ABSTRACT
Evangelical Christology insists on using ontological instead of functional language, and rejects functional Christologies. Some might say that reading an academic theology book counts as receiving some academic theological education, and therefore these two interviewees cannot be classified as ordinary theologians. The classic doctrine enables Jesus to be declared to be God without ending up with multiple Gods, thereby preserving monotheism, but easily leads to tritheistic thinking as the data show. They all talk about Jesus being with God at the beginning of creation and of Jesus coming down to earth to live a human life. They have a three-stage, descent-ascent, incarnational Christology. Many academic theologians argue that the doctrine of pre-existence places an intolerable strain on the true humanity of Jesus. Some theologians claim that mythological thinking at the literal level is no longer possible for people in the contemporary western world and they advocate revising the myth of the incarnation in non-mythological terms.
