My Brain Hurts, but I Don’t Mind
I’ve joined an online book club that’s hosted by the folks behind the Inverse Podcast. I do so enjoy my time there, as it’s an intentional anti-racist space where I can absorb perspectives I’ve lacked.
It’s setup so that we learn as much from each other as we learn from the books we are studying. Those who are typically pushed to the margins by dominant culture are encouraged to speak up & those who are “pale & male” are encouraged to listen.
The podcast itself is about de-weaponizing scripture so it’s collected some pretty sharp theological minds to it’s book clubs. I studied trades in school so you better believe the learning curve is steep.
Currently we are working through The Nonviolent Atonement. It’s written by a Mennonite scholar, J. Denny Weaver. Never ever have I read something so challenging. Not only is it pushing the limits of my comprehension, it’s challenging the beliefs my world view is built on.
Because I grew up in the Church, I had what highbrow folks call penal substitutionary atonement theory explained to me at very a young age. Then I was told if I prayed to God & Him I believed this was true I would go to heaven when I die. Well, if that’s not an offer you can’t refuse I don’t know what is so I did that right away.
Penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) theory is the idea that God’s justice demands that sin be punished before it can be justly forgiven, and that God the Father & Jesus decided together that Jesus would come to earth to be killed so His requirement for punishment would be satisfied.
I took this in & as I grew up, I constructed my world view around this belief but am now exploring it in a deeper way than I’d previously allowed. Weaver’s got a completely different and very attractive take, arguing that the violence inherent in what I believe is problematic.
“Developing an understanding shaped by nonviolence then lays bare the extent to which satisfaction atonement is founded on violent assumptions”
To flesh out my ideas, I’ll be updating this as I work through the book in the community I‘ve grown to love. Stay tuned because this is bound to get interesting.
What? My whole world view’s built on someone’s theory?
The thing is, in almost 50 years of Church life, no one had ever mentioned that penal substitutionary atonement theory, was in fact a theory. I was taught that PSA was biblical truth & that anyone who believed otherwise was mistaken.
When people try to use thier human brains to comprehend things that are so beyond us the ideas we develop are problematic. Being taught PSA is biblical truth left me without a rational way to deal with the questions that arise when that idea breaks down. Becoming aware that PSA is one of many atonement theories the Church holds to opens things up and gives me the means to engage honestly with discomfort as it arrises.
Whoa, Jesus’ teaching non-violent direct action?
Every week in our reading we’re to watch for something that jumps out at us, like Weaver’s take on Jesus’ instruction to turn the other, or more specifically the left cheek. Here he puts it into the context of the times when it was written, the times of Imperial Rome.
“The backhand blow to the right cheek had the specific purpose of humiliation, and a blow in retaliation would invite retribution. Thus turning the other, or left cheek showed that the supposed inferior refused to be humiliated. And with the left cheek now bared, the striker would be left with two options — a left-handed blow or a blow with a right fist. Since neither option was acceptable to the supposed superior, he lost the power to dehumanize the other.”
So I was confused by this until someone in our group reminded me that toilet paper wasn’t a thing until half way through the 1800s. Back when Jesus taught the left hand was used for wiping your butt, cleaning your feet, or anything else distasteful.
Not only was the left hand off limits, in ancient Roman culture it was inappropriate to strike a subordinate with a clenched fist because that was reserved for equals.
I’d always thought turning the other cheek was an act of submission and assumed the one who’d offered their cheek would be stuck again. I had no idea this was a tactical & strategic disarming method that pulled the rug out from under an aggressor.
Stop the Presses. Better re-read John 3:16.
While fleshing out his atonement theory, Weaver asks who needed Jesus to die & what the death accomplished then examined a number of possible answers and their implications. My brain froze when I got to this bit.
“God sent Jesus not to die but to live, to make visible and present the reign of God. It is obvious that for narrative Christus Victor, the agent of Jesus’ death is not God but the powers of evil.”
“Whoa. Wait. What? God didn’t send Jesus to die?” screamed my brain. “John 3:16 says so!” Looked it up & was like, “There. See? It says ‘… gave his only Son.’ Case closed.”
I read the passage a couple more times before I realized it might not be about sending Jesus to die, even though I’d put that spin on it. There’s nothing in the text about Jesus’ death. That verse is about everlasting life. God gave His Son to people, not to death.
Imagine I gave my only son to one of my uncles that’s getting on in years, to spend the summer helping out. If something unfortunate were to happen it doesn’t mean I gave my son to die. It just means something unfortunate happened.
Same old, same old. Things have been a mess for a long long time.
