Richw, the question that I think your comments raise is: Where do we get these associations from? To say that "’Christ’ brings to mind…" is rather vague. Danutz has a point when he refers to the political aspect of a term such as ‘Son of God’, though he has been reading Marcus Borg and has a habit of dismissing traditional views rather glibly as ‘fairy tales’ - if he’ll forgive me for saying so.

Our religious, devotional and theological traditions are one set of sources that we can draw on to fill out the meaning of these terms. But scripture often points in a rather different direction. Certainly, the name ‘Jesus’ evokes the human figure in the Gospels, but ‘Christ’ is not biblically a divine name, as such, a term for the second person of the trinity. Quiet the opposite - it describes the anointed human agent of God’s purpose. ‘Jesus Christ’ is therefore Jesus, the man from Nazareth, who came to be viewed as the one anointed by God to save Israel from its sins, etc. (see Peter’s comments above).

‘Son of man’ brings a different set of connotations into view - Ezekiel’s self-designation, for example, and more importantly Daniel’s vision of suffering Israel vindicated and exalted by God.

‘Son of God’ also designates a human figure who is in close relation to God or who takes on a role or characteristic of God - Israel’s king, for example, but also Israel itself. In the Gentile world, as Danutz argues, the term acquired a further polemical edge challenging the status of Caesar as ‘son of god’.

I would suggest that these terms bring a narrative dimension into view and that it is in this narrative principally that we encounter the coming together of God and man - an acted or narrative christology. This narrative was later explicated by theologians in ontological terms, though I might follow Peter in this and suggest that in Paul the name ‘Jesus Christ’ already serves as a summary of this narrative: the complex story of God’s activity of judgment and renewal is encapsulated in the confession that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’.

What I think the emerging church might learn from this is the importance of telling the whole story as story.