Developing a New Christology for a Postmodern Culture

Book excerpt: In an increasingly secular, contemporary (postmodern) culture, many people have no understanding of Christianity or the importance and relevance of Jesus Christ. As a result, the Church’s traditional liturgical texts, as well as the church-oriented language often used by Christians to explain the Gospel, are not helpful or accessible to those outside the Church. To respond to this challenge, the author uses a semiotic method, based on the work of Robert Schreiter, to engage and describe the nature of contemporary postmodern culture. Using a narrative approach to the Gospels based on the work of the 20th century historical theologian, Hans Frei, the author derives a more modest, open-ended Christology which will ‘converse’ with its cultural context and continue to be interpreted within contemporary Christian communities. Using social values analysis from a particular contemporary culture, the author then forms biblical statements about the person of Jesus Christ that are congruent with those values, and uses them to construct a new Eucharistic Prayer. The result is a liturgical prayer that is accessible and enables members of that local culture to be embraced by, and to embrace, the identity of Jesus Christ.