Soft Christologies

Adoptionism was an early heresy that has consistently shown up throughout the history of the church. It states that Jesus was only a man and he was later “adopted” by God. This view permeates modern Christianity, specifically in *yes I’m going to use the word* liberal and mainline churches.

“The position gives the human Jesus an independent status. He would simply have lived on as Jesus of Nazareth if the special adoption by God had not occurred. This was more a matter of God’s entering an existent human being than of a true incarnation. Sometimes this event is regarded as unique to the life of Jesus’ sometimes it is compared to the adoption of other human beings as children of God.” [1] (Christian Theology, Millard J. Erickson, 728)

(although not explicitly I feel that this is the view of “The Last Temptation of Christ.”)

Adoptionism is what Gerald O’Collins would call a soft Christology. Those believe in the full humanity of Christ but seem to compromise the divinity. They are also, those that show Jesus as a mirror, or a representative of God, as opposed to actually being God. (once again popular among the American church)

Ebionism is a view of Jesus that says he is totally and uncompromisingly human. Trough a rejection or at least a denial of Paul’s letters they decided that Christ was not God or truly anything supernatural, but merely a normal human having good commune with God.
“Jesus as, according to the Ebionites, and ordinary man possessed of unusual but not superhuman or supernatural gifts or righteousness and wisdom. He was the predestined Messiah, although in a rather natural human sense. The baptism was the significant event in Jesus’ life, for it was then that the Christ descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove. . . Thus Jesus was primarily a man, albeit a man in whom, at least for a time, the power of God was present and active to an unusual degree” (Christian Theology, Millard J. Erickson, 694)

Here you see the underlying adoptioninist view, as well as the overall “soft Christology” that is voiced. This is the most humanistic one in my opinion. We all can pull this off, and in reality we don’t need Jesus, he was just there to help us figure out what we can become.

As easy as it is to rip on evangelicals falling on the opposite side log I have to say this is the largest problem in the church today. It is far too common to see a mainline church love the concept of Jesus and his teachings, but they want the “Sermon on the Mount” without the Christmas or Easter story to back it up. Although I will discuss the “other side” of this problem I will always say I would rather someone error towards the divinity than away from it.