christology is to focus particularly on the divine attributes of the Christ, to hold a low Christology is to focus on the human attributes, or cheap benefits of Jesus’ ministry. Christology can be expressed in terms that differ depending on the perspective of the commentator; as such a view can be either from above or below.

In addition to various points of view a Christology focusing objective and subjective frames may be employed. However, Christology whether high or low, is always discussed to some extent from ‘below’ or within the subjective frame as it is a view from a human perspective. Humanly speaking no exhaustive Christology can be formulated, but rather tends towards a position based on ‘evidence’ concerning the Divine, contained within the texts of scripture as recorded in the Old Testament (OT)and New Testament (NT) of the Bible.

It is important to note that there are a number of Christological positions formulated that do not rely upon the Bible as an authoritative source. There are other redactions of the Biblical material with other disciplines. Examples of these would be found in feminist or liberation or post-modern Christologies or even much more broadly there are Islamic, Buddhist or atheist Christologies. The point here is that every human holds a Christology of some sort.

The implications of these various Christologies for the Theology of Chaplaincy are foundational. Behind all chaplaincy work every chaplain operates from either an implicit or explicit Christology. Whatever Christological position a chaplain holds this position will set the chaplain’s deep agenda.

At a cosmic level Christology explores the relationship between God the Father and his role in creation and then entering the created order. (John 1,Col 1, Heb 1, Phil 2) At a local level Christology focuses on Jesus’ earthly ministry (Synoptic Gospels), the nature of his ongoing relationship to humanity and the particular intimacy that he shares with his followers.

Christology has two concerns; who is Jesus Christ in himself, and flowing from this, what is Jesus Christ for us? However to press these category differences too far is to begin to artificially differentiate between his nature and mission.

For Christian chaplains there are huge implications that flow from our understanding of Christology and our internalized positions. Jesus tells his followers that they are salt and light; yet immediately tied to this is the possibility that salt can be bad or lose its saltiness and likewise light can be poor or even hidden. From this we can derive a view that it is possible for Christians to hold poor, bad, dull, misguided or undeveloped Christologies that will negatively affect the ministry/witness of the Christian. It is quite possible, for these underlying beliefs often remain unarticulated or even unacknowledged but never-the-less powerful and formative.

What a chaplain believes about Jesus in himself and his function will direct the focus and emphasis of their chaplaincy work. The theories of functional Christology are tied to views of the atonement. These views seek to explain how it is possible that imperfect, incomplete human beings can relate to a perfect and complete God, and how this is made possible by the God-man Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Of course there is a second conversation to be had after this conversation. The second necessary conversation is: how is the Chaplain to be in the world. Most chaplaincy thought and theory is around the second conversation while ignoring the implications, importance and dependence on the first conversation.

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