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.