The End is the Beginning: A People of Vocation

Previous posts in this series can be found here, here, here, and here.

God calls Abram in Genesis 12 and inaugurates a new era in history. Much ink has been spilled on this particular topic, but permit me to add my own small take: the call of Abram isn't something to be read in isolation from the previous 11 chapters, but rather as a continuation of them. In other words, God's call of Abram is a creational act, through and through - or, more specifically, perhaps we should call it an act of re-creation, a glimmer of the new amid the old.

What is really happening in the call of Abram is nothing less than God's reinstitution of his creation project that has become derailed. This is important, because what we need to recognize here is that God isn't about scrapping the mess and starting over. The creation project has become deeply and foundationally broken, but God remains committed to it, determined to see it to his desired end. And he intends to do this, not by starting a new thing as over against the old, but rather by bringing the new right smack-dab in the middle of the old, so that in the end the old will be subsumed in the new. Some time later, one of Abram's descendants will describe this sort of activity in terms of yeast and mustard seeds - but we're not there yet. In fact, this is a puzzling bit of news, as Abram is an old man without children.

The themes of creation are rich in the Abram narrative, if we know how to look for them. Perhaps the most significant is the theme of giving fullness to that which is empty - God fills the void of creation in Genesis 1, and God fills a similar void in Abram and Sarai's life by providing a child. This leads to a twofold promise in relation to the land - Abram's descendants will rule it and fill it, a microcosm of the vocational call of the image of God granted to the man and woman in Genesis 1. New creation begins here, with the institution of the people of Israel and the assignment of a vocation to them. We significantly misstate the point of Genesis 1-11 when we read it to discover how God went about the task of creation. This has little to do with creation in a general sense. Genesis 1-11 is included in our text specifically to tell us who the people of God are and what their task is to be. Genesis 1 is about Abram more than it is about Adam.

And yet, we are left with Adam's legacy - remember the statement in Genesis 5? Adam had a son in his image. Abram is as much a child of Adam as he is a child of God - the fundamental flaw that has endangered the creation project to this point in the narrative has yet to be resolved. The rest of the Old Testament is about the conflict between these two realities, image and curse - and at the end of the narrative, we find that Abram's descendants are cast from the land in an event that is strangely reminiscent of another exiling, long before, in a garden somewhere in the same neighborhood.

The End is the Beginning: Frustration of Vocation

Previous posts in this series can be found here, here, and here.

When I last picked up this topic, I described my understanding of the image of God in humanity as a vocation to which we are called, specifically that of furthering and completing the creation project begun by God in Genesis 1 by ordering and filling the earth. I also described my understanding of the curse as the distortion of that vocation, reflected in the aspects of the curse that were given to the man and the woman - the man was cursed with enmity between him and the earth, frustrating the task of ordering creation, while the woman was cursed with hardship in childbirth, frustrating the task of filling creation. Further, the man and the woman were set at odds with each other, with man dominating the woman instead of reflecting the joint image-bearing task that was given them in Genesis 1.

Image, you see, is a communal task. It isn't something that you bear and that I bear, but rather something that we, together, bear as we participate with God in his creation project. Or, put differently, you and I are each created in the image of God - but we reflect that image as a whole, as a people, as a community. That is, I think, the lesson of Genesis 1. In contrast to the kings of Babylon and Egypt who were said to be the image of the gods, the Hebrew scriptures describe it as something that we all share and that is distorted when we do not recognize it in one another.

This, however, is exactly what happens in Genesis 4-11. We see humanity caught between image and curse, attempting to order and fill the earth yet harming, enslaving, and killing one another. This is a difficult set of chapters for us to read because the events described clash significantly with our modern sensibilities - and for good reason! They describe what happens when the image of God is frustrated and the divine task is abandoned. The flood story is one of the most troubling texts in the whole of the Christian canon, if we will be honest. But I think what the narrative is meant to portray is the intensity with which God will guard his creation project. I think that what we take away from such a story is that the project is in serious jeopardy. Regardless of how one approaches the question of the sovereignty of God, what is in my view undeniable is that in the narrative God is forced to take drastic action - that's what the logic of the story tells us. Things are devolving quickly.

I think it fascinating that this particular section ends where it does, with the narrative of Babel. It's an odd sort of tale that doesn't strike many chords with contemporary readers - but I think it's a powerful climax that drives home the question of how God will respond. Middleton writes in The Liberating Image that what God is opposing in this story is a sort of proto-Babylonian empire that subjugates other peoples and conscripts them into massive imperial building projects. In his view, the single language of the story isn't some idyllic time when everyone spoke the same language - in fact, chapter 10 describes the various people-groups as developing their own languages as a natural progression of their spreading out and filling the earth. However, it was common for a conquering nation to impose its own language on conquered peoples to facilitate their labor. What the narrative of Genesis 11 represents, then, is the actions of an empire whose intention is to "make a name" for itself in opposition to the purposes of God. It will accomplish this task through oppression and conquest, using means such as forced labor and imposition of a common language to unite the conquered peoples for massive building projects. God's intervention in this project results in the cessation of building, the return to many languages, and the dispersion of people across the land - in short, the return to God's purposes for humanity.

God intervenes numerous times in the first eleven chapters of the story to protect his creation project - but he is about to move in a whole new way. Next, we'll look at Abram's call from the perspective of the divine vocation and the imago dei.

Technorati Tags: narrative, new creation

The End is the Beginning: Distortion of Vocation

If it is fair to connect vocation with creational intent, as I discussed in my previous post, then I think it also makes sense to look at Genesis 3 from the same vantage point. Genesis 3 is a fascinating chapter in the Christian scriptures, not least because of how little it really tells us. Read the chapter carefully, and you might catch that a lot of what is commonly assumed to be going on in the chapter is in fact an interpretive veneer that we lay over the actual text. Take, for example, the identity of the serpent - I've only once heard it postulated that the serpent could represent something or someone other than a personal malevolent entity known as Satan, and yet nowhere in the entire canon is that connection made. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad reading - but it isn't in the text. It has to come from somewhere else.

