Asian Christology: De-Routing the Classical and Re-Rooting the Contextual

Contents: Introduction. 1. The objectives of the research work. 2. A multi-faceted personality of Tissa Balasuriya and his contributions to the theological methodology for doing theology in Asia. 3. Balasuriya's re-interpreted Christology and its liberation motif. 4. Balsuriya's Christology as compared/contrasted with Latin American and Asian (south east/far east asia) christologies. 5. Balasuriya's christology : an appraisal. 6. Summary and conclusion : a re-constructive statement of Christology towards the twenty-first century. Bibliography. Index. Christianity is a journey of faith and not a destination. It is a journey of knowing Jesus Christ, who is the very substance and core of Christian faith, in a most knowable and coherent way possible. In this context, the Bible provides the basis for this knowledge in the form of facts and guidelines which together form the doctrine of Christ, also called as Christology. The author here attempts to formulate an Asian Christology in line with the thoughts of Fr. Tissa Balasuriya. Late Fr. Tissa Balasuriya was a leading and also one of the earliest interpreters of Christ from an Asian perspective. Balasuriya was critical to the western, traditional, classical interpretations of Christ that were indifferent and ignorant to the contextual realities of Asia. This scholarly research provides a lucid picture of how Asians respond and interpret Christ in terms of their context. The author takes Balasuriya's model of interpretation to provide what could be the basic thrust of Asian Christology. In the Asian context, Jesus Christ is divine because he is human and he is human because he is divine. Hence, to make it brief, Christology from below must start with Jesus Christ who is very much from the people and for the people. Indeed, this makes God's incarnation in Christ more meaningful and beautiful. Accordingly, Jesus is not only the son of God, but also had the human face. The author concludes by saying that Asian Christology towards the 21st century is a Christology `from below', and that Jesus of Nazareth was at the same time a Historic person, Liberator and Cosmic Christ.…