Christology is the study of the person, ministry and work of Christ. Contemporary Christology refers to the current effort by some theologians to create a new "Christology" that would more closely reflect and resemble the trends and ideologies within our contemporary culture. This paper will examine recent views in Christology that are currently being discussed and promoted within the non-evangelical Christian community.

Since the Enlightenment, there has been increasing skepticism among philosophers and theologians about the reliability of the New Testament as an historical document. As society began to embrace ideas such as naturalism and evolution, the thought of a world where supernatural events like walking on water could occur became less plausible. Religious theologians, influenced by these philosophies, embarked on a "quest for the historical Jesus". These theologians believed the Jesus of the Bible to be a real person whose life was somehow embellished by his followers. To them, a Jesus surrounded by mythical events is not a Jesus who can influence today, since they believe that those "miraculous" events couldn't have happened. Therefore, what the world needs now is to find the real Jesus, the historical Jesus. By finding Jesus as he really is, he can have an impact on us today that is similar to the impact he had on Christians in the first century.

This quest for the historical Jesus has generally been grouped into three phases. The first phase occurred roughly during the 1800's into the very early 1900's. The second phase occurred in the 1950's and '60's. The last phase, or the New Quest, started around 1980 and continues today. It is this latest period that we will focus on in this paper.

Many theologians from both Protestant and Catholic traditions are seeking to develop a new Christology that would be more compatible with today's pluralistic, post-modern culture. Klass Runia, in his book The Present-day Christological Debate states that "many contemporary theologians…are of the opinion that the Christology of the ancient creeds is no longer tenable." Runia further states,

"The main issue for them is that these creeds fail to do justice to the person of Jesus as he comes to us from the pages of the New Testament, in particular of the Gospels. The creeds see Jesus as someone who combines Godhead and manhood in one person…Is Jesus in this case still a real man, one of us and one like us? Taking these questions as their cue, many leading theologians of our day have tried to develop a new Christology, which takes its starting-point not in a divine Person who took manhood upon himself, but in the historical Jesus, the man Jesus as he was here on earth among us. In doing this they do not deny that he was a very special man, unique among all men. On the contrary, they all affirm this. But at the same time they also want to emphasize that he was a man, a real man. His uniqueness was his unique human relationship with God. Because of this relationship he can be called the revelation and representation of God in this world. But at the same time we must maintain that it was a human revelation and representation, and no more."

Runia shares three arguments that theologians typically give to support the need for a new Christology:

1. Modern historical-critical exegesis of the New Testament demonstrates that there is a plurality of Christologies in the New Testament. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that there is one "orthodox" Christology for today.
2. The creeds are couched in the philosophical and metaphysical modes of thinking of their time. Therefore, the Christology of the creeds cannot be seen as binding for all church ages.
3. The Christology of the creeds doesn't mean anything to the people of today because the people of today think much differently.

Basically, advocates of a new christology don't believe that the christology of the creeds is culturally relevant today. Therefore, a new, more culturally relevant christology is needed.

The trend toward this new Christology can be seen in S.J Samartha's book One Christ – Many Religions: Toward a Revised Christology. In her book, Samartha contends that "christologies need to change, redefine, and revise themselves constantly to make sense to the church and the world at different times and in different cultural situations. Such revisions have gone on at different times in the history of the church. They should be regarded as signs of vitality and the renewing prosperity of the Christian faith in the world. At present, religious pluralism should enter into any christological discussion in the world."

So what are the christological changes that are necessary in order to become more relevant to today's culture? Runia gives three examples of theologians who have proposed new christologies for today's church.

Flesseman's views of Jesus, which were published in her book Believing Today can be summed up as follows: a) the idea that Jesus could be God and man is impossible. Therefore, rather than thinking of Jesus as God and man, we should think of Jesus as God in man. Jesus reflected the presence of God in man, but he was not God. b) the concept of the incarnation is "no longer suitable for our day" because "it reminds us of too many mythological stories." c) the doctrine of the trinity is not plausible. "The Son Jesus Christ is not God, but a man who was so one with God that in him I meet God."

Robinson also believes that christologies need to change in order to be relevant to each culture. In his book, The Human Face of God, Robinson states that if Jesus Christ is "to be ‘the same yesterday, today, and for ever’ he has to be a contemporary of every generation, and therefore different for the men of every generation. He must be their Christ." For Robinson, this translates into a Jesus who "is wholly and completely a man, but a man who ‘speaks true’ not simply of humanity but of God. He is not a man plus, a man fitted, as it were, with a second engine – which would mean that he was not a man in any genuine sense. He is a man who in all that he says and does as man is the personal representative of God: he stands in God’s place, he is God to us and for us."

The most important example of contemporary christology according to Runia is Hendrikus Berkhof. In his book The Christian Faith, Berkhof states that there are four complementary approaches to Christology.