Likewise, we often assume a set of meanings in relation to the curse. Most of these meanings are based on later elements in the story, or even on popular theologies that are somehow read back into the text. For example, it's common in evangelical theology to speak of the curse as "separation" from God. But again, that's not in the text, or at least it's not described in terms of curse. The man and the woman are expelled from the garden, implying separation. But that's not the curse. That happens later, so that the problem will not be compounded by the man and woman continuing to eat from the tree of life and thus living forever in their cursed state. (Go ahead, read it - I'll wait. ;) The curse is all about vocation in Genesis 3.

Flip back a few pages to the end of Genesis 1. The man and woman have been given their divine task - to jointly image God and to participate in the creation project by ruling and filling the Earth. This is exactly what is twisted in Genesis 3. The divine vocation that was given to humanity is now frustrated; the creation project is in jeopardy. The curse on the man is mirrored by a curse on the ground - instead of ruling and subduing the earth, the man will now have to fight and struggle with the earth just to be able to eat. The curse on the woman is likewise reflective of the divine task - instead of filling the earth, childbirth will now be painful and costly. And, instead of jointly imaging God, the man will exercise authority over the woman, another corruption of the creational intent. Finally, in the end, both will die, returning to the dust from which they have been made, in what seems the final triumph of "uncreation".

We stand now at the point of driving conflict in the scriptural narrative. On the one hand, God holds forth his creation project, in which humanity is to serve as his chief representatives. On the other, humanity has rejected our own vocation and set ourselves in opposition to God's purposes, rather than in cooperation with them. This conflict echoes through the rest of the narrative. Every movement in the story from this point will be a move towards one of these two poles. And God now has a new task in the narrative - how will he rescue his creation project from those who have screwed it up so badly? And what will become of these humans, who were to serve in a pivotal role in that project?

Technorati Tags: narrative, new creation

The End is the Beginning: Purity of Vocation

Vocation might seem like an odd connection to make when talking about (towards?) New Creation. It might seem even more so in relation to Genesis 1 - but that's where I want to begin. I'm going to sketch out a rough outline, starting here, and hopefully pull some themes to the fore that I think are largely ignored in contemporary western Christianity. As to what that will tell us about our place in the narrative - well, we shall see when we get there.

Those of you who (like me) grew up in or are currently a part of churches that lean towards the conservafundagelical will no doubt recognize the take on Genesis 1 that looks at the narrative as a description of how God created the world. There are different ways of navigating that, of course - literal six-day view or theistic evolution or days represent ages or whatever - but the perspective boils down to the understanding of the text as basically answering the question how. I've come to believe that there is really very little of that question in play at all in Genesis 1, and the parts that do talk about how aren't saying at all what we've come to believe. I think that Genesis 1 is basically talking about two themes: vocation and power. And those themes, I think, are intertwined, so that the questions that the text is answering focus on things like: who are we? What is our role or task in the world?

Those questions, you must understand, were also asked by others in the ancient world, others who had a particular motivation for having them answered in a particular way. When the text speaks of the image of God, it is using royal language - both the Babylonian and Egyptian empires used that language of their kings in connection with their right to rule. The logic goes something like this: You were created to serve the gods. The king is the living representative (image) of those gods. Therefore, whatever service you owe to the gods is due the king as their representative. So get back to work!

Genesis 1 is a text that, I believe, contains a powerful polemic against such language. God is portrayed, not as a harsh taskmaster, but as a gracious deity who invites Creation to "Be!" Humanity, both male and female, is portrayed as being created in His image - as His divine representatives on earth. All of us. We are tasked with a divine vocation - to finish the Creation project by ordering and filling the earth, taking up where God left off. I've written more extensively on this here; I owe much of my current understanding to Richard Middleton's excellent book The Liberating Image.

The point here is that, if New Creation represents the reinvigoration and reestablishment of God's original creational intent, then we have to recognize that this wasn't a country club existence, hanging out by the pool and getting free lunch. This was an invitation to service and work, to participate in the act of creation itself! It was an opportunity to become a partner with God by representing Him in the created world. And it was not an invitation to choose to exercise power over one another, but rather to partner with one another as well as with God.

Whatever New Creation will be, I have to believe that it will reflect this picture: an existence of active service, cooperation, and partnership with God and each other, bringing His creational intent into being.

Technorati Tags: imago dei, narrative, new creation, image

The End is the Beginning

I'm struck by several things that I think are related in American Christianity: first, we have no real theology of hope, and in fact we barely can speak in the language of hope; second, we have no real theology of vocation, and we struggle with a sort of neo-Platonic dualism that separates the physical and spiritual; and third, our soteriology is oriented towards escape, and is often little more than a description of what we are saved from, instead of being an articulation of that to which we are called. And I think that these particular struggles of ours are rooted in a particular way of understanding eternity, an understanding that at the end of the age we will be rescued to an atemporal, spiritual existence where we will live in eternal bliss, a sort of uber-retirement of leisure and rest, if you will.

The more that I think about this, the more that I believe "retirement" is exactly how a lot of folks picture what eternity is supposed to be about. In other words, I've worked my tail off, thank you very much, so now I get to kick back, play golf, and enjoy ten percent off at Denny's. And, since it's heaven, there will probably be a bit of singing involved or some such. But this is really a fairly bizarre sort of notion, and profoundly unbiblical - the closest that we come to something like this is the concept of the Sabbath-rest of God, which has absolutely nothing to do with leisure or relaxation. In fact, the scriptures present a picture of a God who is always at work, always participating in the world and taking delight in what he has made. The scriptures begin with a picture of God at work, doing the stuff of creation and finding great joy in the task. The scriptures likewise end with a picture of a God who is still at work, reigning in the great City over the New Creation, from which the river and the tree of life bring healing to the nations. And there is a very strong sense that this is a vibrant and active city, where kings and nations come and go freely, doing whatever it is that a hand unburdened by the curse will find to do.

What we see, then, in the end is what we find at the beginning: God is about the task of creation, ordering and filling the earth, and his representatives are about this same task, working alongside to bring his vision to life. All of the stuff in the middle, the stuff of this present age in which you and I find ourselves, is about how that task became frustrated and about how we abandoned our divine vocation, choosing instead to craft our own smaller stories and to forge our own meaning and purpose in defiance of the one that had been granted us. All of God's movements of redemption are about reclaiming that initial purpose, about restoring all things so that they are once again very good, in the sense that they reflect exactly what it is that God had in mind when he made them. The end is the beginning, in the sense that it is original intent reclaimed and restored. And so, to understand the end, we must begin at the beginning.

