Almighty God, who has given your only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
For the authors of the New Testament, the death of Jesus of Nazareth was the "anomaly" that threatened allegiance to whatever language- and thought-forms they might have inherited, and that required a new model, or "paradigm," by which to see themselves, to see others, and to see God.
Jesus was, in his divinely mandated (i.e., promised, anointed, messianic) prophethood, priesthood, and kingship, the bearer of a new possibility of human, social, and therefore political relationships.
The above quotations introduce
Scot McKnight's recent book,
A Community Called Atonement.
I've been wanting to read more about atonement theology for a while, for I have many questions. I've chosen McKnight's book because of its accessibility (the text is 156 pages and it isn't aimed exclusively at a professional audience), because I had heard of him before--he wrote the NIV Application Commentaries on Galatians and 1 Peter (in 1993), and that book on Mary--
The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus (in 2006). I am not a regular reader of his blog,
JesusCreed.org, but I have visited it a handful of times. It also came to my attention (
here) that McKnight is an Anabaptist.
As I work through this book, I'll continue to post here. (I know, I haven't finished working through the introduction to the Martyr's Mirror yet...)
Prologue -
We need to recognize that there are multiple metaphors (or images, if you're uncomfortable with the word 'metaphor') in scripture for talk about atonement. And of course there are multiple metaphors in the history of Christian theology. McKnight thinks we need to be aware of the purpose of each metaphor in order to be successful in communicating about God's redemptive work in Christ Jesus. McKnight uses the metaphor of a bag full of golf clubs - you don't putt with a sand wedge on the green or open with the putter at the tee. "What does each club in our bag offer us, are we using all the clubs in our bag, and is there a bag defined enough to know where to place each of those clubs?", McKnight asks.
I want to suggest that our "bag" is biblical theology. Let's ask the questions: "Are we drawing out and making use of all the models of atonement suggested by the biblical imagery?", and "What are the effects of our frequent (or infrequent) use of each model upon our theology and our living?"--for example, how does one's being thoroughly used to Calvin's penal substitution model affect the way we approach biblical interpretation, theology proper (i.e. theology of God), soteriology, theology of justice and forgiveness, of church and state, of community? What would happen if we lost this model altogether? What would happen if this model lost its dominant hold on our evangelically-trained minds? Further, let's ask, "Do all the models of atonement with which we're familiar really comport with and grow out of biblical theology done well?" These are some of my questions about atonement theology.
Ch. 1: Atonement: The Question, A Story, and Our Choice
1. Atonement is a creative act of God. "Christians believe that...God really did redemptively create..." (1). When God atones, God creates new hearts (Jer. 31), new relationships, and new communities, and celebrates with the creation of new wine (John 2).
2. Atonement is the gospel of the kingdom of God. "The atonement...is the good news of Christianity.... It explains how that gospel works" (1).
3. God's work of atonement is centered in the work of Christ, but it is bigger than a single event in the story of Jesus. "...this all took place in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and (the silent part of the story) in the gift of the Holy Spirit" (1).
The Question: Does Atonement Work?
"Does the claim of the gospel extend to what can be observed in the concrete realiteis of those who claim to be its beneficiaries?" (1). That is, "Does atonement work?" (1). (This puts me in mind of our discussion on Michael's blog about evidence and falsifiability here). The way he puts this resonates with me as an extremely vital question: "Are Christians any better than anyone else in their relationship with God, self, others, and the world? ... Are Christians--taken as a whole--more loving people? Are they more forgiving? Are they more just? Are they more peaceful? Are they really better?" (1-2).
McKnight tells me that since I agree with him that "the credibility of the Christian faith is determined" by an affirmative answer to each of these questions, I am reading the right book (2).
He proceeds to give the affirmative answer I'd like to give, and bases it on an anecdote about a Christian ER worker who literally washes the feet of a man whom no one else wanted to touch (3-4).
Is it that easy a question to answer, though? McKnight has just said: "I'm not talking about individuals, for it is all too easy to find a bad Christian and a good Muslim or Buddhist and say, 'Christianity doesn't work but Islam and Buddhism do!'". So surely finding a good Christian isn't sufficient to provide an answer to this question. Especially when there are so many good Muslims or Buddhists, presumably.
I'm going to assume McKnight means to give something of a promissory note here for further justification for his affirmative answer to the all-important question he has raised.
McKnight goes on to say that "how we frame atonement will make all the difference for the world" (4). In other words, the models of atonement we use and the way we use them is going to make a practical difference. In particular, he notes right away, it will make a difference in the composition of our churches--whether they are socially and racially homogenous or integrated, to start with. (Only about 10% of American churches, he says, are racially integrated.) (5)
"The gospel we preach shapes the kind of churches we create. The kind of church we have shapes the gospel we preach" (5).
He charges that we have shaped our theories of atonement and our preaching of the gospel "to keep our group the same and others out" (5).
I can believe this. It is plausible that people who don't need to be saved from social problems because they are privileged preach an atonement theory focused on rescuing them from the consequences of sins they have committed from within their privileged positions. And that people who feel discontent with their social status preach an atonement theory that promises deliverance into a higher social status--a "social gospel" or "health & wealth gospel" or a "gospel of liberation". If our group doesn't need--or rather doesn't want--to hear a gospel preached about God's plan for the poor and oppressed, we probably won't end up including the poor and oppressed who will respond to this gospel in our church pews and congregational business meetings.
There are other questions: such as, what are the effects of the atonement for those gays, lesbians, bisexual or transgendered persons for whom Jesus died? Are they reconciled to God as they are, with God's blessing on their sexual orientation and behavior? Or are these things they perceive as part and parcel of their created identities symptoms of a disease to be cured by the work of atonement? A church's position on this atonement issue will obviously shape the composition of their visible membership as well.
Also see: David Neff's review at CT
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"Make me a channel of Your Peace."
-St. Francis
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