Bishop Nazir-Ali's address was not directly on 1 Corinthians but addressed 'The Unique and Universal Christ and Religious Pluralism'. Paul's determination to know nothing but Christ and him crucified is a model for us today.
The plural culture in which we find ourselves still has a vestigial awareness of Christ. Jesus is an admired man - but not more than this. The atheist still turns to the Sermon on the Mount. Philip Pullman's new book is about the good man Jesus and the scoundrel Christ. So: how is Jesus viewed in contemporary culture.
The Qu'ran's interest in Jesus is doctrinal. It seeks to deny what Christianity affirms about Christ. In the traditions there is more an eschatological concern - about the return of Jesus. He will convert everyone to Islam and lead everyone in prayer behind Mohummed. Among the Sufi, Jesus is an example of ascetic practice. In Judaism, there is some re-evaluation of the role of Jesus. Vermes and Cohn-Sherbrock in different ways regard Jesus as a Jewish figure. In Hinduism: for some Hindus, Jesus is a significant object of devotion.
All these people have these views about Jesus: what did Jesus think of himself? Did Jesus say anything about himself? Dodd says 'Jesus was the embodiment of the kingdom'.
What can we say about Jesus self-understanding?
The BBC series on Jesus' miracles was presented by a Muslim! But it was presented quite respectfully. It was claimed: 'the divinity of Jesus is demonstrated by his miracles'. His miracles over nature, his authority over the supernatural, and his forgiveness of their sins: point us to his divine nature. The Qu'ran, he said, does not emphasise the miracles of Jesus.... (I lost the thread a bit here)
What of Jesus' use of the Son of Man? Andy Angel's research: a distinction between a general and an emphatic use of the Son of Man. If the evangelists had mean to have Jesus meaning 'A son of man' they could have. And yet they most certainly do not: as Charlie Moule always said, Jesus calls himself THE Son of Man. BTW, the Aramaic section of Daniel is where the Son of Man is mentioned. There, the Son of Man is served, in the sense of 'the worship of God'... in Dan 7 we see that 'all nations will worship the Son of Man'... Jesus understanding himself in this sense is clearly significant.
Jesus' refusal of the Messiah title was on account of the misuse of this title without its full sense. Jesus himself drew attention to Psalm 110 - how can it only be about the Son of David? Likewise Psalm 45. Tom Wright points out that the figure of the Son of Man was associated with the messianic expectation. The reason Jesus was reluctant to accept the title was because it had been reduced in terms of the witness of the OT.
What of the Son of God? This is always a sticking point in Christian-Muslim dialogue. We cannot understand Jesus without a sense of his intimacy with his Father. But you can't understand the significance of Jesus' person without an understanding of the work. The Anglican emphasis on the incarnation has led to a very attentuated account of Christ's work. We must at once agree that subjective accounts of the atonement are important. He shows God love for us. This exemplary aspects of the atonement do have a place amongst Muslims, strangely. Despite the denial of the cross! But the subjective aspects are not enough indeed. He is a representative, but also our substitute. Standing in our place he turns away God's anger from what he have become. If Jesus understood his work in terms of sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible, then we cannot escape that he would have thought of his work as substitution... God made him he know no sin to be sin ... And then Jesus is victor - an aspect in Athanasius. What gives the martyrs confidence going to their martyrdoms? It was the confidence of the victory that Jesus won on the cross. Christ as victor gave Martin Luther's theology its vigour.
What does this mean? 'If Christ is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all'... this is true of culture, too. Culture, as the non-biological aspect of the human condition, which makes art and science possible and so on: also manifests all that is wrong with the human condition. Remember Niebuhr? Not an endorsement of any culture. The Bible is the only tradition that provides for adequate self-criticism...
We are moving to the position of Christ against culture... we have been salt. But do we now need to change the metaphor from salt to light?
Nazir-Ali pointed to some examples where the gospel has transformed culture. In South America, Pentecostalism (for example) has done what liberation theology could only theorise about... a transformed spiritual and so social and economic situation. Abp David Gitari of Kenya said that the gospel affirmed some things in Kenyan gospel. Other things were unchanged - like, the food one might eat. There were things that the gospel could tolerate for a while, while things were then changed. For example, men and women meeting apart; or polugamy. (That is, giving up polygamy was a generational shift). Then there were things that the gospel could not tolerate: twin killing and cattle rustling!
It was, as Goldingay argues, the monotheism of the Hebrews that led to their fundamental egalitarianism - over and against the Canaanite world. And yet... Abraham makes on offering to Melchizedek. This is fundamental to the idea of mission in the NT - think of the god-fearers, for example. Nazir-Ali claimed that people in the image of God may know something of the God that made them. The Lordship of Christ needs to be acknowledged in the encounter with other faiths - whether that is in judgement or in recognition.
Is it possible for religions themselves to be converted to Christ? (John V Taylor)
Hinduism, for example, is unrecogniseable following its encounter with the gospel... many important aspects have been deeply changed by Christian influence. Another scholar seeks to show how Jesus is the Christ according to the logic of Islam (N-A is interested, but not optimistic). Gregory the Great told St Augustine to purify the shrines and put them to Christian use... how far can we go with this?
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