Technorati Tags: narrative, new creation

Why Narrative Theology Matters

I mentioned earlier that I've been working a bit on a side project involving narrative theology. On a mostly unrelated note, I've also been listening to a few of NT Wright's recent lectures, which have been absolutely fantastic (not that this should come as any great surprise). These have meshed well with some of my recent rantings, in particular those related to the idea of New Creation. This idea, this theme that unfolds marvelously in the scriptures, unfortunately often gets shortchanged in western Christianity, heavily influenced by Platonic ideas of the duality of spirit and matter. As a result, this idea of New Creation tends to show up more often as the epilogue, instead of as a significant theme in its own right.

Put simply - I don't think it's possible to have a robust, biblical theology that doesn't incorporate this idea of New Creation. I don't think that we can talk about sin, or about atonement, or about ecclesiology, or about justice, or about discipleship, or about leadership and service, or about, well, pretty much anything that's worth talking about from a theological standpoint without somehow connecting to the idea of New Creation.

Here is where I find that a narrative approach to scripture comes into its own: I find that this theme (among others) works much better if it's seen as just that - a theme - rather than as a doctrine. As a doctrine, we can catalog all of the passages that reference it, construct some general statements about it, and perhaps find some connecting points with other doctrines. Please don't misunderstand - I'm not knocking doctrine. It serves a specific and vital function, and I would never want to discard it. But constructing doctrines out of things, in the sense of saying what we do or don't believe about the New Creation (or other themes), isn't always the most beneficial approach. A narrative approach sees instead the New Creation as the climax of the story. It is the telos, or end, towards which the narrative progresses. In other words, we see the echoes of New Creation all over the scriptures - it is the focal point that brings the rest of the story into clarity. But it doesn't function like that for us, for those of us who have grown up in a tradition influenced by Enlightenment's neo-Platonic categories. It isn't the driving force behind our theology; it isn't the climax of the narrative; in many cases, it's simply absent, replaced by either some goofy sense of human progress or a disturbing sense of immanent doom and destruction.

Over the next few posts, I want to explore what it might mean to allow our theologies to embrace a robust understanding of and hope for the New Creation. I think that it may provide resources for us to imagine in new ways what it might mean to be the people of God - and provide a new approach for a way-of-being in the world.

Technorati Tags: narrative, new creation

Who's Driving the Bus: Narrative vs Systematic Theology

I'm working on a little side project at the moment that deals with narrative theology. Narrative theology is an approach that has received increasing attention in recent years; you'll likely see the term floating around in emerging church or postevangelical conversations, and it's gaining traction in other spheres as well. In a formal sense, my understanding is that it's connected to the postliberal theologians (Frei in particular), although I'm not all that knowledgeable about that particular school. In a popular sense, it's usually used to refer to an approach that attempts to take seriously the biblical narrative as a theological statement in and of itself - in other words, the form of the text matters a great deal to what the text is trying to say. It's often placed in contrast to systematic theology, which is in essence the attempt to summarize the message of the biblical text on a number of subjects, things like the nature of God, the nature of humanity, and the nature of scripture.

So I've been thinking about what it is that makes narrative and systematic theology different. I've read some critiques of systematic theology that I find just naive, especially in that they are often paired with an elevation of narrative theology. But on some level both approaches share a lot in common. Both are attempts to say in some kind of summary form what the text says at length. Narrative theology - and I'm referring to the popular approach as opposed to any specific work by the postliberal theologians - must take the text and condense and summarize it if it wants to say anything about what the text means. This task is typically driven by what is perceived as the "themes" of the narrative. So, for example, a narrative approach would probably describe the primary themes of scripture as something like Creation, Fall, Redemption, and New Creation. And, if you're paying attention, you can see those themes repeated and reinforced and echoed and fulfilled through the larger narrative - they form a framework through which we can understand what the text means. And those themes can be broken down further - you can speak of election, or of atonement, or of the church, or of the mission of Christ as themes that weave in and out of the larger theme of redemption, for example. And I'd say that an approach that takes those things seriously and uses them to illuminate the meaning of the text is an approach that's doing justice to scripture.

But wait - isn't this starting to sound suspiciously like a systematic theology? After all, systematic theology also breaks down scripture into its components and then organizes and summarizes its findings. Isn't that the same thing that I've just described? I'd like to suggest that there is one significant difference in particular that shapes how I think about the two approaches: it's what drives the organization of the framework. Systematic theology begins with a framework already in place, and then mines the scriptures to fill in the predetermined structure. In other words, a typical systematic theology text will begin with the doctrine of God, and then go to the text to try to fill in the blanks or answer the questions that the framework has posed about God. And then that leads naturally to the doctrine of Christ, so we go back to the text to fill in the blanks for our new set of questions that the framework has naturally posed. And so on. The framework drives the exegesis. Narrative theology, however, begins with the text. The text begins, not with the doctrine of God, but with the story of Creation - so narrative theology, likewise, begins with creation. It's interesting that we don't really get to see what this God is like until about Genesis 12 or so, when we start to see God and Abraham interact. And it's not until Exodus that we even know how to refer to this God - until then, we don't even have a way to talk about him, except to call upon the experiences of our forebears. The one who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob doesn't even reveal himself as Yahweh until the story is well underway. And that revelation is as much a concealing as a revealing - it would be hard to construct a doctrine around "I am that I am." (And perhaps there is a lesson in that...)

The point, then, is that narrative theology attempts to allow the text itself to set the agenda. It tries to let the text drive, not just the answers, but also the questions. That isn't to say that systematic theology is bad - sometimes, there is a need to ask the questions of our context, and to then search the text for what answers it may hold. It is, rather to say that both approaches need each other, because they both bring something different to our understanding of the scriptures.

