Overview
Designed for College Students Taking Their First Course in Christology
Jesus Our Salvation: An Introduction to Christology is written in an engaging style and is enhanced by pedagogical elements which make the complex material accessible to the student reader. Jesus Our Salvation is both sensitive to the challenges of contemporary Christology and well-grounded in Catholic identity. The book maintains a positive, though critical, dialogue with many voices in the Christian tradition, including those of the classical tradition, historical Jesus research, the evangelical tradition, and contemporary theological thought. It addresses important issues of today, such as Christology's capacity to promote social transformation and the questions that are raised about Jesus from the perspective of religious pluralism.
Product Details
Copyright: Sept. 21, 2007
Format: Paperbound
Size: 7.25 x 9.125
Length: 288 pages
Item number: 7003
ISBN: 978-0-88489-958-7
ISBN-10: 0-88489-958-6
Customer Reviews
By Sr. Shannon Schrein, OSF, PhD, Lourdes College, Ohio
This book reflects a detailed and careful study of Christology. It addresses all of the
major elements of theological reflection on the person of Jesus. It is accessible to
undergraduate students and written with them in mind. The questions that follow the
chapters are an excellent means for challenging students to reflect on the impact of our
beliefs and the ways that they are influenced by culture, history and experience.
Editorial Reviews
Horizons, Fall, 2008, Vol. 35
Christopher McMahon begins and ends his introductory textbook in Christology
suggesting that the history of Christology is frequently perceived as the
history of forgetting (pp. xiii and 234). Yet McMahon will not let the reader forget
the past, neglect the present, or ignore the future of Christological reflection.
For McMahon, it is the responsibility of all the faithful "to wrestle with, argue
over, and embrace new paradigms of Christological orthodoxy, not despite the
achievements of the past, but precisely because we revere those achievements
and seek to be instructed by them. . . . [We must] reflect on the power of Christ
for the salvation of the world" (p. 234). These statements conclude the text and
encapsulate McMahon's interpretative motif for the history of Christology, innovation,
as well as his central concern, salvation.
Jesus Our Salvation is a fresh take on the low, ascending approach to Christology. McMahon consistently and deftly demonstrates the problems and possibilities of both low and high Christological starting points. Over the course of eight chapters he displays a thoroughgoing command of the history, biblical scholarship. and diverse perspectives that inform contemporary Christology. A renewed understanding of Christianity's relationship to Judaism as well as a sensitivity to non-Christian religions pervade the text. He refuses to privilege stances that can become ideological in favor of a pedagogical posture that teaches students that Christology is neither a closed system nor the mere repetition of formulae but "the product of innovative and creative thinking" (p. 150).
McMahon reserves the sixth chapter for soteriology, but it is evident that the question of salvation movingly motivates his entire discussion of Christology.
The book is user-friendly for both professor and student. McMahon's fluid and engaging style will invite student interest. Rejecting a doctrinaire approach, he sets a constructive and positive tone by confronting the contemporary attitudes of indifference as well as the retreat into the personal. In different ways McMahon poses the ever-present student questions: "Why should I care?" and "What difference does it make?" Technical and unfamiliar terms and phrases appear in boldface and are explained in an accessible glossary. Students thus get the help they need to understand a new language but are not distracted by numerous and lengthy footnotes.
Chapters average approximately 30 pages, allowing teachers to supplement the text with brief primary readings. Insets numbering from a minimum of six to a maximum of 10 chapters with charts of the material, excursions into historical context, comparisons with 10 non-Christian religions, and brief introductions to "person[s] of interest." With these additions to the text, professors will find that they will need fewer handouts and PowerPoint slides.
Concluding questions for understanding and questions for reflection provide opportunities for discussions and assignments.
Though McMahon explicitly states his debt to Bernard Lonergan and William Loewe, his text offers a new, soteriologically focused account of Christological reflection for the 21st century.
Jesus Our Salvation is a fresh take on the low, ascending approach to Christology. McMahon consistently and deftly demonstrates the problems and possibilities of both low and high Christological starting points. Over the course of eight chapters he displays a thoroughgoing command of the history, biblical scholarship. and diverse perspectives that inform contemporary Christology. A renewed understanding of Christianity's relationship to Judaism as well as a sensitivity to non-Christian religions pervade the text. He refuses to privilege stances that can become ideological in favor of a pedagogical posture that teaches students that Christology is neither a closed system nor the mere repetition of formulae but "the product of innovative and creative thinking" (p. 150).
McMahon reserves the sixth chapter for soteriology, but it is evident that the question of salvation movingly motivates his entire discussion of Christology.
The book is user-friendly for both professor and student. McMahon's fluid and engaging style will invite student interest. Rejecting a doctrinaire approach, he sets a constructive and positive tone by confronting the contemporary attitudes of indifference as well as the retreat into the personal. In different ways McMahon poses the ever-present student questions: "Why should I care?" and "What difference does it make?" Technical and unfamiliar terms and phrases appear in boldface and are explained in an accessible glossary. Students thus get the help they need to understand a new language but are not distracted by numerous and lengthy footnotes.
Chapters average approximately 30 pages, allowing teachers to supplement the text with brief primary readings. Insets numbering from a minimum of six to a maximum of 10 chapters with charts of the material, excursions into historical context, comparisons with 10 non-Christian religions, and brief introductions to "person[s] of interest." With these additions to the text, professors will find that they will need fewer handouts and PowerPoint slides.
Concluding questions for understanding and questions for reflection provide opportunities for discussions and assignments.
Though McMahon explicitly states his debt to Bernard Lonergan and William Loewe, his text offers a new, soteriologically focused account of Christological reflection for the 21st century.
