Instead of Atonement (Part 1)

Last week I began reading Ted Grimsrud's forthcoming book Instead of Atonement (Cascade Books 2013).  Ted is my adviser and my professor for this independent study and I am elated to be able to spend some time with his new work.

Grimsrud explains the counterintuitive title of the book when he writes, "I do not mean to suggest that salvation has nothing to do with 'atonement' in any possible meaning that might be given to the term.  Rather, I use 'atonement' in the title in the sense of the popular meaning of the term as referring to sacrificial payment that makes salvation possible" (Atonement 10).  The main theme of the introductory chapter centers on the idea that if Christian atonement theology is found to be in accord with the logic of retributive violence which dominates the world, then the gospel is, in fact, bad news.  The opening chapter offers an excellent overview into the theological and social implications of retributive violence.  Retributive theology has caused us to have a picture of, "God's holiness and justice that bases salvation on sacrificial violence" (Atonement 27).  Grimsrud argues that this need not be the case.

What I appreciate most about Instead of Atonement is the way Grimsrud does not find it necessary to start with Jesus and then read the Old Testament through the lens of the New (although there is some merit to this type of reading, when done responsibly).  Instead, Grimsrud's counterproposal to retributive atonement theology begins with the assertion that, "From start to finish the Old Testament does not present salvation as linked with a will of God for violence.  Rather, at its most basic level salvation in the Old Testament emerges from God's mercy, period" (Atonement 28).  Grimsrud insists that in the Bible salvation centers on "liberation from the Powers of brokenness," "restoration of harmony with God," and "restoration of harmonious human relationships" (Atonement 36).  Unlike many retributive readings of the Old Testament, salvation is not necessarily tied to the law and sacrifice, but these concepts are related.  Instead of being the means through which salvation is established, Torah and sacrifice follow from "the gift of salvation.  Human beings are not required to follow Torah or offer sacrifices in order to gain God's favor.  Rather, human beings keep Torah and offer sacrifices because they have already received God's favor" (Atonement 47).

The discussion then moves to the prophetic role in the Old Testament.  As the people of God move from sojourning to becoming an established nation with fixed political (kings) and cultic (the Temple) structures, the temptation to become like the nations of the earth grew enticing.  Grimsrud writes that, "In challenging the distortions of the law and sacrifice, the prophets reiterate the meaning of salvation" (Atonement 61).  The main thrust of the prophetic critique centers on injustice, violence, idolatry, and vain religiosity (Atonement 64-69).  What is wonderful about this view of the prophetic critique of Israel is that it does not center on what God's people do, but rather on who they are.  Common conceptions of Christian atonement theology would understand Israel's exile as their inability to keep the Law and sacrificial system, putting them in conflict with God's holiness.  While there is no doubt that they floundered in these considerations, the prophets critique is not concerned with "a detached inner life of God, of cosmic scales of justice, or of impersonal, abstract laws that transcend mundane life" (Atonement 77).

When I say that the prophetic critique does not center on "doing," but rather on "being," that is to say that the critique is that Israel's relationship with God and with each other is broken.  In their injustice, violence, idolatry and vain religiosity God's people are failing to be God's people.  Inasmuch as they emulate the surrounding nations and lose sight of the distinctive nature of God's calling, the nation through whom God promised to bless all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:3) ends up acting more like a curse than a blessing.  Consequently the call to repentance in the prophets will have to reject injustice, violence, idolatry, and vain religiosity (Atonement 64-69) and them with justice, kindness, and trust (Atonement 72-73).

I cannot emphasize enough how important such an understanding of the Old Testament is for anyone desiring to make sense of alternative atonement theologies, Jesus commitment to peace and nonviolence, and the relationship between the Old And New Testaments.  Oftentimes Christian theology has portrayed the Old Testament not simply as unfulfilled, but instead as defective.  Those who read the prophets as primarily prophesying about Jesus often miss out on the major message of critique going on in the text.  For this reason, when such readers hear Jesus say, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44), or, "all who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Matthew 26:52b), such sayings seem utterly distinct from the God of the Old Testament.  I think Grimsrud might offer this dissonance is only because of their ignorance certain passages that say,

You have plowed wickedness,

you have reaped injustice,

you have eaten the fruit of lies.

Because you have trusted in your power

and in the multitude of your warriors, (Hosea 10:13 NRSV)

Next week I will write about Grimsrud's account of the New Testament (specifically Jesus' teachings and death), but it is important to note (again) that this work is extremely important.  I would go so far as to say that only in this context can we discern the meaning of Jesus' words such as, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17). The tendency in some theology towards Marcionism is both inappropriate and unnecessary.  Further, it ignores the fact that the major resource Jesus had in ushering in the Kingdom of God was the Hebrew Bible.

Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross (Part 2)

Having finished Hans Boersma's Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, I feel it necessary to preface my thoughts by saying this: This is a wonderful book.  Do I disagree with it often? Absolutely!  Be that as it may, Boersma has put together a comprehensive and erudite contribution to the discussion of atonement theology.  Now, onto the rest of my thoughts on the book.

As I am conducting auxiliary research for this independent study's term paper, I will keep my remarks brief.  There is much that should be said in response to Boersma's work, but that will have to wait for another time.  What I wish to now address is his treatment of moral influence theory (chapter 5).  I do not wish to denigrate--though I would also not completely assent to them, either--Boersma's reading of Girardianism (chapter 6), penal substitution (chapter 7),  Christus Victor (chapter 8), or public justice and liberation (chapter 10), but to quote Leonard Bernstein, "To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time."

I find the moral influence theory of atonement to be fascinating as it is one of the most ubiquitous conceptions, but often the most neglected.  The assertion that God the Father sent Jesus to die on the cross to communicate God's love to sinners and to elicit a response of love in kind, would be an uncontroversial insistence in most Christian circles.  Boersma would offer that the appeal of this particular theory is that it puts "God's hospitality, rather than his violence," on center stage (Violence 116).  In his continued campaign to make clear the inherit violence in all reasonable conceptions of the atonement, Boersma insists that even moral influence implicates God in the violence.  He maintains that, "A moral theory of the atonement only truly avoids the problem of divine violence if it focuses entirely on the life of Christ, so that there is no way in which God uses the death of Christ as a redemptive event" (Violence 117).  I would want to disagree with such an assertion and question what he means when he says, "God uses the death of Christ."  

Boersma's worry about Christians insisting upon absolute hospitality centers on his assumption that, "it is impossible to extend acts of hospitality without at the same time being involved in some kind of violence" (Violence 36).  Because of the existential reality of violence, Boersma believes that to extend pure hospitality (hospitality without violence for all) into the world would result in hospitality for none. In the instance of moral influence theory, could we not assert that this is precisely what we see?  God sends his son into the world to communicate and embody the good news and a violent world kills the messenger of hope.  Under such a scenario, God only uses the death of Jesus inasmuch as he raises him from the dead.  The cross would be God's, "no" to the violence of a sinful world, while the resurrection would be God's, "yes" to Jesus' way of peace.  I would offer that only through the lens of Calvinist conceptions of election and sovereignty is God implicated in violence in such an understanding; only if God is the puppet master pulling the strings is God embroiled in the violence against Jesus. 

