Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord

An exhaustive examination of the New Testament, probing the issues of grace and salvation and evaluating their meanings in the context of contemporary movements for freedom and liberation.The theologian prof. mag. dr. E.C.F.A. Edward Schillebeeckx (born 1914), advisor to the Dutch bishops at the Second Vatican Council in Rome (1962-1965) and at the Pastoral Council at Noordwijkerhout (1966-1970), has played and is still playing a major role in ecclesiastic and theological renewal. Through his scientific studies and applied scientific pastoral books, sermons and lectures he is able to inspire a wide reading public, not only within the Christian churches but also outside them. His enormous scientific authority, based on his erudite knowledge of the Christian tradition, is coupled with compassionate engagement with people and movements in the church and society that focus on those who are exposed to injustice and suffering. His theology centres on the human being as the image and likeness of God.In the 1970s and 1980s Schillebeeckx published his three greatest works: Jezus, het verhaal van een levende; Christ: the Christian Experience in the Modern World (translated from the Dutch [by John Bowden]: Gerechtigheid en liefde, genade en bevrijding) and Church: the Human Story of God (translated from the Dutch [by John Bowden]: Mensen als verhaal van God), treatises on the church’s official ministry, politics and democracy, pastoral volumes and articles. These works were born of his studies of, and participation in, vital movements in the church and the world at large. These movements and developments include growing autonomy in faith and ethics, movements for democratisation, the engagement of Christians in politics and of women in the church, liberation theologies and base churches. He is also known for his critical identification and repudiation of all manner of ideologising which either legitimises established positions or obstructs new ones.