A Christology of history and contextualization: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s mission Christology and Kosuke Koyama’s contextualizing Christology

Abstract

In this article, I put Koyama’s contextual Christology in conversation with Balthasar’s mission Christology and consider how they understand history, culture, and the “I” in light of their respective Christologies. In the process, I examine how different Christo-logics shape the nature of theological contextualization, particularly in the way they frame how Christ and, by extension, the church encounter the particularities of history and persons. In the end, I ultimately argue that Balthasar’s Christology offers the “theo-logic” for the dramatic understanding of history that Koyama is performing in his contextual theology and that a dual-nature Christology leads to a dual practice of contextual theology.