Though he maintains that moral influence theory involves God in violence, he offers a nice conception of it through his reading of Irenaeus.  Irenaeus' concept of recapitulation sees Christ representing, "all Adamic humanity.  As humanity's representative, he takes the position of humanity" (Violence 122).  In this holistic view of moral influence, it is Christ's obedience that is the means for his victory.  Boersma notes that, "By living as the obedient, true human being, Jesus Christ is able to place us once again on the road from which we have strayed, so that we are restored in fellowship with God and receive incorruption and immortality" (Violence 123-24).  This is an elegant perspective from which to view moral influence theory.  In this case, Jesus' life does accomplish a moral influence while at the same time fitting into the biblical narrative.  

I would offer one modification to Boersma's moral influence, namely, that Jesus' obedience is not evidenced by going to the cross, but rather in spite of the cross.  Boersma is not too far away from this perspective himself when he writes that, "Recapitulation implies that the incarnation, obedience, and death of Christ are themselves ways in which he defeats the devil" (Violence 125).  There is no reason that the violence of Jesus' death need encumber our theology. At the cross we do not see God's violence, but his charity as Jesus loves his enemies and prays for his persecutors.  However, Boersma (through his reading of Irenaeus) has one more excellent thought to contribute:

Redemption needs more than incarnation.  Even knowledge, by itself, does not save, as the Gnostics erroneously propose.  For Irenaeus revelation and knowledge are intimately tied to Christ as the teaching model that requires imitation.  Hence, persuasion, free will, faith, morality, and judgment all have their integral place within the whole of Irenaeus's thought. Human maturity and perfection can only be reached my means of faith and obedience.  The consequences of the Fall must be undone by Christ's victory as it is completed in the human response that prepares believers for the eternal kingdom. (Violence 131, author's italics)

 What is most appropriate about Boersma's understanding of the moral influence theory is the way in which in casts aside the arbitrary notion of the imitatio Christi.  In my own ministry and in my own theological enquiries, it would appear that people want to know--in light of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus--why they should live a certain way.  Not too many would espouse their desire to live in sin that grace may all the more abound, but many might wonder why Christian virtues are necessary if we are (a.) going to heaven anyway when we die or (b.) are simply going to be made perfect at the resurrection from the dead.  Christ as the model that requires imitation helps the Christian see that inasmuch as we follow imitate Jesus now, we are on the road toward the telos of resurrection.  Or put another way,

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
     did not regard equality with God
     as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
     taking the form of a slave,
     being born in human likeness.
  And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
     and became obedient to the point of death—
     even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8 NRSV)

I am sure Hans Boersma would disagree with me, but viewing moral influence through the lens of Irenaeus' recapitulation bolsters a conception of crucifixion and atonement that does not require divine violence. If God is implicated in the killing of Jesus, then truly moral influence theory is nonsensical.  How could one ever imitate such a scenario?  However, if the true imitatio Christi gives Christians the strength to be obedient--even in the teeth of pain--because of the hope of the resurrection, then moral influence truly resounds with good news.  We need a robust understanding of moral influence such that  Dostoevsky's words might ring true when he writes,

For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. (The Brothers Karamazov, Book IV, Chapter I)

Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross (Part 1)

This week in my independent study I began reading Hans Boersma's Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross.  In the introduction Boersma describes the book as being about, "atonement theology as an expression of God's hospitality toward us" (Violence 15).  Unlike many of the authors I have hitherto read in this study, Boersma claims that it is a theological necessity to "affirm the paradox of redemptive violence in order to retain the vision of eschatological unconditional hospitality" (Violence 17).  Otherwise put, if in the future God is going to show his unconditional hospitality to the whole world, then violence is a necessary component of how we see God's hospitality at the present.  In the world marred by sin and violence, Boersma argues that if God is going to be able to show hospitality to anyone it will require violence to to cordon off space for his hospitality.  

First, in discussing the possibility of hospitality, Boersma describes what he sees as the backdrop for this discussion: the "renewed focus on human hospitality among postmodern philosophers," and the "increasing scrutiny among theologians of the role that the cross has played...in our society" (Violence 27).  Boersma's reading of Derrida and Levinas respective conceptualizations of hospitality is that both philosophers desire an ethic marked by an openness to the other.  Derrida's eschatological hospitality is a purview in which one is open "to the future or to the coming of the other as the advent of justice, but without horizon of expectation and without prefiguration" (Violence 30).  This avowedly a-teleological openness to the future is problematic for Boersma because such unconditional hospitality, "may ultimately require openness to the devil himself" (Violence 31).  Further, Derrida's insistence that unconditional hospitality be implemented anon, actually precludes the possibility of such hospitality.

This discussion obviously frustrates Boersma's theological agenda.  One can almost feel the disgruntlement in his accusation that, "Such 'pure hospitality' seems to be the result of an inability to take seriously the particularities and the limitations that we experience in this world, and it may well betray a Gnostic touch" (Violence 36).  While I think that Derrida's conception of pure hospitality possibly needs some modification, I find it incredibly alluring.  It seems as though Christian theology, particularly theology with nonviolent convictions, could appropriate much from Derrida in this line of thought.  This radical openness to the other reminds me of Roman Coles description of John Howard Yoder's ecclesiology where the Lordship of Jesus serves "as the opening of dialogical relations between the church and the world in which giving and receiving is possible, nay probable, in both directions" (Modern Theology 18 no 3 Jl 2002, p 307.).

As Boersma moves to a discussion of nonviolent conceptions of the atonement he makes the troubling assertion that, "we need to ask whether violence is, under any and all circumstances, a morally negative thing" (Violence 43).  Boersma brings up the reality that, "there is both physical and nonphysical violence," (Violence 44) but I would offer that he wants to broaden the definition of violence too far.  He uses the example of disciplining children and asserts that some punishments--be they physical or nonphysical--involve what he terms as "some immediate (nonphysical) injury" (Violence 45).  I agree with his assertion that even a verbal chastening creates a degree of psychological discomfort, but I would not say that all forms of scolding are inherently violent.  Boersma seems to remove questions of motive and intent to violence when he wonders, "When I physically restrain my wife from crossing the street because I suddenly see a car speeding around the corner, am I acting violently?" (Violence 45).  This reductio ad absurdum argument seems superfluous to the discussion because it is answering a question that no one is asking.

