69 - Jesus Christ and Christian Vision

Jesus Christ and Christian Vision
By Douglas F. Ottati
Augsburg Fortress, 1989. 163 pp. $10.95.

The author, a professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, argues here that, beginning with the New Testament writers themselves, the task of christology has always been to understand both the "centrality" or "decisiveness" of Jesus for our apprehension of God and human life in relation to God, and the "particularity" of what Jesus "said, did and endured" in his life, ministry, death, and resurrection. The classical christological formulations of the church, however, not only stressed the centrality of Jesus to the neglect of his concrete existence in space and time but did so in metaphysical language that no longer makes sense to us. Meaningful and faithful christology for our time must follow the Protestant reformers in understanding the centrality of Jesus in terms of his historical particularity, and it can do this best by developing in a contemporary way the anti-metaphysical emphasis of the nineteenth century liberal tradition on Christians' experience of Jesus and his effect on their lives.

Acknowledging his indebtedness to such thinkers as H. R. Niebuhr, James Gustafson, and Stanley Hauerwas, Ottati seeks to fulfill this agenda by developing a "Christology of the heart" by means of "an anthropology that emphasizes the importance of affectivity for personal identity." The historical particularity of Jesus (as of every human being) is to be sought in "patterns of behavior" or "character" shaped by inward affections, dispositions, feelings, and desires-human subjectivity.

70 - Jesus Christ and Christian Vision

In Jesus' case, this subjectivity was expressed in his fulfilling in total dependence upon God the three "offices" of prophet (teacher of the truth about God's dominion and human life in God's world), king (governor and guide of his followers), and priest (who empowers a life of love by his self-giving sacrifice). Christians are people whose hearts and lives are shaped by the values, desires, and attitudes that result from experiencing the vision of God, self, and world given us by the life and continuing influence of Jesus.

Ottati also discusses the "centrality" of Jesus as the "supreme mediation" of the reality or vision of God (without making clear the relation between "reality" and "vision"). But he writes most passionately and persuasively when he speaks of Jesus' and the Christian's "heart." Here lies the strength of the book. It is an instructive and moving "Christology from below" based on the "affections" of Jesus and his influence on Christian affections. And this leads to a description of "the Christian way" that is deeply committed to Jesus Christ but free of all rationalism and legalism, and open to dialogue and cooperation with people outside the Christian circle.

But the book also raises some inevitable questions: Does (can) such a christology give enough attention to the "objective" reality of God disclosed in Jesus and to the "external" reality of the kingdom of God fulfilled and being fulfilled in him? What are the theological and ethical consequences when the risen Lord of the New Testament is understood primarily as personal teacher, guide, and inspirer? In short, is a "theology of the heart" the best way to reinterpret and correct the old metaphysical christology to achieve a christology that is at once more contemporary and more biblical? Ottati himself recognizes the issues raised by these questions. Readers will decide for themselves how successfully he deals with them-probably according to their judgment about the possibilities and limitations of a theology based on subjective human experience.

Shirley C. Guthrie
Columbia Theological Seminary
Decatur, Georgia