It was, however, only in the 1970s with his companion volumes Jesus: An experiment in Christology and Christ: The Christian experience in the modern world that the full extent of his radicalism was made apparent. Although he was prepared also to offer his own metaphysical account of Christ's divinity, dogma and doctrine are made strictly subordinate to experience, both in respect of how biblical revelation should be interpreted and what it means for us today. So what sets Christ apart, he suggests, is his unparalleled intimacy with his Father ("Abba"), and the experience of vibrant new life that he gives to all around him ("the kingdom of God").
In similar fashion, he contends that to look to the empty tomb or even visionary experience on the part of the disciples is to look in the wrong place. With both of these, experience has already been transmogrified into doctrinal story. The real heart of those first encounters was an overwhelming conviction among the disciples of Jesus's forgiveness of their desertion stretching out to them from beyond the grave, and thus empowering them to live anew.
David Brown, CT 22 Jan 2010