I would join with Boersma's skepticism of Walter Winks "nonviolent coercion," but I do not follow this skepticism to the same conclusion.  The claim that, "Any use of force or coercion that involves some kind of hurt or junky...is a form of violence," seems obviously fallacious.  The critics of divinely violent conceptions of the atonement are not worried that they lead to swatting a child's hand away from a hot stove, but they are very concerned about capital punishment, retributive violence in our neighborhoods, and the psychological state that makes warfare appear to be a responsible problem solving technique.  Boersma can join Augustine in the assertion that it is really "love of violence" (Violence 47) that is the great evil in war, but I find that line of argument to be both unpersuasive and unbiblical.

Boersma then moves the discussion toward his own theological persuasion with a discussion of how the Calvinist doctrine of election effects the idea of God's hospitality.  He argues that, "The notion of election...ensured that God's hospitable grace was prior to any human action" (Violence 72).  In this way he pits the idea that God could invite persons into his hospitality based on merit or standard against an arbitrary election where God chooses whom he wills.  If the quintessential message of the gospel is "justification by grace through faith" (as Reformed theologians tend to make it), then I can understand why this is an important distinction to make.  One needs to eliminate any possibility of earned salvation.    Boersma describes the thought of the Calvinists writing:

For God to be truly God he had to have the capacity and the will to override any human resistance to his love.  God's love had to be a powerful love, a love that violently overtook the hearts of his chosen ones. (Violence 72).

Boersma is critical of this position and he notes that High Calvinism was unable to see how such coercive hospitality actually transforms God's hospitable welcome into an incarceration (Violence 73).  He then moves into a discussion of how election and violence operate in history.

Boersma identifies four characteristics of election the Deuteronomic literature. Election is "an act sovereign grace," "an act of god in history," "a corporate act," and "instrumental in character" (Violence 78).  He rightly understands God's election of Israel to be, in fact, an extension of God's hospitality "to the nations, in order to woo them back into a relationship with God and thus bring salvation to the entire world" (Violence 80).  I would however, question his read of exile where he argues that, "The hospitality of election notwithstanding, God warns that if Israel rejects his hospitality, it will face the violence of his reprobation" (Violence 81).  This seems to me to be a narrow reading of the exile, viewing it as a purely retributive act without any redeeming purpose.  I could write much much more about this topic, but succinctly I think that the fact that God uses exile as the consequence for Israel's failure such be read in contrast to God simply destroying Israel with fire and brimstone.  If divine violence was the intention, God surely could have used less ambiguous means.

I appreciate how Boersma desires to negate the view that God's hospitality toward Israel was an arbitrary choice.  I even applaud how prominent his concept of God's "preferential option for the poor," (Violence 84) is in his describing how God used his relationship with Israel.  That said, simply asserting that God uses "the marginalized and oppressed over those who reject his hospitality" (Violence 84), does not help explain God's genocidal tendencies in Joshua.  Boersma actually disarms the exegete from the interpretative tools needed to deal with these texts in a critical manner.  He (unfortunately) writes:

We may desperately want to avoid blaming the God whom we worship for the violence in his story.  But knowingly interpreting the biblical text against the intention of the author and the biblical tradition is an unsatisfying way of coping with the divine violence we meet in the pages of the Bible. (Violence 91)

Such theological detritus may appeal to those who desire to view the Bible as infallible and inerrant in a  modern understanding, but it is hard not to see how blatant wrong it is.  We often read the Bible "against the intention of the author and the biblical tradition."  When I reflect on Psalm 137, I do not relish the idea of killing Iraqi infants.  Further, when I read Acts chapter 5, I give ear to the better angels of my nature in not praying for God to strike dead those who lie about their weekly tithes and offerings.    These may be trivial examples, but the illustrate the larger point.  Boersma wants to argue that when someone--such as myself--understands "Jesus' apparent nonviolence" as normative, "we end up stretching the discontinuity between the Old and the New Testaments beyond the warrant of the biblical text" (Violence 92).  I might counter such a claim with the fact that this is precisely what we see Jesus doing!  Consider Jesus teaching:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; (Matthew 5:38-39 NRSV)

Sometimes Jesus accentuates the resolve of the original text he quotes from (such as his teachings on adultery or divorce), but in this case he upends it!

Boersma's concern seems to be that those who want Jesus' nonviolence to be normative are not taking seriously the impurity of the world.  He writes that, "violence does not predominate, and neither does it have the final say.  But to insist on 'pure hospitality' in a impure world would mean to give it over to the forces of inhospitality and violence.  Put provocatively, God's hospitality in Christ needs an edge of violence to ensure the welcome of humanity and all creation" (Violence 93).  To that I can only answer with an unequivocal, "No!"  It is precisely the fact that God's hospitality is vulnerable to inhospitality and violence that imbues it with power.  God's hospitality incarnate was handed over to a violent world, but "the darkness did not overcome it" (John 1:5).  Paul, a man who knew much vulnerability in his life, had the audacity to declare, "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" (1 Corinthians 1:20b)  If Boersma is right then God has to use some of the world's wisdom to make their wisdom look foolish.  Such an idea is would obviously be foolishness in itself.

In his "Loving Your Enemies" sermon, Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars."  Similarly, Paul writes, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21).  I agree with Boersma's claim that, "It is only the light of the pure hospitality awaiting us that can deal with the darkness of all violence and inhospitality that we now experience" (Violence 95), but I do not take it to the same end.  I would argue that only in the light of the pure hospitality revealed in Jesus do we have the resources to proclaim God's hospitable kingdom which is both already and not yet among us.

Options on Atonement in Christian Thought...

I've just this morning finished reading Options on Atonement in Christian Thought by Stephen Finlan.  Finlan offers a fairly sweeping overview of many options, so for the sake of brevity I will touch on only a handful of considerations that I find both helpful and difficult.

Finlan discusses "Paul's Cultic Metaphors," in a way that proffers a primer on Pauline atonement thought and helpful cogitations for seeing how Paul relates atonement metaphors to one another.  Actually Finlan's discussion of Paul's "Conflation of Metaphors," is the section I found most helpful.   He insists that if we shift our focus to individual metaphors in Paul's thought, "we will miss the importance of his constant conflating (mixing) of metaphors, which implies the blending of their underlying logic" (Options 25). If one chooses to focus justification, redemption, propitiation, scapegoating, reconciliation, or adoption then one easily misses the meta-argument Paul is making.  On the other hand, it is also possible to overlook the individual meaning of each metaphor assuming all the terms to have the same meaning. I would argue that this is unfortunately what Christians do most often when terms such as redemption and adoption are not conflated, but assumed to be identical.

