The Political Christ: Some Reflections on Mr Cupitt's Thesis

Colin Gunton

doi:10.1017/S0036930600044446

The Political Christ: Some Reflections on Mr Cupitt's Thesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009

Colin Gunton

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Colin Gunton: Affiliation:
King's College StrandLondon WC2R 2LS

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Not far below the surface of most modern theological dispute lies the question of the interrelationship of theology and culture. How shall those who take their intellectual orientation from the Christian Gospel understand their position in relation to the intellectual currents that represent the spirit of the age? Should the stance be that of Tertullian, Eusebius, or Augustine; Kierkegaard, Barth, or Tillich; or of some variation and combination of these and others? One of the many ramifications of this complex area of inquiry concerns the relationship of the Christian community to the institutions of the society and the world in which it carries on its life, as is well illustrated by recent controversy over the aims and methods of the W.C.C. Programme to Combat Racism. Here, of course, are obvious, if highly complex, moral and practical issues. But underlying them is a further theoretical and theological question: What is Christianity? In this paper, I should like to suggest that both the theological and the ethical problems can be illuminated by an examination of the interrelationship between conceptions of the person of Christ and the church's understanding of its relation to earthly rulers.

Type: Research Article
Information: Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 32 , Issue 6 , December 1979 , pp. 521 - 540

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930600044446 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1979

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^{page 520 note 1} Cochrane, Charles Norris, Christianity and Classical Culture. A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine (London: Clarendon Press, 1944), p. 350.Google Scholar

^{page 522 note 1} London: Faber, 1969.

^{page 522 note 2} Baynes, Norman H., ‘The Political Ideas of St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei’, Byzantine Studies and Other Essays (London: Athlone Press, 1955), p. 304.Google Scholar

^{page 522 note 3} ibid.

^{page 523 note 1} Dante, Hell, Canto XIX, 115–17, E.T. by Dorothy L. Sayers (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1949), p. 191.

^{page 523 note 2} Cochrane, op. cit., p. 336.

^{page 523 note 3} op. cit., p. 348.

^{page 523 note 4} op. cit, p. 325.

^{page 523 note 5} See especially, Kierkegaard's Attach upon ‘Christendom’ 1854–1855, E.T. by Lowrie, Walter (London: Oxford University Press, 1944).Google Scholar

^{page 524 note 1} See, for instance, his explanation of why Victorian theologians found kenotic Christology congenial, ‘The Christ of Christendom’, The Myth of God Incarnate, ed. Hick, John (London: SCM Press, 1977), p. 137.Google Scholar

^{page 524 note 2} op. cit., p. 139.

^{page 524 note 3} op. cit., p. 140.

^{page 525 note 1} Plato, Republic VIII.

^{page 525 note 2} The Oration of Eusebius Pamphili in Praise of the Emperor Constantine, III. 5f.

^{page 525 note 3} Eusebius, op. cit., XI. 12.

^{page 525 note 4} op. cit., XII. 6. My italics.

^{page 526 note 1} Peterson, E., Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politischen Theologie im Imperium Romanum (Leipzig: J. Hegner, 1935)Google Scholar. Moltmann, J., The Crucified God. The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, E.T. by Wilson, R. A. and Bowden, John (London: SCM Press, 1974).Google Scholar

^{page 526 note 2} Elert, Werner, Der Ausgang der altkirchlichen Christologie. Eine Untersuchung über Theodor von Pharan und seine Zeit als Einführung in die alte Dogmengeschichte, edd. Maurer, Wilhelm and Bergsträsser, Elisabeth (Berlin: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1957).Google Scholar

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^{page 526 note 4} op. cit.. p. 28.

^{page 527 note 1} op. cit., p. 29.

^{page 527 note 2} op. cit., p. 168.

^{page 527 note 3} op. cit., p. 169.

^{page 527 note 4} op. cit., p. 170.

^{page 527 note 5} op. cit., pp. 172f.

^{page 528 note 1} op. cit., p. 174.

^{page 528 note 2} C. N. Cochrane, op. cit., pp. 336f.

^{page 528 note 3} D. Cupitt, op. cit., p. 141.