The root of what’s now expressing itself as Christian nationalism’s emerged previously as residential schools, genocidal colonialism, divine rights of kings, papal inquisitions, the crusades, etc. Religion’s a powerful unifying force which is too often weaponized towards ends its adherents would oppose if they’d take a step back to think.
Weaver brought me back to a time in the very early Church when it was an illegal & persecuted minority who were resisting empire nonviolently. He then walked me through a transition, beginning in the 2nd century, to a church who became comfortable with a violent & repressive social order.
In contrast the satisfaction motif given articulate form by Anselm does not assume nonviolence. It reflects the church that had become fused with the social order, and it accommodates violence. It is not that the satisfaction motif promotes violence per se. Rather, this motif lends itself to easy accommodation of violence and projects little that specifically opposes violence.
These consideration point to a need for a theology that takes seriously Jesus and his work but which renders more difficult the accommodation of violence so evident in the theology of Christendom.
I’ve learned to co-exist in discomfort with Church history but I’ve not yet learned to co-exist with the fact that the atonement theory my faith is rooted in was brought forward by a group of early church thinkers who were comfortable with disregarding what Jesus taught so they could accommodate what their church were doing on behalf of empire. That will take some doing.
Worlds are colliding.
As a young adult I walked away from the Church but not from my faith. I moved away from home, away from my small hometown to the big city in ‘86. Down there I met some interesting people there who were involved in the punk subculture who opened up a whole new world of ideas to me.
A decade later God brought me back to the Church but I’d kept what I learned along the way. I arrived with a very interesting mix of ideas which didn’t fit well. That made things interesting which I didn’t mind a bit. I was playing punk rock with my band on Saturday nights, then playing hymns with my worship team on Sunday mornings. My close friends from the punk scene were totally accepting & a few of them were brave enough to come to Church with me. That was on Sundays where we had food after the service, of course.
I got pretty close with one of the pastors there. I learned a lot him but he learned a little from me as well. I taught him how to play guitar & helped him see that the anti-establishment ideas I’d brought were biblical.
That brings me to the bit from Weaver which popped out to me this week.
James Cone’s black theology of liberation developed from a different underside and has a different agenda from my nonviolent atonement theology. But from these twin critiques, which were marginal in different ways and to different degrees, there emerged a perspective with significant parallels regarding the mainstream theological tradition of Christendom.
It was quite interesting to see these worlds coming together. Punk rock ideals, liberation theology and anabaptism all seem to agree that a Church &/or society that’s devoid of Jesus’ ethics can’t be cooperated with. Other than that pastor who learned to play guitar from me, I’d never come across anyone within the Church who entertained these ideas until I started this book.
Finished the book, & guess what? Yep, now I have more questions.
Wow, what a trip. He touched on so much while exploring his ideas. The book’s extensively footnoted throughout, but to make things easier to find Weaver included a section simply listing the of works he cited. That in itself is eleven pages long. I’ve put a few on my Goodreads but there’s no way I could wade through all of it.
When I was only two thirds of the way through I’d determined that I’m not going to be reaching any atonement theory conclusions here. Accepting one guys view without thoughtfully considering other works just doesn’t feel authentic. To do so would cheapen the process.
I can’t say for sure Weaver’s narrative Christus victor atonement theory is the one I’m buying into. I can say it makes way more sense than the penal substitutionary atonement theory evangelicals shove into their tidy little boxes.
These are big ideas which may always exceed the limits of human understanding & I’m OK with that. I don’t need human words to be able to precisely describe how Jesus actually saves to believe that He has.
I’m going to leave this to the academics to ponder, & while they stroke thier grey beards & ponder, I’ll be digging into what I’m calling the ‘Trouble I’ve Seen, Chapter 9' atonement theory. Jesus is always down with the marginalized &, since I want to spend time with Him I’ll be getting involved with His people. Not as someone whose coming into their spaces to fix things but someone whose there to learn.
I’ve found an organization doing good work that’s led by members of the community they serve. They are willing to have me come alongside & our COVID situation is finally under enough control to allow that. I’m excited about what I’ll be learning & unlearning through this process.
Like I said earlier, two thirds of the way in I gave up on trying to figure this all out once & for all. Turns out that when I got to the end I found that Weaver himself, whose 25 years of work lead to this book is right there with me.
It is my hope that this book does show the way for narrative Christus Victor to replace Anselm as the Christian understanding of atonement, and beyond that that it shows the way to other necessary reformulations of Christian theology. At the same time, it should be stated clearly that all theology is particular or specific to a context. It cannot be claimed that narrative Christus Victor is the ultimate atonement imagine and that our problem of how best to articulate the saving work of Christ has now been definitively solved for the remainder of life on earth.
“Stated another way”, God’s way bigger than our imaginations & vocabulary.
