Divine Self-Investment: An Open and Relational Constructive Christology (Tripp Fuller) -- A Review
DIVINE SELF-INVESTMENT: An Open and Relational Constructive Christology. By Tripp Fuller. Grasmere, ID: SacraSage Press,
2020. 172 pages.
For many liberal Christians,
Christology gets reduced to a sentiment expressed by Mary Magdalene (played by
Yvonne Elliman) in Jesus Christ Superstar, "I don't know why I love
him, he's just a man." He might be a prophet or more likely a cynic sage,
who is known for spinning witty yarns that have religious and political
implications. As for any thought of his divinity, as traditionally understood,
that doesn’t figure into the equation. After all, he's just a man. But is that
all we can say? Must we be satisfied with such a reductionist Christology? Or,
are there ways of moving beyond the bifurcation of a Jesus of history and a
Christ of faith?
There are theologians who have
provided liberals with Christologies that take seriously the historical Jesus
while affirming God’s presence of God in Jesus. Among them is Tripp Fuller.
I've known the author of this book for more than a dozen years, having met him
while he was early in his Ph.D. work at Claremont School of Theology. Though he
was quite young when I first met him, I found him to be a thoughtful and even
brilliant theologian. I've not changed my assessment over the years. Even when
and where I might differ with him theologically, I've always been impressed by
his grasp of the subject and its underlying complexities. Although Fuller, who
is perhaps best known for his Homebrewed Christianity podcasts, can come
off as a "wild and crazy guy," that doesn't diminish his brilliance
as a theologian. That brilliance is on display in Divine Self-Investment.
Fuller has edited a series of books under the Homebrewed Christianity brand, to which he contributed the book on Jesus---The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus: Lord, Liar, Lunatic, Or Awesome? (Fortress Press, 2016). He also collaborated with his mentor Philip Clayton on Clayton's book Transforming Christian Theology: For Church and Society, (Fortress Press, 2009). Divine Self-Investment, however, is Fuller's first purely academic book of theology. Regarding the reductive Christologies mentioned above, he believes that they are unnecessary. In response, he offers a constructive theology that can lead to a robust Christology for liberal Christians. He does so by exploring three prongs of a Christology, comparing pairs of theologians. The three prongs are a Spirit-Christology, Logos Christology, and a focus on the transforming power of the Gospel.
He engages the conversation from an
"Open and Relational" perspective (with a Process orientation). He
writes that Christology is a "disciple's discipline," arguing that
the inability to articulate how God is present in Jesus Christ destroys the integrity
of the church (p. 2). While he recognizes that the Trinity is a contested
doctrine within Christianity, it does point to Christology as being central to
understanding God's identity. And as an "open and relational"
theologian he approaches these concerns with two core convictions: First God
affects the world, and second that the world affects God (p. 10).
The book is comprised of six
chapters, with chapter one providing an introduction to his vision of a
three-pronged constructive theology that is rooted in the space opened up for
theologians by the historical-critical biblical study. I would suggest that
this chapter is worth the price of the book because it lays out the concerns of
our day regarding our ability as Christians to articulate a compelling message
regarding Jesus. Fuller writes: "For Christians, the answer to the
question “Who is God?” required telling the story of Jesus. What Jesus said,
did, endured, and delivered definitively shape the Christian life and the
community’s understanding of God" (p. 1).
This is followed in chapter two
with an exploration of the role of the historical Jesus in the contemporary
conversation. he notes that liberal traditions have a vested interest in
historical criticism, but that this is not sufficient to a full-orbed
Christology. Nevertheless, it does open up space for an articulation of a
liberal Christology. With this foundation, laying out the various ways the
Jesus of history has been understood, he moves in chapter 3 to the first of
three chapters that offer pathways into a workable constructive liberal
Christology.