1. Berkhof starts with the approach from below, with the so-called historical Jesus. Berkhof states that "Jesus was...convinced that in his offer of grace the Kingdom itself was already present in a provisional form. This conviction rested on a most intimate relationship with God whom he, very intimately, addressed as ‘Father’, and it manifested itself in a speaking with an unheard-of ‘authority’, a declaring of God’s will without an appeal to earlier authorities."
2. Berkhof then approaches Jesus from behind: Jesus as the fulfiller of the way of Israel. Berkhof explains that "in the Old Testament both Israel itself and its king are called God’s Son." He reasons then that when the title ‘Son of God’ is used of Jesus, it has nothing to do with physical origin, but "is indicative of a covenantal relationship."
3. In his Christology from above (the creative Word of God becomes a historical human life), Berkhof believes that in Jesus, God provided the true man, the faithful covenant partner. Here Berkhof rejects the hypostatic union and the idea that Jesus possessed a dual nature. Instead, Jesus is really the perfect man, an example to us of how we should live and interact with the divine. "He is the new covenant man who lives in a thus far unknown oneness with God…Jesus exhibits more and more new and to us unknown dimensions of the divinely intended humanity."
4. Finally, in his christological approach from before (from the perspective of what he has worked out through the centuries), Berkhof believes that the idea of Christ's pre-existence cannot be true in an ontological sense. Instead, he believes that the scriptures speak of Jesus as an "ideal pre-existence: God’s first and dominant thought in his plan of creation and salvation was Jesus the Son." Not surprisingly, Berkhof also rejects the concept of the incarnation and the doctrine of the trinity, stating that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, "do not constitute one being in eternity, but one history in time."

Perhaps the best known voice of the New Quest for the historical Jesus is the Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar is actually a working group that was formed by the Westar Institute, an organization whose aim is to bring religious discussion to the forefront of American thought.

The Jesus Seminar was founded and is led by Robert Funk. Funk's christology can be clearly seen in his article for The Fourth R, the bi-monthly periodical of the Institute. In his article "The Coming Radical Reformation: Twenty-one Theses", Funk lists six theses related to his christology:

1. We should give Jesus a demotion. We should no longer think of Jesus as divine.
2. The idea that Jesus is some miracle worker from heaven who is a divine redeemer is no longer credible.
3. The virgin birth is an insult to modern intelligence as well as a denigration to women.
4. The doctrine of the atonement—the claim that God killed his own son in order to satisfy his thirst for satisfaction—is subrational and subethical. This monstrous doctrine is the stepchild of a primitive sacrificial system in which the gods had to be appeased by offering them some special gift, such as a child or an animal.
5. The resurrection was not a real event, but only a metaphorical event. The meaning of the resurrection is that a few of his followers—probably no more than two or three—finally came to understand what he was all about. When the significance of his words and deeds dawned on them, they knew of no other terms in which to express their amazement than to claim that they had seen him alive.
6. The idea that Jesus will return to punish his enemies and rule the world is part of the mythological worldview and should be expunged from Christianity.

The purpose of the Jesus Seminar is to renew the quest for the historical Jesus. The Seminar does this by analyzing the "5 gospels" (they include the gospel of Thomas) to determine which of the sayings of Jesus were actually said by him. By voting on each saying, the Seminar is reconstructing a human Jesus who is devoid of divinity and supernatural abilities.

The Jesus Seminar has succeeded somewhat in "resurrecting" the quest for the historical Jesus. Twice they have been the subject of Time magazine articles (4/10/95 and 4/8/96) and their findings and conclusions were documented in a 1998 PBS television program entitled "From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians".

The main premise of the PBS program was to demonstrate that Jesus was an ordinary man who was elevated to divinity (Christ) by his overeager followers. Thus Jesus became Christ. The program, like the Jesus Seminar, advocated a need to sift through the myths that have been attached to Jesus the Christ in order to find the real Jesus, the man. The program did this by attempting to discount the supernatural elements in Jesus' life and ministry.

It should be noted that the Jesus Seminar has recently voted and published its findings regarding the deeds of Christ. In addition, the Westar Institute is active in developing other seminars. Examples include the Pauline Seminar, a group considering the authenticity and integrity of the Pauline letters; the Canon Seminar, a group that will determine which early Christian works should be contained in a new New Testament; and the Acts Seminar, a group that will decide the historical authenticity of the book of Acts.

It should be obvious by now that one's philosophical presuppositions will dramatically influence one's Christology. We've seen that many non-evangelicals, influenced by naturalistic and post-modern assumptions, are seeking to develop a new Christology in which Jesus is not God but a very unique man who was in touch with God. Additionally, long-standing doctrines such as the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the resurrection and the hypostatic union are discarded because they violate the naturalistic assumptions of this new Christology.