That said, Paul does conflate metaphors and even can conflate three in once sentence: "For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh" (Romans 8:3 NRSV).  Here Paul joins the sacrificial ("to deal with sin" in the NRSV, or "as an offering for sin" in the NASB), judicial ("he condemend sin"), and scapegoat ("in the flesh").  Finlan notes that, "The specific focus on 'the flesh' at the beginning and end of the verse suggests a scapegoat image, as does the idea of one creature taking something on for the whole community" (Options 25).  The question then remains as to why Paul combine the metaphors in the way he does.  Finlan wants to insist that, "the bottom line for Paul is not metaphoric consistency but saving outcome.  He uses any metaphor that will communicate that, through Christ, we are rescued, reprieved, redeemed" (Options 26).

This parsing of conflated metaphors can be done poorly as is seen in the case of penal substitutionary atonement.  Paul, usually seen by its proponents as the source of penal substitution, does clearly discuss penalty and substitution, but the initial meaning of the metaphors must be understood first before they can be commingled.  As Finlan helpfully notes, "In the judicial metaphor a penalty is avoided; salvation is pictured as an acquittal in the divine court.  The element of substitution largely emerges from the redemption metaphor, which is substitutionary in a monetary, not penal sense" (Options 27).  Skipping over definitional considerations can create incredibly confounded theological understandings.  For instance, if I assume justification (judicial) and redemption (monetary) to have the same meaning I could logically picture God as being the divine judge who accepts bribes.  Even by human standards that would make the Divine all-compassionate, all-merciful, all-perfect, and all-corrupt.  In this day and age where power goes to the highest bidder this is clearly a troubling image.

Finlan would insist that those who derived penal substitution from Paul, "lost sight of Paul's essential idea that God was not reconciled--was not persuaded or manipulated--but was the reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor 5:19)" (Options 33).  I would like to link this idea (God as the reconciler not the reconciled) to Finlan's later assertion that "None of This Was in Jesus" (Options 35).  Consider the Parable of the Prodigal and His Brother (Luke 15:11-32), for instance.  Both brothers need reconciliation with the father, but the father does all the reconciliation.  There is no notion that penance or sacrifice is needed.  In fact, there is no mention of such reconciliation even being burdensome to the father, but rather is cause for great celebration!

Finlan goes on to handle many different options in atonement theology which categorizes as defenses and critiques of atonement. The range from "Orthodox Defenses" (Schmiechen, Rahner, Balthasar, Wheeler, Gunton, and Moule) to "Postmodern Orthodox Views" (Boersma and Milbank), to critiques such as Girard and Nelson-Pallmeyer.  Reading this range of considerations leads me to gravitate toward John Milbank (who, unfortunately, I am not going to be reading for this course) and, interestingly enough, Paul Fiddes.

Finlan reads Milbank's argument as insisting upon using incarnation as atonement not as primarily propositional assertions, but as "metaphors and narrative devices...meant to stimulate Christian ethics" (Options 90).  Milbank sees atonement as forgiveness, having not only soteriology consequences, but also ecclesiological, "because the difficult process of forgiveness really does change those who participate in it" (Options 90).  For Milbank, atonement conceived of as propositional truth, "simply does not work" (Options 91).  One might think of Charles Taylor's adage, "The proof of a map is how well you can get around using it."  This is not to say that the perceived misbehavior of the church has negated traditional atonement theology.  Actually, Milbank argues, "that the whole concept of atonement can be reinterpreted in a fully orthodox way, without resort to literal-minded substitutionary ideas" (Options 92).  This redefinition of atonement is ethic not in that it calls simply a unidirectional sacrifice of the believer in the name of principles, but rather, "to be ethical therefore is to believe in the Resurrection, and somehow to participate in it" (Options 94).  Or as Jesus might put it, " For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again" (John 10:17).

My interest in Paul Fiddes mostly lies in his concept of where God's wrath, "is not God's personal anger but is a law innate in life itself whereby sin always reaps negative consequence" (Options 101).  This seems mostly like an intriguing thought exercise.  However, I wonder if this concept might be brought into conversation with other interpretations.  For instance, this is probably not too far from N.T. Wright's idea of God's wrath being equated military domination of Israel.  We might be able to see both conceptions in the symbols of Daniel or Revelation wherein all earthly kingdoms who oppose God's peaceable kingdom will be defeated. Supposed sovereignty, on a national or individual level, apart from God's covenant will lead to decline and exile.  There might be something there, or perhaps not.

Nonviolent Atonement: A Proposition Worthy of a Response

For the third week of my independent study I read:

• "The Nonviolent Atonement: Human Violence, Discipleship and God," by J. Denny Weaver.
• "The Cross: God's Peace Work - Towards A Restorative Peacemaking Understanding of the Atonement," by Wayne Northey.
• "Good News For Postmodern Man: Christus Victor in the Lucan Kerygma," by Nathan Rieger

As I am a student at Eastern Mennonite University, J. Denny Weaver's chapter from Stricken by God (which is really a condensed version of the argument proposed in his The Nonviolent Atonement) seems most pertinent to address. In the brief time I have spent in a Mennonite community, Weaver's work has been somewhat ubiquitous. That said, mentions of the retired Bluffton College professor have run the gamut of opinions, from respect to rejection. It seems likely that I will read his entire book in the not-too-distant future, but for now an analysis of this essay's argument will have to suffice.

Weaver begins by making the uncontroversial claim, "nonviolence is intrinsic to the story of Jesus," going so far as to assert that, though the gospel such note be equated or reduced to a rejection of violence it, "any defining statement about Jesus or the gospel that does not have a rejection pf violence as a constitutive element is an incomplete statement about Jesus or the gospel" (Stricken 316). I agree with this claim, but one should not miss its signifiance in the discussion of atonement theology. Weaver's assertion carries with it the implication that Christians who do not preach the gospel of peace are preaching either a truncated or false gospel. I would want to graciously extend an olive branch to Christians outside of the peace church tradition in the form of the reminder that they have been part of the majority opinion throughout the history of the church. I would want to especially emphasize the fact that to the extent they have believe in a gospel of "constant love for one another," love is able to cover, "a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8 NRSV).


Weaver wants to argue for an atonement theology that "undergirds discipleship to Jesus," and provides a theology that, "shapes Christian living" (Stricken 317). Starting from John Howard Yoder's case for using Jesus' life as the norm for Christian ethics, Weaver aruges that "ethics and theology comprise two version or two forms of the same commitment" (Stricken 319). So far, so good.

