The Global Christ

There is much talk of the Global Christ and how he is only fully realised as each culture engages with him and brings fresh understanding  (cf Andrew Walls   Ephesian Moment  ) 

He Qi's picture of the Risen Christ expresses some of this. 

 

Jaroslav Pelikan’s exceptional book ‘Jesus through the centuries’ explores some of these understandings, as various cultures have engaged with Christ over the centuries and the insights that have resulted and added to the bigger picture of the Global Christ  

Strong Son of God, immortaL Love, 

Whom we, that have not seen thy face

By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 

Believing where we cannot prove...

Our little systems have their day; 

They have their day and cease to be:  

They are but broken lights of thee, 

And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

 Alfred Lord Tennyson,  In Memorium 

The Provincial Museum of Alberta have an amazing online exhibition on the subject 'Anno Domini:  Jesus through the centuries.  Exploring the heart of two Millenia'. well worth a look.  

I also found the following quotation  thought provoking:

Jesus/Christ as hybrid concept

The most hybridized concept in the Christian tradition is that of Jesus/Christ. The space between Jesus and Christ is unsettling and fluid, resisting easy categorization and closure. It is the ‘contact zone’ or ‘borderland’ between the human and divine, the one and the many, the historical and cosmological, the Jewish and the Hellenistic, the prophetic and the sacramental, the God of the conquerors and the God of the meek and the lowly. Jesus question “Who do you say that I am?” is an invitation for every Christian and local faith community to infuse that contact zone with new meanings, insights, and possibilities. The riches and vibrancy of the Christian community is diminished whenever the space between Jesus and Christ is fixed, whether, on the one hand, as a result of the need for doctrinal purity, the suppression of syncretism, or the fear of contamination of native cultures, or, on the other hand, on account of historic positivism and its claims of objective and scientific truths about Jesus

The images of Jesus/Christ presented in the New Testament are highly pluralized and hybridised, emerging out of the intermingling of the cultures of Palestine, the Hellenistic Jewish diaspora, and the wider Hellenistic world.

P 171 Ch 'Engendering Christ' in ‘Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology’ Kwok Pui-lan (professor of Christian Theology and spirituality at Episcopal Divinity School Cambs Massachusetts scm 2005