Technorati Tags: narrative, scripture, theology

A Framework for Atonement Theology

I've been giving a fair amount of thought to atonement theology of late, and it occurred to me that it would be helpful to have some sort of framework to determine whether a particular theology of the atonement is a good theology or not. As I think through this, it seems to me that two criteria stand out in reading a particular theology of atonement: narrative coherence and ethical impulse. By the first, I mean this: a particular theology should fit well within the story as a whole, and should do justice to as much of the scriptural data as possible. A good theology will help to illuminate the narrative - and by this I'm thinking of the grand narrative that begins in Genesis and culminates in the new creation. It needs to take seriously the enormous effects of sin and brokenness that the scriptures relate, and it needs to be able to tell how the atonement resolves or otherwise deals with these effects. The second is closely integrated with the first - by ethical impulse, I mean that a particular theology of the atonement should enable/inspire/encourage/narrate a particular way-of-being in the world, so that one who follows Christ is given a way in which to follow. I say this because I assume that the Church is God's answer to the curse in the present age. This might seem a bit jarring at first, because I think many of us assume that the atonement is the entirety of God's response to sin. But I suggest that the outworking of the atonement is the creation of a community that will embody that atonement, living in a way that is no longer defined by the curse but is instead the life of the Spirit. To that end, a theology of the atonement must give that Spirit-life community a way-of-being, an ethic if you will, that says something about how we no longer function in that way, the way of the curse, but now live in this way, the way of the Spirit. A theology that does not provide this life-in-community impulse misses something integral to what it is that the atonement is to accomplish.

I think this framework illustrates why it is that we need multiple models to do justice to the atonement in terms of biblical theology. Thinking of two popular models, for example, I'm of the opinion that the moral example theory fails the first criteria, while penal substitution fails the second. That isn't to say that either of these models are bad, but rather that they are incomplete - they need other models to fill out the picture and provide a robust approach.

Technorati Tags: atonement

Random Thoughts on Atonement

I've spent the last several evenings with my computer dismantled as I attempt to bring the internal temperature down to an acceptable level. For some reason, the cpu temp keeps spiking, causing it to shut down - which, of course, makes for difficulty in blogging. Rearranging the internal fans and tweaking some settings on the motherboard has, I think, done the trick. I need to throw a better heat sink into the mix, but things seem to be functional for the moment.

In the interests of getting back into the groove of reflecting on the atonement, I wanted to post a few bits that I found recently that I think are quite helpful. First, N.T. Wright has published an absolutely fantastic article called The Cross and the Caricatures in which he takes on penal substitution in a balanced and nuanced manner. Some quotes:

The biblical doctrine of God's wrath is rooted in the doctrine of God as the good, wise and loving creator, who hates - yes, hates, and hates implacably - anything that spoils, defaces, distorts or damages his beautiful creation, and in particular anything that does that to his image-bearing creatures. If God does not hate racial prejudice, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not wrathful at child abuse, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not utterly determined to root out from his creation, in an act of proper wrath and judgment, the arrogance that allows people to exploit, bomb, bully and enslave one another, he is neither loving, nor good, nor wise. To trivialize - almost to domesticate! - this massive biblical doctrine, rooted as it is in the doctrines of God as creator and as the one who will restore his creation at the last (in other words, in the biblical sense, 'judge'), into a few anecdotal trivialities about God petulantly hurling thunderbolts around is hardly the way to begin a serious argument.

Underneath all this discussion is a deep concern which has emerged again in our own day, notably in the writings of the Yale theologian Miroslav Volf. In his magisterial Exclusion and Embrace (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), he demonstrates, with sharp examples from his native Balkans, that it simply won't do, when faced with radical evil, to say, 'Oh well, don't worry, I will love you and forgive you anyway.' That (as the 1938 Doctrine Report already saw) is not forgiveness; it is belittling the evil that has been done. Genuine forgiveness must first 'exclude', argues Volf, before it can 'embrace'; it must name and shame the evil, and find an appropriate way of dealing with it, before reconciliation can happen.

There are large issues here of theological method and biblical content, all interacting with other large issues of contemporary hermeneutics: would I be totally wrong, for instance, to see some of the horrified reaction to Steve Chalke, and to some of the 'Emerging Church' reappropriation of the gospels, as a reaction, not so much against what is said about the atonement, but against the idea, which is powerfully present in the gospels, that God's kingdom is coming, with Jesus, 'on earth as in heaven', and that if this is so we must rethink several cherished assumptions within the western tradition as a whole? Might it not be the case that the marginalisation of the four gospels as serious theological documents within Western Christianity, not least modern evangelicalism, is a fear that if we took them seriously we might have to admit that Jesus of Nazareth has a claim on our political life as well as our spiritual life and 'eternal destiny'? And might there not be a fear, among those who are most shrill in their propagation of certain types of 'penal substitution', that there might be other types of the same doctrine which would integrate rather closely with the sense that on the cross God passed sentence on all the human powers and authorities that put Jesus there?

And speaking of Volf, from his absolutely excellent book The End of Memory:

If we view Christ on the cross as a third party being punished for the sins of transgressors, we have widely missed the mark. For unlike a financial debt, moral liability is nontransferrable. But Christ is not a third party. On account of his divinity, Christ is one with God, to whom the "debt" is owed. It is therefore God who through Christ's debt shoulders the burden of our transgressions against God and frees us from just retribution. But since on account of Christ's humanity he is also one with us, the debtors, it is we who die in Christ and are thus freed from guilt. Christ's oneness with both creditor and debtors leaves only two categories of "actors" and thus negates the notion of his involvement as a third party.

Volf's book is incredible - both challenging and encouraging. There is something deeply moving about his work; I think it's the eschatological vein that runs through it. I find it to be a source of hope in a way that more popular "eschatology" could never be. More to come on atonement - I want to pick up again the economic model that I've been discussing recently and see if we can't move towards something that's more holistic than perhaps other models.

Technorati Tags: atonement, N.T. Wright, Volf

An Economic Model of Atonement: Debt (p.1)

I want to offer just a few thoughts for the moment on how the metaphor of debt functions in what I'm calling an economic model of atonement. In my earlier post, I referred to debt as the controlling metaphor; by that I mean simply that debt is the way in which a person locates himself or herself in the narrative that the model presents. Debt, of course, is how the model speaks of sin. In a consumerist society such as the one in which I find myself, I think that debt offers a way to talk of sin in a way that resonates with the experience of the culture, while at the same time remaining deeply and sincerely biblical. But what I find compelling is that debt offers more than simply a resonance - it provides a means of speaking of sin in a way that avoids the spiritual / social dichotomy that one often finds in such discussions.