Weaver then sets out to construct his proposal for atonement theology which he has titled "narrative Christus Victor" (Stricken 321). Jesus launches his mission based upon Isaiah 61:

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; (Isaiah 61:1-2)

Jesus' ministry is about making "present the reign of God in human history" (Stricken 321) and to be Christian "means to join and follow Jesus in his mission of witnessing to the peaceable reign of God" (Stricken 322).  Weaver does want to admits that part of the narrative of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is an atonement motif, but he claims "there is no indication of any kind that the death of Jesus in this story satisfies anything" (Stricken 323).  Weaver sees Jesus' death at the hands of the powers as highlighting the how different the methods of the powers are from the way of God.  Not identifying any sort of satisfaction atonement in the narratives of Jesus, Weaver then proposes what the atonement image he calls "narrative Christus Victor" will look like.  Differing greatly from Gustav Aulen's conception of Christus Victor, Weaver notes that in his envisaging, "the first level of struggle between the reign of God and rule of evil occurs not in the cosmos but on earth, where the life and teaching of Jesus as a whole engage the struggle" (Stricken 324).

Weaver then moves to an examination of narrative Christus Victor found in Revelation.  Weaver's reading of Revelation emphasizes the fact that the resurrection is the victory of Christ over the powers.  Such a victory should be understood as "a nonviolent victory, that is, a victory without divine violence" (Stricken 330).  Weaver maintains that God's nonviolence is not just a fact extracted from reading the narrative, but is intrinsic to understand the reign of God.  Jesus' crucifixion highlights the fact that the worst the powers of evil can do is to kill, but through the resurrection God reverses this denial of existence.  Unlike in satisfaction and penal substitutionary theories of atonement, in narrative Christus Victor, God's triumphant reign does not depend "on God's capacity to exercise either retributive violence or the greatest violence, but on the power of the reign of God to overcome in spite of and in the face of the violence of evil" (Stricken 331).  Weaver then asserts that Revelation ends with the vision of the New Jerusalem, not as a future reality, but as representative of "the church as it continues the mission of Jesus to witness to the presence of the reign of God in the world" (Stricken 332).  It would seem that Weaver would want to admit that the life of the church often does not feel like the New Jerusalem, but he insists that such an image "affirms symbolically that regardless of the apparent power of evil abroad in the world, those who live in the resurrection of Jesus know that evil has been overcome and that its power is already limited" (Stricken 334).

As I was reading through this chapter, at about this point I was wondering how Weaver understands personal deficiency or complicity with sin. Luckily, he turns to a conception of what it means to be a Christian.  Weaver reconfigures a more common understanding of confession, insisting that it is the realization and acknowledgement of "our participation in the forces of evil that killed Jesus, including their present manifestations in such powers as militarism, nationalism, racism, sexism, heterosexism and poverty that still bind and oppress" (Stricken 336).  For Weaver, grace is, "the invitation to participate in spite of our guilt for opposing the reign of God and collusion with the powers that killed Jesus" (Stricken 336).  I have moved quickly through Weaver's essay, but this represents the gist of the argument I wish to deal with.

When reading through Weaver's chapter my initial inclination was assent.  After all, how can one draw upon both John Howard Yoder and Walter Wink and veer too far away from brilliance?  However, Weaver's overarching presentation of narrative Christus Victor left me wanting.  First, Weaver's reading of the gospels seems quotidian for anyone attempting to overcome penal substitutionary understandings of the atonement.  The point that, "there is no indication of any kind that the death of Jesus in this story satisfies anything," (Stricken 323) could--and probably would--be made by any historical Jesus scholar. Such a reading makes one wonder why Weaver would call this assertion "atonement" in the first place?    I agree with the fact that Jesus witnesses to God's peaceable reign on earth and that his death is "produced by the forces that opposed" him.  I even enjoy his reading nonviolent reading of Revelation, which makes clear that the "victory through the resurrection is a non-violent victory, that is, a victory without divine violence" (Stricken 330).  The problem with Weaver's argument really occurs when he turns from exegesis to praxis.

Consider his soteriology:

To acknowledge our human sinfulness means to confess our participation in the forces of evil that killed Jesus, including their present manifestations in such powers as militarism, nationalism, racism, sexism, heterosexism and poverty that still bind and oppress...That invitation to participate [in God's reign] in spite of our guilt for opposing the reign of God and collusion with the powers that killed Jesus is grace. (Stricken 336)

This is dangerously close to guilt-tripping people into the kingdom and undermines his assertion that Jesus death does not satisfy any sort of divine necessity.  Weaver clearly does not believe Jesus' death satisfies divine wrath, but it still seems possible that is satisfies the divine narrative.  Even though he specifically denounces Abelard's moral influence theory, Weaver's description of Abelard is not too distinct from his own conception.  He describes the moral influence theory saying,

In order to show these sinners--us--that God is really loving and accepting, God the Father performs an act of great, infinite love, giving us his most precious possession, his Son, to die for us.  When sinners perceive that love, according to this image, they will want to cease rebelling and return to the loving embrace of the Father. (Stricken 339)

If one substitutes the idea that God gives his son over to death with a Jesus who nonviolently opposes evil even unto his own death, then Weaver and Abelard are kindred theological spirits.

Another problem with Weaver's narrative Christus Victor is its narrowness (and I will admit this may be due to my reading a more condensed version of his argument).  In this chapter, Weaver never (at least by my reading) addresses the Old Testament or attempts to place Jesus into the greater story of God's people.  Further, except for a brief mention of 1 Corinthians 15 and a paragraph on Romans 3:24-26, Weaver completely avoids the letters of Paul.  One is certainly permitted to do this, but not if one wants to discuss atonement.  It simply will not do to cite two scholars who do not see satisfaction atonement in Paul's letters when many Christians think Paul's writings explicitly undermine what you are arguing!

In summary, I would have to assert that Weaver is not a bad resource, but rather he brings up more questions than he offers answers.  That's okay though, because in my study of theologies of the cross and atonement, I am only on week 3.

Cross theologies (week 2)...or, Too Much To Write About

This week I continued slogging through Stricken By God: Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ.  My readings this week were:

• "The Reasons For Jesus' Crucifixion" by N.T. Wright
• "God's Self-Substitution and Sacrificial Inversion" by James Alison
• "God Is Not To Blame: The Servant's Atoning Suffering According to the LXX of Isaiah 53" by E. Robert Ekblad
• "The Forgiveness of Sins: Hosea 11:1-9; Matthew 18:23-25" by Rowan Williams with comments by Mark D. Baker
• "The Repetition of Reconciliation: Satisfying Justice, Mercy and Forgiveness" by Sharon Baker

My reflections here will be centered on N.T. Wright's chapter, but I hope to bring some themes from the other essays into consideration as well.  

N.T. Wright's chapter from Stricken By God is in fact just a chapter from his pivotal work, Jesus and the Victory of God.  Wright's previous contributions to my own theological perspective cannot be downplayed.  His books, Surprised by Hope, After You Believe, and What St. Paul Really Said have been hugely impactful on not only my understanding of the Bible, but my conception of what Christianity is all about.  That said, I've not read Jesus and the Victory of God, so this chapter was mostly new material.  