^{page 528 note 4} op. cit., p. 146.

^{page 529 note 1} Hegel, G. W. F., Phenomenology of Mind, E.T. by Baillie, J. B. (London: Allen and Unwin, revised second ed., 1949), p. 760.Google Scholar

^{page 529 note 2} D. Cupitt, op. cit., p. 140.

^{page 529 note 3} Hegel, G. W. F., The Philosophy of History, E.T. by Sibree, J. (New York: Dover Publications, 1956), p. 335f.Google Scholar

^{page 529 note 4} op. cit., p.324.

^{page 530 note 1} See Stephen Crites, In the Twilight of Christendom. Hegel vs. Kierkegaard on Faith and History (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania: American Academy of Religion, 1972), Chapter II.

^{page 530 note 2} Hegel, G. W. F., Philosophy of Right, E.T. by Knox, T. M. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942), p. 168; cf. pp. 165–8.Google Scholar

^{page 530 note 3} S. Crites, op. cit., p. 58.

^{page 531 note 1} op. cit., p. 59.

^{page 531 note 2} ibid.

^{page 531 note 3} Kierkegaard, S., Training in Christianity, E.T. by Lowrie, Walter (Princeton University Press, 1941), pp. 86ff.Google Scholar

^{page 531 note 4} op. cit., pp. 99 and 104.

^{page 531 note 5} op. cit., p. 105.

^{page 531 note 6} op. cit., p. 91.

^{page 532 note 1} op. cit., pp. 108f.

^{page 532 note 2} op. cit., p. 123.

^{page 532 note 3} op. cit., p. 84.

^{page 533 note 1} W. Elert, op. cit., p. 175. He need not deny, of course, that some of the things said by dogmatic theologians helped to feed that development.

^{page 533 note 2} op. cit., p. 176.

^{page 533 note 3} op. cit., pp. 17gf.

^{page 533 note 4} op. cit., pp. 181f.

^{page 533 note 5} op. cit., p. 171.

^{page 533 note 6} op. cit., pp. 31f, 16gff.

^{page 534 note 1} See, for example, Beskow, Per, Rex Gloriae. The Kingship of Christ in the Early Church (Uppsala, 1962).Google Scholar

^{page 534 note 2} Elert, op. cit., p. 29.

^{page 534 note 3} op. cit., p. 31.

^{page 534 note 4} Eusebius Pamphili, The Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine I. 31.

^{page 534 note 5} op. cit., II. 7; cf. 6–9 and IV. 5.

^{page 536 note 1} On one reading of Phil. 2.6 ‘… because he was in the form of God …’, the divinity of Christ, his God-hood, is seen to consist in his self-abasement. There might be here the beginnings of a theological justification of liberal institutions, not from rationalist ideas of human rights and capacities, but from the ‘human’ way in which God meets that which is opposed to him.

^{page 537 note 1} A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine (London: A. and C. Black, 1966), pp. 8, 46 and 245.Google Scholar

^{page 538 note 1} Peterson, E., ‘Ghristus als Imperator’, Theologische Traktate (München: Hochland-Bücherei, Kösel-Verlag, 1951), pp. 149–164.Google Scholar

^{page 538 note 2} It has been suggested to me by Professor Stewart R. Sutherland that the idea of tragedy may be helpful in developing an understanding of the Christian's involvement in politics. This will certainly have an element of the tragic about it if it is exercised in a world understood in a post- (or pre-!) Constantinian way. Cf. Moltmann's remark: ‘… even in the “classless society” Christians will be aliens and homeless.’ (op. cit., p. 17.) When the ‘powerless’ enters the world of the ‘powerful’ yet refuses to use the weapons of the latter, he is likely to suffer something of the fate of his Lord. The case of Antigone provides something of a parallel from another world of thought. Moreover, the concept of tragedy may help the theorist to steer a course between the triumphalism of much of Christian history in the West and the complaisant passivity that has often been the Christian response to tyranny in that same world.

^{page 539 note 1} S. Crites, op. cit., p. 17. The ‘rough beast’ may in some circles be thought to bear the name of Marx.

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