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The College Student's Introduction to Christology (Theology)

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There are many new books about Jesus Christ.The kinds of books that Catholic scholars were writing changed about forty-five years ago. What that change was about is the topic of Professor Loewe's book. He has presented the material in a fashion that gives students the backgound to grasp the complex questions of the historical and modern mystery of Jesus Christ. Traditional questions and contemporary scholarship are unfolded as Professor Loewe explores the various approaches and doctrines of christology. This is a very easy to read and understand book about a very difficult subject.

The old joke used to go that the fastest way to end a promising career in the Catholic Church was to teach morality. The teaching of Christology ranks a close second. It is the religious equivalent of the wife's question to her husband, "Does this dress make me look fat?" Uninitiated students of Christology generally come into the classroom in three camps: "Jesus is just plain divine, so what's the problem?" "Jesus is the greatest man who ever lived, so what's the problem?" and "This is all medieval hair-splitting, you are creating a problem." [Apollinarianism, Arianism, and Lethargy, in that order, but I dare you to say it out loud.] No one is ever satisfied or pleased with Christology: mystery has a way of disconcerting.

Questions of the nature, person, and purpose of Jesus Christ, not to mention the sources available to us, demand the most critical application, particularly among those with hopes of an afterlife. Writing a Christology text for college students who believe they will live forever is no mean feat, and William P. Loewe carries a wry smile throughout the work in acknowledgement that he is asking his reader to stretch theological imagination and parochial upbringing to new boundaries. He respects and trusts his audience without compromise of his tradition and sources; it is not a "preachy" book in the pejorative sense of the word, and the author engages in his own metaphor to unpack the meaning of terms such as "The Kingdom of God.'"

Loewe treats of his subject in three major segments: the question of the historical Jesus, belief in the Resurrection, and "the Christological process." Section one casts a broad net and probably would be better divided again. Loewe begins with the late Enlightenment enthusiasm to recover, by scientific [i.e., historical] method, the life and times of Christ, beginning with Hermann Reimarus [d. 1768]. Prior to Reimarus the substance of the life of Jesus of Nazareth was a matter of faith, with the Four Gospels accepted as historical documents. Loewe traces the "Quest of the Historical Jesus," as it has come to be called, to its crashing halt in 1906 when Albert Schweitzer demonstrated how bizarre and off track this research and speculation was becoming.

The twentieth century study of Jesus took a different turn as Protestant biblical scholars, notably Rudolf Bultmann, put forward the first principles of Biblical analysis or criticism in use today. By the 1950's scholars had come to understand that Gospel evangelists were, first and foremost, inspired theologians and their Gospels were theological documents of meaning. Loewe goes on to unpack the significance of Jesus' deeds, but also of his proclamation of "The Kingdom of God," the various titles he ascribed [and did not ascribe] to himself, and the parables. Chapter Six is a particularly well crafted presentation on Jesus' call to repentance--the response to the arrival of the kingdom--and an effort to draw from modern psychology the degree and kind of moral change that Jesus was exhorting.

Loewe's second section treats of the Resurrection. Modern scholarship has identified two distinct biblical types: the empty tomb stories, and the appearance stories. The author explains how each evangelist has depicted appearances of the living Christ in harmony with the unique purpose of the Gospel overall. Luke, for example, depicts Jesus sending his disciples forth from Jerusalem, to continue the theme of Jerusalem Mother Church that will carry into Luke's narrative in the Acts of the Apostles. Mathew, by contrast, portrays this post-Easter missionary dismissal in Galilee, for reasons explained by the author. Chapter Eleven draws out the connection between the Resurrection and eternal destiny as understood by New Testament authors.
The final segment is the unfolding of what we might call the science of Christology. With the death of the apostles speculation over the meaning of New Testament events, and particularly over the nature of Jesus, became widespread over the four centuries after Jesus' death. In truth, the Christian Church itself, led by its bishops and influenced by its multicultural expanse, wrestled to define a precise formulation for a multitude of questions raised in the Scriptures themselves as well as philosophers of the time.

This is the so-called era of the Christological Councils [Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon] that met between 325 and 451 CE. Chapter Fifteen explains what the Church has been able to define as matter of revealed Faith, and in some instances, what it has not. Pastorally speaking, the results of Chalcedon defined the presence of united divine and human natures in Christ, but it never went further to teach definitively on the consciousness of Christ. The Christian Church wisely adhered to the Pauline dictum that Christ was "like us in all things but sin" and the advice of Church fathers that "what is not assumed is not saved" [i.e., if Jesus had not shared the human experience completely--limited knowledge, confines of space and time, etc.--the human race would not have been saved. ] Such theological realities are sometimes heard as denials of Christ's divinity--let the teacher beware.

In the final analysis this work achieves what it set out to do: introduce the student to the Jesus of Nazareth through an understanding of his Jewish setting, the historical/theological sources by which he is known, and the manner in which his followers have attempted to revivify his meaning in each successive generation. Whether every generation was or is consoled by the attemps....that is beyond my pay grade. Tread carefully.

Dr. Lowe's book has given me new insights into Jesus Christ. Lowe uses a "low, ascending" approach to Christology, which starts with the quest for the historical Jesus, then moves up toward Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God. Lowe presents many viewpoints on Jesus, and seems to lean toward a more concrete understanding of topics such as original sin, sin in general, the resurrection of Jesus, which I find quite refreshing and very interesting. I would highly recommend this book to those who wish to have solid foundation of understanding of Christology.

Loewe's book is well organized and for those of us who like that format for studying, this is a great book. It seemed to me that the author was so comfortable with the subject that he just carried me along with his serious, careful, and readable style.