The first major point (which really shouldn't even have to be said) Wright makes is that "it is worse than futile to try to separate theology from politics" (Stricken 79).  While my personal interests center on systematic theology, biblical studies have continued to center my attention on the socio-religio-political contexts of the Bible.  I would offer that common conceptions of Christian atonement theology are unhelpful particularly in their de-historicized nature. The concern to communicate a universally intelligible gospel is not wrongheaded, but it's priority in theology has done violence to the narrative of scripture.  Wright's chapter does a nice job putting the story of Jesus crucifixion back into a historical context.  He does this by examining the three major players in the narrative: the Jews, the Romans, and Jesus himself.  

Wright's analysis of the Roman and Jewish charges against Jesus are helpful, but for my purposes, his analysis of Jesus' intentions are critical.  Wright begins with the question that must be asked, "Did Jesus intend to die in something like the manner he did, and if so why?" (Stricken 91).  Some would answer with a resounding, "No!" Those answering negatively would want to either paint Jesus' death as a tragedy that cut short the life of a great man, or at least insist that Jesus didn't have to die (i.e. it was not a requirement of his divine vocation).  Wright wants to argue that Jesus' "own decisions...were themselves necessary, though insufficient, causes of his own death" (Stricken 90).

Wright's case stems from his interpretation of the Last Supper as a Passover meal.  In the upper room, Jesus "fused this great story [Passover] together with another one: the story of Jesus' own life, and of his coming death" (Stricken 92).  The Passover meal was the Jewish remembrance of God's delivery of the Hebrews from tyranny, and also looked forward to their eventual return from exile.  If Wright is correct in his interpretation of the "forgiveness of sins" as YHWH's deliverance and vindication of his exiled people, then the overarching story of the Bible would look something like this:

1. YHWH calls Abraham to become a people through whom YHWH will bless all the families of the earth; that is, set to right what was broken at the fall (Genesis 12:3).
2. Israel resists God's intentions and becomes more like the pagan nations around them.  This leads to Israel's exile.
3. Jesus comes on the scene as YHWH's messiah, acting as the true Israel to accomplish God's purposes.

The Last Supper as a Passover celebration points to the fact that, "the new exodus, and all that it meant, was happening in and through Jesus himself" (Stricken 95). 

Skipping ahead in the chapter, Wright (as usual) insists that Jesus' actions cannot be interpreted outside of their eschatological significance.  Jesus was acting out of the conviction that the focal point of Israel's history had come and the end of the exile was nigh.  Because of this Jesus took up the yoke of the prophets declaring Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple to be under judgement.  Israel had again and again been warned about what would happen if she continued compromising with paganism and pagan politics, and Jesus-seeing the coming annihilation of Jerusalem at the hand of Rome-again declares God's judgment.  However, Wright points out that, "the divine reaction...was not capricious or malevolent.  Rather, the prophets, and the Messiah, had been trying to tell the people that there was a way of peace, a way to escape.  They were extending a lifeline" (Stricken 132-133).  

What is so refreshing about Wright's analysis is the holistic understanding of Israel's iniquity.  Israel's failure is not a moral failure, but a vocational failure.  Even as they did strive to be the Kingdom of God, the fought the battle "with the enemy's weapons," (Stricken 133) causing them to lose in principle as they would soon lose in practice; that is, in 70 CE.  Wright does see Jesus' death as substitutionary in the sense that he takes upon himself the wrath, that is "hostile military action," "which was coming upon Israel because she had compromised with paganism and was suffering exile" (Stricken 134). Furthermore, Jesus takes upon himself the consequences of Israel's refusing his way of peace.  

Again skipping ahead, in discussing how Jesus' death related to the sacrificial cult, Wright helpfully notes that, "The controlling metaphor that he [Jesus] chose for his crucial symbol was not the Day of Atonement, but Passover: the one-off moment of freedom in Israel's past, now to be translated into the one-off moment which would inaugurate Israel's future" (Stricken 143).  This is an enormously helpful observation as the Day of Atonement paradigm has dominated and continues to dominate Christian theology.  If Jesus is the paschal lamb, he is so for the purpose of bringing an end to the exile.  I would offer that many Christians read Exodus 12 through the lens of Leviticus 23 and Numbers 29 instead of the other way around.  Passover clearly looks forward to the end of exile, perhaps the Day of Atonement looks forward to the Jubilee: 

Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. (Leviticus 25:9-10) 

  That is just an uneducated musing, but I think there is potential with that train of thought.  The point being that Jesus does not see the Day of Atonement as the defining symbol of his death, but rather Passover.  Therefore, our hermeneutical paradigm should be Passover.  At this point, James Alison's essay on "God's Self-Substitution and Sacrificial Inversion" make an interesting conversation partner.  Alison writes that, "The rite of atonement was about the Lord himself, the Creator, emerging from the Holy of Holies so as to set the people free from their impurities and sins and transgressions" (Stricken 168).  Rather than seeing ritual atonement as being perfectly inline with pagan sacrificial systems, Alison would insist that it marks a break from the need to placate the deity.  For Alison, the most important move in the liturgy is the priest coming out from behind the veil.  He notes, "The movement is not inwards towards the Holy of Holies; the movement is outwards from the Holy of Holies" (Stricken 169).  

Alison asserts that even the Hebrew sacrificial system was "both remembering and covering up...human sacrifice" (Stricken 173).  Jesus inserts himself into the sacrificial system in an effort "to make it clear that this is simply murder" (Stricken 173).  I think I am not misreading Alison to insist that the liturgical system of sacrifice was itself the undergirding for all forms of sacrifice.  Sacrifice offered pagans, and probably Jews, justification for dominating and killing others.  Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection breaks the system once and for all.  

Even if Alison's assessment is not completely accurate (which I am certainly not qualified to evaluate), it does lead us in the right direction.  The more we interpret Jesus' death in the paradigm of pagan sacrificial institutions, the more we will miss the point.  Alison ends his essay with a really striking analysis:

"That is the really difficult thing for us to imagine.  We can imagine retaliation, we can imagine protection; but we find it awfully difficult to imagine someone we despised, and were awfully glad not to be like -- whom we would rather cast out so as to keep ourselves going -- we find it awfully difficult to imagine that person generously irrupting into our midst so as to set us free to enable something quite new to open up for us.  But being empowered to imagine all that generosity is what atonement is all about; and that is what we are asked to live liturgically as Christians." (Stricken 179)

I think this is what Wright has in mind when he insists that Jesus "saw as a pagan corruption the very desire to fight paganism itself" (Stricken 134).  The defeat of Israel's oppressors was at the heart of Jesus' actions, but such a victory would be achieved on YHWH's terms. Jesus already had stated his rules of engagement: "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 16:25 NRSV).  For this reason Jesus declared judgment on Israel for seeking to resist Rome by force.  Wright insists that, "This judgment was not arbitrary; it was the necessary consequence of Israel's determination to follow the path of confrontation with Rome" (Stricken 146).

