What significance might Jesus have in today’s world?  Obviously there cannot be any single answer. What that question may signify for Chinese peasants would likely be of little interest to modern European university students, and vice versa; what may be important in that question for some African politicians would hardly be of pertinence to American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, and vice versa. The conception of us humans as fundamentally historical beings has itself developed in a particular historical context — largely among intellectuals in the modern West. Like all other conceptions, it has its meaning, significance, and truth principally within that context, and the extent to which it will be taken seriously into account in other situations will depend very much on those situations themselves.

Jesus And Creativity
Gordon Kaufman