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)