Abstract
This brief volume is a refreshingly candid overview of Christology from a relatively conservative, Lutheran perspective. Braaten is transparent in his claim that the ‘real Jesus has been lost and needs to be found’. For Braaten, this Jesus is the Jesus presented in the canonical Gospels.
He asks eight questions and gives an honest, uncluttered answer to each of the questions: What can we know about Jesus of Nazareth? How do Christians come to believe in Jesus? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Why do Christians believe that Jesus is ‘truly God’? Is Jesus unique – the one and only way of salvation? Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Was Jesus the founder of the Christian church? What does Jesus have to do with politics? At the end of each chapter, Braaten lists several questions for discussion.
To each of his chosen questions Braaten provides lucid, upfront answers, and is unafraid to debunk modern scholarship where necessary. On the historical Jesus, he writes in support of M. Kahler and his discrediting of the supposed distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. Braaten is scathing in his assessment of the Jesus Seminar, though he also tends to go overboard in his criticism of any who are involved in the study of the ‘historical Jesus’.
While he understands that Christians believe in Jesus because of the testimony of the Holy Spirit who speaks through the preaching of the word of God, Braaten seems to place less emphasis on the written word, and clearly does not support the inerrancy of Scripture.
He believes in a literal resurrection, and considers it vital to Christian faith and hope. Likewise, he asserts a high Christology: Jesus is truly God and truly man, and Braaten helpfully summarises the history of alternative Christologies that the orthodox church came to consider heretical. He believes that a high Christology is indispensable to soteriology (which he rather unhelpfully, in my view, calls ‘the logic of salvation’).
Braaten is quite candid about the uniqueness of Jesus as the only way of salvation, and clearly opposes any view that suggests all religions are authentic ways of salvation, though he also believes that dialogue with other religions is vital. While his chapter on the atonement is another helpful summary of atonement theories, his own conclusions are not particularly clear. His chapters on the church and politics follow a similar pattern of refreshing assessment of where scholarship is divided.
The book is stimulating for its frank assessment of past and present trends in scholarship. It sets out to be a kind of apologetic for ordinary Christian lay folks who have not had the luxury of a formal theological education. However, I suspect that other theological students will benefit precisely because it does not set out to be unhelpfully objective, but a beneficial subjective assessment from a standpoint of faith.