One way to get at the workings of this metaphor is to consider the way in which we in twenty first century western democracies think about justice, particularly as it relates to crimes and punishments. A punishment is just if it fits the crime; put another way, an offender accumulates a "debt" to society that is repaid through suffering some form of punishment. In some cases, this represents restitution or recompense for a wrong done; more often, it is retributive in the sense of causing hurt in like manner to the original act. We think of this in terms of making a person "pay" for what he or she has done. You can see, then, that the metaphor is already in play in the way that we speak of wrongs and justice.

We focus on this debt to a fault. We want to be just people - we want to be sure that wrongs are repaid but repaid fairly. And my suspicion is that what results from such a focus on debt is a society that is vengeful. We believe that we are owed recompense for wrongs that we have suffered, and we seek retribution as a result. Invariably, we hold such retribution as just; often, the other party may not agree that this is so, and thus holds himself or herself to be wronged in return with a right to retribution. Witness the lawsuit/countersuit dynamic that is in play in our society for the smallest of infractions - it is a cycle that is based on retribution, and that in a sense of vengeance. The end result is a system that thrives on retribution. It is, in this sense, an economy of vengeance, based on the perception of debt owed and taken.

This is what I mean when I speak of sin in an economic sense. It is, I hope, a way that offers some new resources for thinking about the subject, while at the same time remaining intuitive and familiar. Next, I want to think through how God factors into the description I've just presented, but first - thoughts so far? Does this resonate, or perhaps present some new avenues for thought?

Technorati Tags: atonement, economic model, theology

Toward an Economic Model of Atonement

One of the challenges that I think faces any model of atonement is finding a way to connect with the systems of meaning in a given culture. Substitution certainly runs into this difficulty, as does in my view Christus Victor. Even the model of example, arguably the least esoteric, can find itself on odd footing - without a trinitarian underpinning and the other models to support it, this model can degenerate rather quickly into, "Don't be mean," and when taken too far becomes, "Let other people be mean to you," becoming something with little power to shape our imagination and enable a Christian way-of-being in the world.

The challenge, to my mind, is that these models all trade in metaphors that are not dominant in our culture. Legal imagery and talk of the powers simply do not have the rhetorical currency that they might have in other contexts. This is a problem, to my way of thinking - metaphors function in the way that they do precisely because they are intuitive. If a metaphor has to be explained, then it is no longer functioning as a metaphor - it has become something else, something that obscures rather than reveals. And I'd argue that this is where we are with atonement. The metaphors have ceased to function as metaphors and now require their own explanations. Worse, we've stopped believing that these things are metaphors at all, and have begun to treat them as though they are the truth towards which they point.

James wrote something a while back that has been rolling around in my head for a few months. He has this to say:

I have suggested before that many folks in our western, democratic culture have a difficult time imagining language of "kingdom." The concepts of kings and kingdoms are as foreign to most of us as the concept of "priesthood" is to a Southern Baptist (but that is another topic for another time). Based on this assumption of mine, I have argued that if Christ told parables in our culture he would not speak of the Kingdom of Heaven. More likely, he would tell us stories of the Economics of Heaven. But my hunch is that if Christ did tell these stories we would not like them very much.

I've done some thinking on this before, but for some reason this particular post of his triggered something that I've been working on ever since. I'm becoming quite convinced that we can craft a new metaphor for atonement that will resonate in contemporary western contexts, while having a robust connection to the stories told by the people of God throughout history. It's a metaphor that already offers significant scriptural resources, although I confess that I've never seen it discussed in the way that I'm suggesting. And it has the advantage of integrating some of the strengths of the other models into what I think could be a more cohesive whole. The metaphor is, of course, economics - I'm suggesting that we begin to do as James suggests, and tell stories of the economy of God.

The basic framework as I'm currently envisioning functions around the controlling metaphor of debt. I think that we can envision sin as a type of debt, a debt that we owe to God, to the Other, and to the world/creation. The basis for this concept of debt lies in the idea of reparations or recompense. When a wrong is done to another, we are under obligation to make it right - we take on a debt to the other. The economy of sin relies on this debt to function. This debt, however, is not one that can ever be paid in full; the problem is that we continue to accumulate it, so that even as we make restitution for one offense, we have continued to offend, resulting in an ever-increasing debt. The problem is compounded by those who demand payment in full, even as they themselves live under the weight of their own obligation. And the one to whom the primary recompense is owed is, of course, God.

God, as creator of all, is owed restitution for wrongs done against all. In other words, because each offense is in some sense an offense against God's creation project, God assumes a stake in all offense and as such is a party to any restitution that is owed. But, just as the debt between and among humans continues to mount, the restitution that is owed God by humanity as a whole continues to grow. This is where the atonement takes its significance. God, instead of demanding payment in full, enters into the agreement as a witness for humanity. When God becomes human in the person of Christ, he assumes the debt that humanity owes him as a personal responsibility. The tragedy of the incarnation is that humanity continues to amass debt by offenses committed against Christ. In some sense, the death of Christ takes this debt to its fullest extent by maximizing the offense. Humanity rejects, humiliates, tortures, and murders one who was God come among us. No greater offense is possible - humanity has, in a sense, maxed out our account.

The miracle of the atonement is that God breaks the cycle of offense and recompense by canceling the debt that is owed, in effect closing the account. This is possible because God is now both debtor and creditor, and because no further offense is possible. God destroys the economy of sin and inaugurates the economy of the Kingdom, which is no longer based on offense/restitution/debt but is rather based on forgiveness/freedom/generosity. The invitation to enter the economy of the Kingdom is open to all and sundry - but one cannot operate in both economies at the same time, as the fundamentals are in opposition. For the cycle of reparations to be broken, each one who enters the economy of the Kingdom must also give up claim to any restitution that is owed him or her. In this way, through generosity and freedom, the economy of the Kingdom grows and the economy of sin is lessened.

And that is the general framework. I think it's a valid model, and I think that it has the advantage of utilizing a metaphor that is already in place in scripture. Economic language is all over the place in the text and is often connected to this idea of a debt that is owed God or the Other. And I think the model offers significant resources for both deep reflection and deep practice - I think that it can avoid some of the spiritual/physical dichotomy issues that sometimes one encounters in other models. More on that shortly. But what do you think - does this resonate? Is there something here worth investigating?

