I’m preparing a briefing paper for people training as coaches in the Uniting Church in Australia, Queensland Synod, focusing on the distinctive theological setting in which we work rather than attempting a generic approach that fits all. However there will and should be some resonance with other traditions. I’ve included quotes from the Uniting Church in Australia Basis of Union (1977).
1. Relational Framework.
We enter into one another’s lives aware that God is relational in nature. As Christians we perceive the being of God expressed in the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit, or, in a non-gendered framework, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. We see in that relationship the relational characteristics described by Paul in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control. In our coaching, we are called to take part in God’s reconciling engagement with the world in which we live, doing so with respect for boundaries, seeking to empower rather than control, aware of our own strengths and limitations, always recognising that we are witnesses and supporters of the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit.
“Jesus of Nazareth announced the sovereign grace of God whereby the poor in spirit could receive God’s love. Jesus himself, in his life and death, made the response of humility, obedience and trust which God had long sought in vain. In raising him to live and reign, God confirmed and completed the witness which Jesus bore to God on earth, reasserted claim over the whole of creation, pardoned sinners, and made in Jesus a representative beginning of a new order of righteousness and love. To God in Christ all people are called to respond in faith. To this end God has sent forth the Spirit that people may trust God as their Father, and acknowledge Jesus as Lord. The whole work of salvation is effected by the sovereign grace of God alone.”
2. Incarnational Framework
Our participation in the people of God is founded in the life of Christ. Just as Jesus entered the every day challenges of life, filled with the Spirit, we are called to participate in the mission of God in every part of our lives. This is explored in processes that engage body, mind, spirit and soul.
“The Church as the fellowship of the Holy Spirit confesses Jesus as Lord over its own life; it also confesses that Jesus is Head over all things, the beginning of a new creation, of a new humanity. God in Christ has given to all people in the Church the Holy Spirit as a pledge and foretaste of that coming reconciliation and renewal which is the end in view for the whole creation. The Church’s call is to serve that end: to be a fellowship of reconciliation, a body within which the diverse gifts of its members are used for the building up of the whole, an instrument through which Christ may work and bear witness to himself.”
3. The Whole People of God
We believe that participation in the ministry and mission of Christ is open to people of all ages, whether employed or not, whether in a recognised position or not. Coaching is a process that can be used to support people in their unique way witnessing, worshiping and serving.
“The Uniting Church affirms that every member of the Church is engaged to confess the faith of Christ crucified and to be his faithful servant. It acknowledges with thanksgiving that the one Spirit has endowed the members of Christ’s Church with a diversity of gifts, and that there is no gift without its corresponding service: all ministries have a part in the ministry of Christ.”
4. Faith as a Journey
We are a pilgrim people. Together we are discerning what it means to follow Christ, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. Faithfulness, perseverance, courage and humility are required as we constantly reassess our response to the dynamic leading of the Spirit. Coaching pilgrims involves listening, recognition of movement and progress, the capacity to encourage steps of faith in times of ambiguity and uncertainty.
“The Uniting Church’s Basis of Union draws on the motif of our being a people on the way: “The Church lives between the time of Christ’s death and resurrection and the final consummation of all things which Christ will bring; the Church is a pilgrim people, always on the way towards a promised goal; here the Church does not have a continuing city but seeks one to come.”
Walter Lowe, emeritus professor of systematic theology at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, has written an essay on Christ and Salvation in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology.
Lowe sets out to develop a fresh approach to Christology and soteriology that addresses what he perceives to be limitations imposed by classic and modernist approaches to sequence, economy and negativity. He points out that modernist studies of Christ and salvation begin with human need, developing a schema of salvation, before outlining a Christology to suit. Classic approaches, on the other hand, hold unexamined assumptions around the human condition before rolling out a schema of salvation.
Lowe draws on his familiarity with Freudian analysis and psychotherapy to critique contemporary models of evangelism that begin with the subjective human experience.
Sequence - analyses of the human condition and need
1 acceptable description of common human experience with emphasis on problems or discontents
2 specific diagnosis of phenomena in terms of underlying condition
3 general recommendation
4 specific remedy
Lowe points out that this sequence, when applied to the general recommendation of salvation and specific remedy of Christ, is problematic. What happens when Christ doesn’t fit the problem? Furthermore, this approach to salvation is inevitably grounded in negativity, searching for need, offense or deficit. The radical good of the gospel may become overshadowed by the negativity.
While classic systematic theologies do not begin with such sequences and economies, it is common for Christology and soteriology to be preceded by consideration of sin and its effects on humanity. These approaches, Lowe suggests, are flawed by the quasi-hydraulic nature of their economy. God’s offering of Jesus as ransom is in response to humanity being captured by Satan. God’s infinite justice is offended in a way that can only be assuaged by a divine gesture of justice.
Lowe points out that if the distorting nature of sin is to be taken seriously, we as theologians need to treat their systems with humility, recognising that our predetermined understanding of the human condition is by its very nature limited.
In a section relating to alternatives to modernism Lowe juxtaposes the Jewish apocalypticism described by M.C. de Boer and the Christus Victor doctrine espoused by Gustaf Aulen. De Boer had contrasted the forensic apocalyptic pattern (in which wilful rejection of the Creator God had led to punishment by death) and the cosmic apocalyptic pattern (in which the people of the earth had become idolatrous and would ultimately be defeated by God’s historical intervention). God’s intervention in each case called for human response. The giving of the law called for faithful obedience. The impending intervention of God called for perserverance. Aulen’s central theme of Divine conflict and victory picked up motifs from New Testament thinking that would have been influenced by the apocalyptic paradigms.
