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Jesus, the Crucified People
A deeply moving and challenging book, Jesus, the Crucified People breaks a theological stranglehold on the figure of Jesus and glimpses in a new, non-Western way both Jesus and Christianity.
Against the rich cultural background of Asia, Song's volume explores the mystery of the Word that from the beginning of time now comes poignantly to us in the stories and testimonies of women, men, and children. Song eloquently fashions a "people hermeneutic" to sketch an account of Jesus' life, ministry, death, and resurrection for our world today.
This much-hailed volume anchors Song's monumental trilogy, the Cross in the Lotus World, which also includes Jesus and the Reign of God (1993), and Jesus in the Power of the Spirit (1994), also published by Fortress Press.
Against the rich cultural background of Asia, Song's volume explores the mystery of the Word that from the beginning of time now comes poignantly to us in the stories and testimonies of women, men, and children. Song eloquently fashions a "people hermeneutic" to sketch an account of Jesus' life, ministry, death, and resurrection for our world today.
This much-hailed volume anchors Song's monumental trilogy, the Cross in the Lotus World, which also includes Jesus and the Reign of God (1993), and Jesus in the Power of the Spirit (1994), also published by Fortress Press.
242 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 26, 1999
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About the author
C.S. Song
11 books5 followersChoan-Seng Song was a Taiwanese theologian who was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Theology and Asian Cultures at the Pacific School of Religion.
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June 9, 2021
Song's is a fearless questing for the meaning of Jesus. His book is more questions than answers. He forcefully interrogates the Western Jesus and Christ of Christianity, pointing out the harms it has done to the Third World and to his Asian sisters and brothers. Such harms are vividly brought to life by inclusion of poems, prose, and stories from those dispossessed from the salvation hoped for but never realized by life's cruel reality. He writes beautifully of the community of love and inclusion envisioned and enacted by Jesus during his ministry, of the liberation that his message promises to the oppressed. Song’s love and sorrow for the suffering millions throughout history is apparent in his questioning as he searches for a meaning of Jesus that makes sense in a historical world in which the vast majority of people suffer.
Unsatisfied with traditional "armchair theology", he demands an answer that addresses the real needs, of hunger, shelter, clothing, liberation, and freedom, of the reality of our present world. He concludes with perhaps the only real answer, albeit incomplete, that makes sense. Jesus is the crucified people of history. He cannot be known outside of those who suffer. His is the face of the suffering women, men, and children throughout history. Their life is his life. His death is their death. He is the "Christ who is born, lives, heals, comforts, saves, dies, and rises again, not only once, not only ten times, not only a thousand times, but as many times as there are people who have to be healed of their ailments, who long to be saved from their misery, who need to be given power to live in the midst of suffering, and who seek the assurance of life in the face of death."
Unsatisfied with traditional "armchair theology", he demands an answer that addresses the real needs, of hunger, shelter, clothing, liberation, and freedom, of the reality of our present world. He concludes with perhaps the only real answer, albeit incomplete, that makes sense. Jesus is the crucified people of history. He cannot be known outside of those who suffer. His is the face of the suffering women, men, and children throughout history. Their life is his life. His death is their death. He is the "Christ who is born, lives, heals, comforts, saves, dies, and rises again, not only once, not only ten times, not only a thousand times, but as many times as there are people who have to be healed of their ailments, who long to be saved from their misery, who need to be given power to live in the midst of suffering, and who seek the assurance of life in the face of death."
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