Technorati Tags: atonement, economic model, theology

The Trouble with Substitution, or It's Only a Model (p.4)

I think this is going to be my last post on this - I actually hadn't intended to carry on this long, but I keep running into new problems as I think through these things. If you're just joining or if you need to see the standard I-don't-hate-substitution boilerplate, check out the first three here, here, and here.

I've been thinking about the resurrection of late - it's an appropriate time, I believe, to be doing so, and I've been contemplating how it shapes the way we view atonement. Or, perhaps put better, I've been trying to figure out why it doesn't play a bigger role in the way those of us who are from more evangelical traditions think about atonement. After all, as I mentioned previously, when Paul talked about what was "of first importance", he was speaking of the resurrection; he also states that "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins." This seems to me a strong connection between resurrection and atonement. And some models, I think, do well with this. Substitution, however, is not one of them.

The resurrection simply does not play a large role in SA. And, as with the question of ethics, I think this is a weakness in the model itself and not only in the way that people frame it. Growing up in an evangelical tradition, I heard a lot about the resurrection. But I didn't hear about the resurrection in connection with atonement. The way the resurrection was framed seemed more about God cutting Jesus a break since he was a good kid than it seemed an important piece of the whole picture. The blood, the cross, death - these paid for my sins. Coming back to life was not discussed in this way. That was more about Jesus' proof that he was God or some such.

And there's the rub - if Christ's death is what accomplished redemption, then the resurrection is nothing more than a bonus. It does not have an integral part in the model; if it's included at all, it feels sort of bolted on, an afterthought that doesn't really contribute to the whole. When it is included, it's often framed in ways that borrow more from other models than ways that are integral to the whole. You can speak of Jesus' defeating the power of death, for example, and demonstrating that through his new life - but that's not really substitution. It's Christus Victor.

The problem is that Jesus can suffer wrath without experiencing resurrection - and suffering wrath is what SA is all about. Again, let me reiterate - that's not a bad thing. That's what SA does well; that's what it brings to the discussion. But when it's the only model, or even the central model, then we simply do not have a robust theology of resurrection. It's not necessary for the model to do what it does well. But that's precisely why it can't be the only or central motif. We need an invigorating theology of resurrection that speaks of new life, of new creation, of the death of death and the defeat of the powers. That is what resurrection is all about. It's the demonstration that Jesus has absorbed the worst that the powers can deliver and has come through unscathed. The powers are disarmed - they've done their worst and have failed. This is resurrection-talk. And those who are in Christ likewise share in his defeat of the powers. That is atonement viewed through the framework of the resurrection.

But it's not substitution. Substitution simply doesn't offer the resources to speak in such language. And that's not a bad thing, in one sense - it only becomes a problem when substitution takes over our way of viewing atonement. Substitution is a good model, when properly articulated. But it needs the other models to provide a full and rich picture of what atonement is all about.

Technorati Tags: atonement, substitution, resurrection, theology

The Trouble with Substitution, or It's Only a Model (p.3)

I should post my standard I-don't-hate-substitution boilerplate here, but I've said it enough already. If you need it, or if you're just joining, feel free to check out parts one and two.

Continuing our discussion of the issues with substitutionary atonement as it's commonly articulated, I want to touch on something I find to be a glaring weakness in the model that I think precludes our viewing it as the central metaphor for atonement in the NT. It's actually something of an irony in that I'm thinking about the way that the cross functions in the NT versus how it functions in many articulations of this particular model. And to be honest, at least in this particular instance, I think the weakness is inherent to the model itself, and not so much a problem only with its articulations. The irony? I think that many defenders of SA think that they're attempting precisely to do justice to the cross in how they view atonement.

The point is that, for the NT authors, the cross functions primarily as the center of the NT ethic. The cross is our example, and it is held up as such over and over and over. I've said this before, but I'll repost because I think it so vital to our understanding of both atonement and ethics. Yoder writes in his landmark work The Politics of Jesus:

As we noted before more briefly: there is no general concept of living like Jesus in the New Testament...His formation of a small circle of disciples whom he taught through months of close contact has been claimed as a model pastoral method; his teaching of parables has been made a model of graphic communication; there have been efforts to imitate his prayer life or his forty days in the desert: but not in the New Testament.

There is but one realm in which the concept of imitation holds - but there it holds in every strand of the New Testament literature and all the more strikingly by virtue of the absence of parallels in other realms. This is the point of the concrete social meaning of the cross in relation to enmity and power. Servanthood replaces dominion; forgiveness absorbs hostility. Thus - and only thus - are we bound by New Testament thought to "be like Jesus." (pp 130-131, emphasis added)

I don't want to focus on Christus Exemplar here; if you're interested in a brief treatment of that, I wrote a piece for this month's next wave on the topic. What I am concerned about here is that substitutionary atonement seems particularly challenged to grapple with this particular strand of the NT.

Here is, to my mind, the problem: the focus in SA is on what happened in the cross event. It is about a one-time, unrepeatable, divine act on our behalf. It's about God's actions in and through Christ, framed in a particular way that precludes our having anything to do with the event at all. It has to do with a spiritual and ontological perspective on sin and how to fix it. And - don't misread me - this is a good thing. It's what SA does well; it's why the model exists in the first place. But - and this is a huge issue - as a result, substitutionary atonement cannot offer itself as a model with anything to say about a NT ethic. The only thing it might contribute is the ontological sense that freedom from sin allows us to live in ways that are not sinful. But it cannot function as an example for us - as the NT unmistakably and repeatedly speaks of the cross - precisely because it is a divine, unrepeatable act. So, if SA is in fact the primary lens through which the NT views atonement, why the focus on the cross as ethic? It simply doesn't make sense. And, conversely, is it any wonder that a movement that has come to view SA as the primary metaphor struggles with this very ethic of imitation?

David Fitch recently posted some thoughts on evangelicals and justice. One of the things that he discussed was the connection (or lack thereof) between SA and justice in evangelical theology:

In regards to the penal view of the atonement, salvation is defined as accepting the pardon of God for my sin accomplished at the cross when Jesus, being my substitute, paid the penalty for my sin. This view of the atonement, some say, leads us often to making our salvation a legal transaction for self-possession. Participating in the righteousness of God, his reconciliation being worked out in the world through the victory on the cross becomes an after thought.

