Future of Christology [Hardcover]

Roger D. Haight (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 2005

In a strongly worded "notification," in February of 2005, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith denounced Jesuit Roger Haight's award-winning, best-selling book Jesus Symbol of God as containing "grave doctrinal errors." Like a number of theologians before him—Hans Küng, Charles Curran, Anthony de Mello, Tissa Balasuriya, and Jacques Dupuis—Haight has been banned from teaching as a Catholic theologian. In its overall criticism of the book, the Congregation, still under the direction of the then Cardinal Ratzinger, charged that Haight "subordinates the contents of the faith to their plausibility and intelligibility in post-modern culture." For his part, Haight says: "I look at American Catholicism with a population more and more educated in the faith. Many college and university students are used to religious pluralism, and are asking how they can square it with the Catholic faith. I try to put critical words to their experience and keep their experience in touch with the tradition. My fear is that educated Catholics will walk out if there isn't space for an open attitude to other religions." The Future of Christology covers much the same ground as Jesus Symbol of God, though in a much more accessible and compact format. The earlier book was written as a textbook; this one, with a wider audience in mind. In the final chapter, Haight responds to the numerous reviews Jesus Symbol of God received, both pro and con.

Editorial Reviews

Review

(Theological Best Books- mentioning (Fall/ Winter 2005) )

The Catholic Press Association 2006 Book Awards

3rd place for a Theology title

"In The Future of Christology, Roger Haight provides a collection of essays that address salient themes from his monograph Jesus Symbol of God (JSG) (Orbis, 1999). Intended for an audience that does not necessarily include professional theologians, the book represents a recapitulation of the ideas and a response to the critiques raised by his provocative monograph. This apologetic undercurrent notwithstanding, members of the Catholic community as well as college and university students seeking dialogue with contemporary cultural and pluralistic worldviews will find this collection stimulating and insightful. Several chapters are noteworthy for their challenge to prevailing discourse and for the groundwork they lay for constructive theology. His chapter "Notes for a Constructive Theology of the Cross" raises significant questions concerning the meaning of the symbol of the cross, the spirituality and asceticism engendered by the cross, its necessity in the economy of salvation, and the understanding of God as willing the suffering of the cross as a means to salvation. Haight offers preliminary "notes" in response to these questions which disabuse the reader of the glorification of suffering and sacrifice that elicits devotion and perpetuates self-negation in hope of future reward. Haight suggests that it is not the cross that saves, but that "god saves in spite of and in face of the cross" (92). In this context, Haight proposes an intriguing reading of the Pauline understanding of the cross, of kenosis, and of Jesus as the second Adam.

"A further issue that shapes many of Haight's considerations is that of pluralism within Catholicism; between Catholicism and other Christian traditions; and among Catholicism, Christian traditions, and other world religions...Particularly lucid is his description and interpretation of the consciousness that comprise a post modern world view —historical consciousness, social consciousness, pluralist consciousness and cosmic consciousness —and that serve as "a lure to create new construals of Jesus Christ and the Church that meet the temper of our time" (130). Finally Haight brings his understanding of the postmodern consciousness to bear on an "Outline for an Orthodox Pluralist Christology" of Jesus as the revelation of "a savior God who wills the salvation of all whom God created" and as "the historical efficacy of that divine and salvific initiative" (159)...Haight's work offers a timely reply to vital questions voiced by an expanding number of faithful and, in so doing, stimulates thought and dialogue in turn".

(Gloria L.Schaab, Barry University )

mediocre review

(Toronto Journal Of Theology )

"Dr Haight offers helpful interpretationsof the theologies of Rahner...this series of notes to one of them will prove helpful to many. Libraries will consider the big book a priority and this one a useful extra"

Theological Book Review Vol.19 no.2 2007

(Robert Morgan )


(, )

“In The Future of Christology, Roger Haight provides a collection of essays that address salient themes from his monograph Jesus Symbol of God (JSG) (Orbis, 1999). Intended for an audience that does not necessarily include professional theologians, the book represents a recapitulation of the ideas and a response to the critiques raised by his provocative monograph. This apologetic undercurrent notwithstanding, members of the Catholic community as well as college and university students seeking dialogue with contemporary cultural and pluralistic worldviews will find this collection stimulating and insightful. Several chapters are noteworthy for their challenge to prevailing discourse and for the groundwork they lay for constructive theology. His chapter “Notes for a Constructive Theology of the Cross” raises significant questions concerning the meaning of the symbol of the cross, the spirituality and asceticism engendered by the cross, its necessity in the economy of salvation, and the understanding of God as willing the suffering of the cross as a means to salvation. Haight offers preliminary “notes” in response to these questions which disabuse the reader of the glorification of suffering and sacrifice that elicits devotion and perpetuates self-negation in hope of future reward. Haight suggests that it is not the cross that saves, but that “god saves in spite of and in face of the cross” (92). In this context, Haight proposes an intriguing reading of the Pauline understanding of the cross, of kenosis, and of Jesus as the second Adam.