If Jesus' cross is going to be seen as a victory, it might be helpful to understand whom the victory is going to be over.  Wright helpfully writes:

"This, then, was how Jesus envisaged the messianic victory over the real enemy.  The satan had taken up residence in Jerusalem, not merely in Rome, and was seeking to pervert the chosen nation and the holy place into becoming a parody of themselves, a pseudo-chosen people intent on defeating the world with the world's methods, a pseudo-holy place seeking to defend itself against the world rather than to be the city set on a hill, shining its light on the world. One time: this does not mean that Jesus rejected the concept of chosen nation and holy place.  The whole point is that he embraced them; that he discerned, and tried to communicate, what the chosenness, in its scriptural roots, actually meant; and that, discovering the nation as a whole deaf and blind to his plea, he determined to go, himself to the holy place, and there to do what the chosen people ought to do.  He would act on behalf of, and in the place of, Israel, that was failing to be what she was called to be.  He would himself be the light of the world.  He would be the salt of the earth.  He would be set on a hill, unable to be hidden." (Stricken 147)

I have much more I could say about the significance of this narrative, but I will use this as a place to wrap up my reflections.  What I think must be said is that this placement of Jesus' crucifixion in the greater story of Israel fills two voids often present in Christian theology.  First, this understanding bridges the chasm between soteriology and Christian ethics.  Wright remarks that the symbol of the cross was not the symbol of Caesar's victory, but rather, "It would become the symbol, because it would be the means, of the victory of God" (Stricken 148). That said, I think Wright would agree with John Howard Yoder that, "The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come" (The Politics of Jesus 51).  In other words, Jesus ushers in God's kingdom and defeats the kingdoms of the world with kingdom practices.  The second void Wright's answers the question posed by Michael Hardin earlier in the book, "How do the Testaments relate to one another?" (Stricken 63).  In fact, Wright's work makes this question sound somewhat absurd as you cannot understand Jesus' vocation as messiah without the Hebrew Bible.

There is much more to say, but for now this will have to suffice.

Leaving Penal Substitution...Whereto Next?

I begin this course and theological investigation by reading a substantial amount of Stricken by God: Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ, edited by Brad Jersak and Michael Hardin.  This week's introductory essays, written by the editors themselves, set the stage for the conversation to be had by the various contributors.

Probably the most important thing to be gleaned from these two essays  is vocabulary.  Jersak uses the subtitle of the book, Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ, as the common ground between the books participants.  A nonviolent view of the cross is not a denial that the cross is a violent episode (this would surely be nonsensical), but rather an insistence that at the cross "we are not witnessing God's violence" (Stricken 19).  The term identification refers not only to Christ's incarnation and his taking up humanity, but also his call for us to identify with him.  Or as Paul would put it, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death" (Philippians 3:10 NRSV).  Finally, the cross must be seen as a victory in which Christ defeats "Satan, sin and death as he confronts and defeats them through his resistance, obedience, and resurrection" (Stricken 19).

From my current theological perspective, I find myself onboard with the project represented in Stricken By God.  However, I feel I must admit that two years ago I would not have been able to even espouse such a vocabulary of the atonement.  Further, I relate to Jersak's confession that in the past I have held the opinion that "one must believe in penal substitution to be a Christian" (Stricken 21).  I can vividly remember discussing such a notion with my old mentor in ministry espousing my frustration that Rob Bell was seriously missing the point of the cross on his The Gods Aren't Angry speaking tour.  This is more than slightly embarrassing to admit as I am stunned by the fact that I managed to come to this conclusion only through hearsay of what said tour was about, and that at the same time I was reading Girard in a class titled "Theories and Practices of Self-Sacrifice," and I apparently failed to make any connection between my academic and theological enquiries.

Jersak, in moving away from his previously held theological convictions, lists some common charges against penal substitutionary atonement.  One objection which interests me greatly is that, "It pits Father against Son" (Stricken 23). The idea of the Jesus taking upon himself God's wrath on the cross while at the same time praying for the forgiveness of those who are crucifying him, has always seemed problematic.  Has the Trinity allowed God to be in different bipolar moods at the same time, with the Father experiencing a serious wrathful episode while the benevolent Son declares pardon?  In the past I remember being taught that at least two actors were in play in the crucifixion: God and humanity.  God sends the son to serve as perfect sacrifice for the world's sin against God.  Humanity (i.e. the Jews and the Romans) conspires against its own creator and kills him for being too moral (or something along those lines; only recently as I have studied political readings of the gospels has the conspiracy to kill Jesus gained any coherence). If indeed God is doing violence against Jesus at the same time as his earthly persecutors, how does it make sense that Jesus prays for their forgiveness?  God forgive them for something you wanted me to do anyway.  Furthermore, if the cross is Jesus appeasing an angry God, then Christ's passion predictions are transformed into mystic fortune tellings about his own demise instead of Jesus' reading the signs of the times and explaining the most likely outcome of his resistance to the temple and Rome.

Michael Hardin's opening essay "Out of the Fog: New Horizons for Atonement Theory," gives a nice overview of some of the options proposed by contributors to Stricken and also by others.  Hardin's foremost desire is to analyze how atonement theories operate in our theological systems and to "discern how atonement theories are influenced by pagan thought forms" (Stricken 57).  His three major categories for such analysis are dualism, scripture, and God's honor. I won't address his analysis of dualism, but I would recommend Brian McLaren's chapter on "What Is the Overarching Story Line of the Bible?" in A New Kind of Christianity for a nice summation of how the Hellenistic dualism of real and ideal has influenced Christian theology.  Much more pertinent (at least in my mind) to a discussion of nonviolent identification and the cross is Hardin's section on scripture.

I cannot express how refreshing it is to see someone admit, "what is missing most in work on the atonement is an exploration of the presuppositions regarding the role of Scripture and the hermeneutic operative in the interpreter" (Stricken 59).  It seems blatantly obvious to state that one's assumptions about the Bible will influence every subsequent reading and conclusion.  To my friends who hold to the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture (who probably aren't reading this blog anyway), I want to say up front: I care deeply about the Bible.  I too derive great meaning in life from the Bible and I do not want to suggest another source to which Christians should turn. One strategy inerrancy and infallibility advocates use is to attack the character of those who would question their hermeneutic with accusations of laziness (You just want an easy way out.) or collusion with some more "worldly' influence.  Against such accusations I would simply say: Stop!  No one is impressed by how much you trust the Bible.