I think he's exactly right here. Make no mistake - theology matters. What we believe shapes who we are and how we carry ourselves in the world. And if we neglect developing a robust theology of atonement that in some way connects with ethics in a primary sense, not as an afterthought, is it any wonder that we find ourselves ineffectual at actually finding a Christian way-of-being in the world?

Technorati Tags: atonement, substitution, ethics, theology

The Trouble with Substitution, or It's Only a Model (p.2)

Continuing our discussion of the model of substitutionary atonement, I want to pick up on how the way this particular model is articulated frames the way that we think about God's character. Again, I want to affirm at the outset that I'm not out to tear down or otherwise discredit what I find to be a perfectly biblical model for thinking about the atonement. Rather, I'm interested in engaging with what I perceive to be a failure of articulation - that substitution as it is commonly articulated invites misunderstanding and critique. And nowhere is this more evident than in how substitution frames our understanding of the person and character of God.

I don't think it's unfair to say that what is distinctive about substitution is its emphasis on wrath. And that is a good thing, I think - something needs to be said about wrath, because scripture says a lot about it. The problem is that what scripture means by wrath may not translate well into our context. Or, put differently, we need to be cautious about how we talk about wrath, because so much in this model hinges on this one word. Scot McKnight posted on this subject a while back, and offered this definition:

Let's be clear: this is not about God being "pissed off" as is the case with Zeus and the Olympians up in Greece who got all huffy about their status and starting tossing thunderbolts into the plains of Troy; this is not about God's violence or God's arbitrariness. It is not God flying off with rage and anger. That misses the whole Creator and covenantal origins of God's grace...I make this proposal: wrath has to be seen in the context of God being a Jealous God (Exod 34:14), and it has to be seen in the context of relationship. God made us as his Eikons, he gave us a responsibility to "eikon" all over the place, but we chose to crack the Eikon and we can either live as cracked Eikons or we can return to God in his grace and find forgiveness, healing, and restoration. If we choose to live as cracked Eikons we will be choosing to live with God's Jealous wrath that is simultaneously a yearning for us to return and a diminishment of our Eikonic vocation.

The problem that we run into is that, in our context, wrath means exactly "pissed off" and has connotations of violence. When we don't nuance how we talk about what scripture means by wrath, we give the impression that God has an anger management problem. And, in truth, I don't know if we're always fully aware of the distinction; I've read a lot of folks who are perfectly content to speak of God as someone who is really angry at most people, angry in the "Hulk Smash!" sort of way.

And nowhere is this more evident than when we speak of the atonement. By starting with this mistaken assumption or presupposition, we contribute to the image that God was so pissed off at sin that he had to find someone upon whom to vent his rage. Only there wasn't anyone who could exhaust it - so he had to vent it on his own Son. Now that he's been appeased, we can all get back to the business of living. That is, until the End, when we'll have another go at it for those who haven't toed the line.

Please understand - I'm not saying that this is what substitution is all about. I'm saying that this is how it can be heard, because we aren't careful in how we speak. I'm saying that we need to speak more cautiously and more expressively. We need to ground this in love and justice, because that's where scripture heads when talking about this sort of thing.

Justice - now there's an interesting word for you. Justice is another element that is distinctive to this model; it's what the penal part of penal substitution is all about. And it is, unfortunately, another element where we haven't been so careful. The common articulation is this: God is just; justice demands payment for wrongs; Jesus satisfies justice by rendering payment on humanity's behalf. There are a number of problems with this schema, not least its definition of justice. In this argument, justice is defined in a legal sense, and in particular a western legal sense - it is about seeing that wrongs are punished and payment exacted. Something is just when the punishment fits the crime - hence the reasoning that an offense against an infinite God is an infinite offense. But this runs into two challenges - it's inherently self-contradictory when applied to the atonement, and I'm not convinced that it's trading in the right semantic sphere.

Self-contradictory is a strong word, but I use it consciously, for that is truly what I believe. Here is the problem: for justice to be what we believe it to be, then punishment cannot be arbitrary - it must fit the crime. And if justice is defined as appropriate punishment of wrongs, then the suffering of an innocent for the wrongs of another is not just. It is, rather, a profound injustice. How could God's justice be demonstrated by innocent suffering on our behalf? I don't believe that it can - not if what we mean by justice is what twenty-first century representative democracies mean by justice. So this articulation runs into a profound problem from the outset: what is supposed to be a way for God to maintain both his love and his justice instead becomes the means for an infinite injustice, when viewed from within its own framework.

This, of course, brings us to the second problem. I'm not certain that what scripture means by justice is what we commonly think when we use the word. Reflect for a minute on its common usage and perhaps you'll see what I mean. Justice is more than legal in the biblical sense. When we speak of justice for the poor in the biblical sense, we don't just mean that they'll get a fair shake in court - although we certainly don't mean less than that. What we mean is that they would find restoration and wholeness, in an economic and communal sense. To do justice isn't simply to punish wrongs; it is to work for the restoration of God's creational intent. Scot again offers a helpful definition:

Justice, as defined by the Bible, is determined not by what I want, or by my own freedom and rights, but by the will of God. What is "just" is what conforms to the will of God. Anything less is morally deficient and anything else is not Christian. Now, let us suggest...that the ultimate and final will of God is that humans love God and that humans love others.

But this presents yet another challenge to the way that substitution is commonly articulated. One gets the sense that God is caught in something of a conundrum: He can't leave sin unpunished, for that would be unjust; but to punish sin as justice demands would mean the ruin of his intent for creation. The atonement, then, is his answer for this divine dilemma. But the problem is that justice becomes the arbiter of what God can and cannot do. It takes on something of a controlling force - God is constrained by this entity called "justice", which he cannot violate. This places justice in the superior position - it places demands on God, rather than being an expression of God's character and creational intent. And this, to me, is profoundly disturbing.

The answer, of course, is again more nuance. We must be careful to speak of justice in the way that scripture does, and not the way that those of us from twenty-first century representative democracies have come to think of it. When we place these pieces in perspective, undergirded by a robust Trinitarian theology - then, I think, we begin to grasp what substitution in the biblical sense is about.

