Bible Stories

As the Christian world divided early in the Middle Ages, both East and West inherited the doctrine of Chalcedon about Christ. In the East it was coloured by a strongly Alexandrian viewpoint. Jesus Christ’s human life was seen more as the arena in which God worked our salvation than as an active agent in bringing it about. Salvation itself was often spoken of as ‘divinization’ — the believer coming to share Christ’s divine nature. The glorified Christ was the focus of worship; monasticism and mysticism flourished. All these factors contributed to a neglect of Christ’s real humanity, which in turn probably contributed to the growth of devotion to other human figures, such as Mary _ and the martyrs. Read more

Modern theology cannot be understood apart from the influence of the movement of thought in the eighteenth century known as the Enlightenment. This gave a new authority and freedom to human reason. Since then, the supernatural character of the life and work of Christ has often been rejected or watered down. Friedrich Schleiermacher (born 1768) is frequently called the father of modern theology’. He thought of Jesus Christ as divine because of his unique consciousness of God. Jesus was first and foremost the perfect example of a life lived in total dependence upon God.

Although ‘absolutely distinguished from all other men through his essential sinlessness and his absolute perfection’, he was no more than a man. Read more