A friend of mine once suggested that an infallible bible is to Protestantism what the immaculate conception of Mary is to Roman Catholicism.  That is to say that both groups desire an unblemished source for their picture of God.  For this reason, I agree with Hardin's assertion that, "Jews and Christians don't need a perfect Bible; the perfect Bible will ultimately be distorted as myth" (Stricken 60).  In this assertion based on mimetic theory, "myth" refers to stories that are predicated on the guilt of the victim and the justification of the community's right to retribution.  If the Bible is meant to be read as a self-evident, perfect document, then it can be (and has been) easily interpreted to meet the needs of the violent systems we live in.  However, if scripture is self-critical it will be much more difficult for it to be co-opted by those looking for justification for their own agendas.  For instance, if part of the Old Testament is a story about good kings (namely David and Solomon) and bad kings (namely Ahab), then one could surmise that in order to rule over people one must simply imitate the good kings and avoid the mistakes of the bad kings.  If instead the Bible is portraying an anti-king (or anti-empire) agenda where the line between good and bad kings is blurred, then it presents a problem to anyone trying to justify their authority on scriptural grounds (they will of course try, but their justifications will be more easily opposed).

The question remains, "How does this relate to theologies of the cross and atonement?" Hardin puts it best writing that, "a text that is self-critical allows us as humans to hear another voice besides the prevalent, prevailing and dominating voice of the gods of human culture" (Stricken 60).  Following this line of thought, I would assert that in scripture we do not see Jesus as the fulfillment of the sacrificial system, but the abolishment of it.  I sometimes worry that Christians do not understand how quotidian sacrifice systems were in the biblical world.  If in fact Jesus is the propitiation for humanity's sins, taking upon himself the wrath of God, Christianity is in fact no different than many of the sacrificial religions of its day.  If this is the case, then Christianity might actually be worse.  Given the choice between sacrificing a human or sacrificing a virtually infinite amount of sheep, I (even as a vegetarian) would hope we would always choose the sheep.  Michael Hardin quotes Mark Heim who reminds us, "The cultic altar still defined sacrifice in terms determined by the model of founding murders" (Stricken 63).  The Bible does not present a cosmology based on Marduk's murder of Tiamat, but of the Creator God lovingly bringing all things into being and declaring them "good."

Hardin's discussion of God's honor does a nice job in breaking up the idea that the cross was "merely" a human plot to execute Jesus.  He writes, "To say the cross is merely the result of the evil plot of human beings is like saying the genocide in Darfur or the Balkans or the Holocaust is merely the result of an evil plot" (Stricken 67).  One contention often heard is that only penal substitutionary atonement takes sin seriously.  I would offer that this thesis is based far more on the human desire for retribution than on a concern for God's honor.  What happened to Jesus was deplorable, but we must not superimpose our own systems of justice onto it. On the cross we witness Jesus' forgiveness and the resurrection confounds all expectations (not only because it is unexpected for a man to rise from the read) by being the great act and promise of God's blessing.  Hardin notes that, "If God were retributive, then the resurrection would have been the terrible apocalypse of Jewish eschatology, the place of reciprocal retaliation for killing Jesus" (Stricken 71).  Instead, "By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading" (1 Peter 1:3-4).  Man's worst action leads to his greatest blessing.

Initial thoughts...

Last semester, my adviser, Ted Grimsrud, and I were planning my schedule for the coming fall semester.  After realizing that certain course offerings were overlapping, I inquired into the possibility of putting together my independent study.  After discussing exactly what such an endeavor would look like, I immediately knew what subject area I wanted to tackle: Theologies of the cross and the atonement.  This first post is the "before" image I hope to look back on once this semester is finished (so I can see all the unnecessary theological weight I have lost).  For the course I'm going to blog once a week reflecting on what I have been reading and I hope to think "out loud" here.  I am writing this post before the first week of classes has started, so hopefully this represents my perspective of origin before numerous readings clutter my mind.  

The reason I knew so quickly why I wanted to delve into theologies of the cross and atonement is because I see this as a constantly progressing theme in my spiritual and theological life.  My earliest memories of thinking through these issues come from my middle school years at an evangelical Anglican Church youth group.  I should preface my further remarks by saying that I would not be who I am today without these past experiences and none of these recollections/commentaries should be read as disparaging.  The ministry of this particular youth group could be closely likened to that model of Young Life.  As I best understood what was being communicated to me in this context, all persons were sinful and thus deserving death (spiritual death), Christ bore the punishment for all the world’s sin by dying on a cross, and people could confess their sin and accept Christ’s gift of eternal life.  I in no way want to trivialize this message and even more so want to emphasize the fact that this was the foundation of how I understood Christianity for a significant amount of time.

Through high school and into my first foray into university this message was with me.  I even, in turn, did ministry with high school students where I—week after week—stood before teenagers and told them this very same message.  During the time I attended Arizona State University, I became a member at a fast growing nondenominational neo-Calvinist church.   It was during my time there that I became interested in theology, particularly in systematic theology.  While there, I felt I was receiving biblical teaching in an astute package, and my eyes were consistently being opened to a specific theological tradition.  This was greatly beneficial for me as my early experience in church was influenced by some sort of evangelical, charismatic, conservative Anglican, and para-church style theology that—I as look back on it now—was oftentimes incoherent. Not so with my new Reformed brethren.  Doctrine, I was told, was back in.  You were supposed to believe the right things as well as having a personal relationship with God. 

This new church was greatly influenced by Wayne Grudem’s tome, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine.  I would venture it was probably thought by some in the congregation that if one could simply read, understand, and believe everything in this book, one would receive the keys to the kingdom or something along those lines.   All that is to say, there were certain things you needed to believe and it was to your peril to believe differently about certain things. 

It was in this church that I first encountered the idea of propitiation as Jesus taking God’s wrath for sin upon himself on the cross.  In some sermon I can only vaguely remember now, it was explained to me that the old trope, “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” was nonsense.  In fact, God hates sinners and Jesus took the hatred-in-action (wrath) upon himself when he was crucified.  I can easily recall arguing with roommates about this fact as I slowly convinced myself that this was indeed the case.  However, what I forced myself to believe was theologically sound subsequently left me with an uneasiness that has plagued me up to the present.

There are all sorts of reasons I could list as to why I need to study this subject and they range from recently newfound pacifist convictions to my seeing the psychological effects atonement theology has had on some of my friends who have left the church.  My goal in this research is not to discover a new theological formula hitherto unheard of, but to open my heart and mind to a variety of perspectives.  In doing so I would hope and pray that I would be better equipped to offer a theology that is good news to the world which God so loves. 

This semester I will be reading:

Boersma, Hans. Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross.  Grand Rapids: Baker

Academic, 2004.

Cone, James H. The Cross and the Lynching Tree.  Maryknoll: Orbis Books,

2011.

Finlan, Stephen. Options on Atonement in Christian Thought. Collegeville:

Liturgical Press, 2007.

Grimsrud, Ted. Instead of Atonement: The Bible’s Salvation Story and Our Hope for Wholeness. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013.

Jersak, Brad and Michael Hardin, eds. Stricken By God? Grand Rapids: William

B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007.

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