Technorati Tags: atonement, justice, substitution, theology

The Trouble with Substitution, or It's Only A Model (p.1)

This is the post that I've been dreading. Part of me thinks I'm nuts for wading into this particular arena; I'll confess to a bit of trepidation that I'm going to somehow get dogpiled by a bunch of crazed Calvinists. On the other hand, this subject presents so many opportunities for misunderstanding, and I really don't want to contribute to that. But I do think some things need to be said here on the subject of substitutionary atonement, so I'm going to dive in and hope that I can speak appropriately.

Let me begin by saying this: I think substitution is a fine model for thinking about the atonement, when properly understood and articulated. I think that it's true to the scriptures and I think that we abandon it at our peril. I think that a lot of the problems begin with sloppy tellings, with a lack of care to maintain some of the distinctives that make it true and beautiful. So think of this as perhaps an open letter to the defenders of substitution, from a friend who shares your concerns. I think the problems begin when we attempt to place it in a privileged position, when we say things like substitution is the central motif or some such. When we make that assumption, then the model begins to drive our exegesis instead of our exegesis driving our model, and that's always a bad setup. A case in point: I've seen numerous folks point to 1 Corinthians 15:3 to argue that substitution is at the center of the gospel:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

The argument goes something like this: "See, Paul said that it was of 'first importance' that Christ died for our sins. Therefore, substitution is the most important part of the gospel. Paul said so right here." The problem here is that we've already decided what it means that Christ died "for our sins", and we're assuming that meaning in the text. What isn't actually stated is that Christ died for our sins to appease God's wrath, which is the key part of substitution that differentiates it from other models. There are other models that talk of Christ dying for our sins, but that wouldn't use the motif of wrath to do so - Christus Victor is the first that comes to mind, although in truth I could probably argue that any model of atonement is attempting to explain what it means that Christ died "for our sins". So the verse only functions in the sense of defending substitution if substitution is already assumed as its referent - without that assumption, it simply refers to atonement without speaking to the more specific question of what atonement means. Which brings me to my second point - Paul's main point here isn't actually about atonement at all. Notice in the English translation that there's actually a comma hanging out at the end of that last clause, and you'll realize that there's more to be said here:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born...But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

So Paul here isn't arguing about atonement at all - he's in fact arguing that the Resurrection was a real event witnessed by real people, and that his preaching testifies to something that really happened. What is of first importance? That Christ died, was buried, and rose on the third day - not a particular way of understanding what that means now in some metaphysical sense. When the model drives the exegesis, then the exegesis turns into something unhealthy - it can no longer speak truth to us, but only what we want to hear. And that's something we can all stand to remember in this particular area.

I was going to add some more thoughts, but I've said much more thus far than I had intended. But I think that's perhaps a good thing in this case. Next, I want to reflect on what substitution, when articulated poorly, says about God's character.

Technorati Tags: atonement, substitution

On Trinitarian Thought

One of the first classes that I had at Biblical was a theology course with John Franke. I have a lot of respect for John; Beyond Foundationalism is the book that brought me to Biblical in the first place, and when I was attempting to make a decision about transferring, he took the time to sit down over dinner to answer my questions and help me decide if it would be a good fit. And it was, on many levels - I owe a lot of who I am today to that dinner over four years ago. But I digress. One of the questions that he presented in this class has remained with me ever since - I drag it out from time to time to keep myself honest. The discussion was around the nature of doctrine; we were discussing, as I recall, what it is that makes one a Christian. The doctrine of the trinity surfaced fairly early in the discussion, and this is the point at which John asked, "What difference does belief in the trinity make in your life? If you didn't believe in the trinity, how would things be different?" Truth be told, we were hard pressed to answer.

Something as supposedly central to our faith as belief in the trinity should serve as more than a simple boundary marker for orthodoxy, shouldn't it? Shouldn't we be able to point to the ways in which we are different people as a result of telling the Story in this way rather than in some other? And, if we can't, does it really serve as the boundary marker that we believe it to be?

I've found it to be a haunting question, one that I've tried to allow to shape my thinking in a greater way since. And, in truth, once I became aware of the ways in which trinitarian theology didn't have a place in my thinking, I've become surprised at the ways in which that has changed. It isn't surprising to me that the earliest conflicts that the church faced centered on issues of Christology - and, more specifically, on trinitarian Christology, on what it meant for Jesus to say, "I and the Father are One."

I say all of this because I think it likely that many in similar contexts have similar experiences. The Trinity, for some reason that I find difficult to imagine, simply fails to capture our imagination or inform our faith in anything more than a cognitive sense. I think it likely that the doctrine for many of us is more a source of puzzlement than anything wondrous or, on the other hand, practical. But to me it has become the central motif of the New Testament. Put more plainly, I think the gospel is at the center of the NT, and the cross is at the center of the gospel, and the Trinity is at the center of the cross. And I think the gospel is at the center of Christian ethics - so there is for me a sense that, without the Trinity, Christian ethics simply do not function.

Let me say it this way - when thinking about the atonement, it is absolutely critical that we maintain the sense that God the Father and God the Son are not two distinct parties in the event, in the way that we would normally think about such things. It simply isn't possible to be faithful to the Story and think about God as one party pouring out wrath on the Son as a separate and distinct individual (to borrow from one model). There is a strong and necessary sense in which God is the suffering one, God is the one who receives wrath, God is the one who absorbs the violence, God is the one who is given as a ransom for many. The story of Christ is the story of a God who looked down on the suffering of his people and, to borrow from the Exodus story, has "come down to rescue them." This, contra others who may place one model or another at the center, is what is at the heart of the gospel - it is the story of the God Who Has Come Down.

Not only do I think this a better telling of the Story than some, I find it also to be full of resources for a truly Christian way-of-being in the world. This story of a self-giving God who sets aside his power and takes on the very nature of a servant is one that can be imitated and followed. We must be careful, then, to maintain that sense of identity between Father and Son, no matter what approach we take towards the atonement. To do otherwise is to tell the tale falsely; worse, it is to create something different and wrong, a bastardization of something true and beautiful and wondrous.

Technorati Tags: atonement, John Franke, Trinity

Thinking about Atonement

Ever had that feeling that you want to dive into a conversation, but you think you're going to end up making a mess of things? That's sort of where I am at the moment. I've been pondering the subject of atonement for a few we