There is a tendency for
Spirit-Christologies, which can easily be found present in the New Testament to
lead to adoptionist and Arian Christologies. Nevertheless, there is much
promise in this form of Christology in that it allows us to envision how God might
be present in Jesus. Fuller engages this conversation through a comparison of
two Catholic theologians, Roger Haight and Joseph Bracken, with Bracken being
more concerned about protecting a Trinitarian understanding of God. A
Spirit-Christology allows us to view Jesus' divinity (yes divinity) as "an
emergent identity from a definitionally natural relationship God has with all
humans. Different Spirit Christologies will articulate several variables within
this picture differently, such as the role of sin, the nature of Jesus’
faithfulness, or connections to Trinitarian relations. The key element,
however, is that a Spirit Christology is a bibliocentric image that opens up a
different trajectory of development from that of the more historically dominant
Logos Christology" (p. 39). Thus, he desires to affirm both the full
humanity of Jesus as well as the fullness of God's presence in Jesus (p. 69).
While a Spirit Christology offers a
hopeful direction for Christology, it is not the only nor the most common
approach to Christology. Traditionally, a Logos Christology, as seen in the
prologue of John, has been the central conceptual starting point for
Christological discussion. What it does is offer the possibility of envisioning
the preexistence of Christ. Regarding this perspective, Fuller compares the
theologies of Kathryn Tanner, who approaches the question of Christology from
an Augustinian perspective, with John Cobb, a Process theologian. Tanner's
Logos Christology offers a robust vision of salvation history rooted in the
divine act in and through Jesus, while Cobb offers a more universal vision of
history.
Recognizing the promise of a Logos
Christology that avoids dualism and divine invasion, Fuller turns to his third
prong, which is the nature of salvation in relation to the cross. He compares
Douglas Ottati, a liberal Reformed theologian, with Andrew Sung Park, an Open
and Relational Theologian. They both speak of transformation through Christ and
the cross, but they do so in a way that rejects a clear demarcation between
justification and sanctification. They also raise the question of who needs
salvation, with Park suggesting that not only do humans need justifying, so
does God. Whereas Ottati speaks to the transformation of the heart, Park makes
use of the concept of Han, a Korean understanding of suffering, to
engage in the conversation about salvation. In this regard, he notes
"Park’s attentiveness to the experience of the Han-ridden people
and its connection to the heart of God has demonstrated one way in which an
open and relational Christology can not only make metaphysical claims about
God, namely here the Triune suffering of God and God’s need of salvation, but
also how the Christological conclusions may be reappropriated for
metaphysics." (p. 132).
Having laid out these three prongs,
in chapter six, Fuller attempts to bring together a robust Christology that
connects insights from each of the prongs to construct a broad open and
relational vision of God that is rooted in Christology. This leads, in his view,
to a focus on God's divine self-investment in creation. I’ve chosen to share the
following paragraph because it provides a good summation of his vision:
The work of God is revealed in the person of Jesus—precisely in what he said, did, endured, and continues to say, do, endure, and transform through the spirit. A disciple’s confession of Jesus as the Christ is not simply an act of identification, but one of recognition. If one comes to know themselves as known and loved by God in Christ, and one can see her life as also sustained and empowered by God, they might seek to discover and share the mind of Christ in which their will comes to cohere with God’s will. It is this life together in God for which the Spirit of God has always worked and the Word of God has always beckoned in desiring a full response. The promise and hope of salvation rests in this: that the God who chose to invest Godself in creating creaturely co-creators and who was ever faithful to the covenanted people of Israel, is the God of deep solidarity who stands in need of our shared salvation. (p. 155).
This is an intriguing work that lays out concerns for
liberal/progressive Christians who struggle with answering Jesus' question to
the disciples—Who do you say that I am? Fuller offers us fruitful resources
that can help with this dilemma. While he doesn't go into deep detail regarding
the Trinity, it is clear that he is using a Trinitarian perspective to hold
together the various dimensions of his Christology. Having said that, it’s
clear that he doesn't feel the need to affirm the preexistence of Christ. However,
the way he brings together both Spirit and Logos in a constructive manner
offers us a helpful path forward in developing Christologies that affirm the
humanity of Jesus and the divine presence within him. With all due respect to
Yvonne Elliman’s Mary Magdalene, it’s clear that Jesus was more than “just a
man.”
As I noted above, Tripp Fuller has
always exhibited brilliance as a theologian, and that brilliance is on full
display here. I look forward to future contributions to our theological conversation
from a Process/Open and Relational perspective.
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