“A further issue that shapes many of Haight’s considerations is that of pluralism within Catholicism; between Catholicism and other Christian traditions; and among Catholicism, Christian traditions, and other world religions…Particularly lucid is his description and interpretation of the consciousness that comprise a post modern world view —historical consciousness, social consciousness, pluralist consciousness and cosmic consciousness —and that serve as “a lure to create new construals of Jesus Christ and the Church that meet the temper of our time” (130). Finally Haight brings his understanding of the postmodern consciousness to bear on an “Outline for an Orthodox Pluralist Christology” of Jesus as the revelation of “a savior God who wills the salvation of all whom God created” and as “the historical efficacy of that divine and salvific initiative” (159)…Haight’s work offers a timely reply to vital questions voiced by an expanding number of faithful and, in so doing, stimulates thought and dialogue in turn”.

(, )

"Dr Haight offers helpful interpretationsof the theologies of Rahner...this series of notes to one of them will prove helpful to many. Libraries will consider the big book a priority and this one a useful extra"

Theological Book Review Vol.19 no.2 2007

(, )

About the Author

Roger Haight, SJ, has a PhD from the University of Chicago (1973) and a STL from the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago (1981). He has taught for over 30 years in Jesuit schools of theology in Chicago, Toronto, the Philippines, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has been a visiting professor in France, India, Peru, and Kenya. He is a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America (1994/95). Jesus Symbol of God won 1st place in the Catholic Press Association's 2000 Book Award for theology. Dynamics of Theology won 2nd place in CPA's 1991 Book Award for Theology. His most recent work is Christian Community in History in 2 volumes. He currently teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (September 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826417647
• ISBN-13: 978-0826417640
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,464,328 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughts on The Future of Christology, February 3, 2006

By 

Patrick J. Amer - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Future of Christology (Hardcover)

The Future of Christology is a superb and important book. It is much more than a non-technical summary of Roger Haight's earlier book, Jesus Symbol of God (JSG). JSG is a treatise on Christology, scholarly and technical, and includes a comprehensive survey of the historical development of Christology. The Future of Christology draws out some deep implications of the earlier work, but also advances beyond it. In The Future of Christology, Haight develops a contemporary framework for thinking and reflecting on the nature of salvation through Jesus, the role of the Christian in that salvation, and the relationship of the Christian understanding of God's salvation to other religious traditions.

Haight does not assert that his interpretations of Jesus and of the salvation which comes through him are true, and that all other interpretations are false. He simply argues that his interpretations are acceptable views within a pluralism of understandings of Jesus and his mission. Among his important interpretations and views are the following:

a. The concrete historical foundation of Christianity is Jesus the person. We must start our imagining and thinking about Jesus with the human person described in the gospels, and work from that base toward an understanding that he is also divine.

b. Jesus saves not by concluding a transaction with the Father, but by revealing what has been and is the social and personal condition of humans in sin. Jesus becomes the actual savior in history in the measure in which people take up and practice his liberating revelation of God.

c. Personal sin infects individual freedom, but more powerfully social or communal sin keeps humans in bondage. Salvation, seen as liberation, must be a social as well as personal reality, and must be a process involving all human beings. The kingdom of God is a symbol, as well as a vehicle, for social grace and social salvation.

d. Jesus is not the instrumental cause of salvation but the revealer of salvation. Jesus reveals God who has always been savior. Jesus is not necessarily the exclusive historical mediator of salvation. In the measure in which other religions are historically distinct from Christianity, autonomous in their mediation of revelation of ultimate reality, and true, they are relevant for all humans.

These interpretations, carefully worked out, coordinated with each other, and persuasively explained, deepen and broaden the framework within which each one of us understands Christianity. I strongly recommend this important book.

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From Continuum:, October 28, 2005

By 

S. McDonald "Library World" (Independence, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Future of Christology (Hardcover)

The author's award-winning and best-selling book Jesus Symbol of God has recently been judged by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to contain "grave doctrinal errors." Like a number of theologians before him-Hans Küng, Charles Curran, Anthony de Mello, Tissa Balasuriya, and Jacques Dupuis-Haight has been banned from teaching Catholic theology. In its overall criticism of the book, the Congregation charges that he "subordinates the contents of the faith to their plausibility and intelligibility in post-modern culture." For his part, the author says: "I look at American Catholicism with a population more and more educated in the faith. Many college and university students are used to religious pluralism, and are asking how they can square it with the Catholic faith. I try to put critical words to their experience and keep their experience in touch with the tradition. My fear is that educated Catholics will walk out if there isn't space for an open attitude to other religions." This book is a more compact and accessible presentation of his understanding of Jesus Christ than the one in Jesus Symbol of God. The author has not changed his position in light of Vatican criticism; he has only sharpened and clarified it.