Lowe admits that the apocalyptic approach has been seen as mythological and dualistic, largely by those who had taken monistic and evolutionary perspective in tune with modernism. Lowe points however to the Karl Barth’s 1919 commentary on Romans as a Christian form of postmodernism, a critique of the un-intrusive God of theism who left alone the sovereign self-possessed human subject. With such forms of postmodernist theology available Lowe suggests that it was time to explore again alternatives to both the unexamined economies of classic doctrines of atonement and the fickle particular sequences of atonement formed in tune with modernist thought.
Lowe suggests that the logic of cosmic victory is to overthrow the very notion that God’s act of salvation can be contained within any economy. This speculation is linked to J. Louis Martyn’s framing of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians in a specifically apocalyptic context of the present evil age being invaded by the new creation brought about by Christ. This is not another example of what Lowe has previously described as ‘quasi-hydraulic’ effects. The Christ event itself becomes the reality in which all else is interpreted. Paul is described as opposing dualisms and economies which may attempt to contain the radical impact of the Christ event.
Lowe concludes by drawing on and expanding upon Derrida’s concept of presence to develop a model of Christological revelation. The very presence of God in the finite life of Jesus is perhaps the heart of the apocalyptic event. Lowe is aware of the temptations to draw conclusions about individual appropriation of that Presence, focusing on whether or not an individual is saved or how one is saved. The focus, rather, is to be on the glory of God.
Lowe’s final comments relate to the danger of any over arching vision becoming tyrannical. His purposes in writing are not to eliminate metaphors of atonement, exchange and substitution, but to place them in a context in which their claims for dominance are moderated by the cry of the people.
Walter Lowe here is recovering a number of understandings that have been muted by modernist reductions of salvation and Christology. By going back to the narratives of the Jewish people, with their apparently dualist apocalyptisms, Lowe has attempted to re-engage with the metaphor of intervention. Doctrines of atonement, once thought to be outdated or irrelevant to the human condition, can be revisited in the light of a new creation that resists attempts to form tyrannical metanarratives.
Colin Gunton, Professor of Christian Doctrine at King’s College London until his death in 2003, published “The Actuality of Atonement: A Study of Metaphor, Rationality and the Christian Tradition” in 1988.
Gunton sets out to challenge the rationalist approaches to doctrines of atonement provided by Kant, Schleirmacher and Hegel. He describes Kant’s approach as rationalism of the moral agent, an approach which totally reverses traditional atonement doctrine to focus on the redemption achieved through the re-activation of the innate powers of the moral will. Schleirmacher’s rationalism of experience has emasculated traditional doctrines of atonement, destroying their base in the historic redemptive action of God and producing a reductionist account of their language. Hegel, Gunton writes, approached the doctrine of atonement from a perspective of conceptual rationalism, undervaluing fuzzy concepts and metaphors.
Gunton moves on to explore the re-emergence of metaphor as an accepted component of philosophical and theological dialogue. He looks at the way in which metaphor has been linked with rhetoric and ornament as opposed to argument, truth and literal description. Philosophy of science in recent years has moved away from this dichotomy, providing for metaphor as the vehicle of discovery. Metaphor, despite the concerns of the Enlightenment, is a pervasive part of language that can be used to speak about the real world. Metaphor, as an engagement with the world, must be used with imagination and modesty.
The Battlefield and the Demons
Gunton considers the claims of Swedish theologian Gustav Aulen in his 1931 book, “Christus Victor”, that the early church’s focus on the victory of Christ on the cross had been lost in favour of the notion of satisfaction. The metaphor of ‘victory over demonic power’ has been rejected by many theologians largely because of difficulty in engaging with the literal or associated meanings. As Gunton looks through the Old and New Testaments he comes to the conclusion that the texts “present us not with superhuman hypostases trotting about the world, but with the metaphorical characterisation of moral and cosmic realities which would otherwise defy expression.” He draws on contemporary writers to draw out the theme of subjection of individuals and societies to forces beyond their control. Jesus, by refusing any other means of success than the genuinely human, reveals deceptive idolatry in all its forms to be ‘demonic’. Understanding the history of Jesus as a victory clears the way for a new vision of the world in which God is involved in all aspects of creation.
The Justice of God: A Conversation
Gunton uses the atonement metaphor of satisfaction as developed by Anselm of Canterbury to explore the range of interpretations of metaphor in different contexts of time and place. He begins by pointing out that the legal metaphor was linked to the Christus Victor motif and was hinted at by early theologians such as Cyprian. The concept of justice, held by Anselm and his peers was different to that of the Hebrew scriptures. God becomes the cosmic overlord responsible for universal justice. The Hebrew Scriptures however place the law as a gift provided for the sustenance of God’s people and the maintenance of covenantal relationship. Anselm himself points out that atonement as satisfaction is not a legal transaction, but an act of unmerited grace.
Having briefly looked at Anselm’s approach to doctrine, Gunton moves on to the conversation made possible as successive generations have engaged in the justice metaphor with evolving understandings of law, including the extremes of inward-looking individualist piety and merciless domination in the name of a punishing God. These distortions are dealt with by Gunton in the context of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Gunton concludes this section with a consideration of twentieth century treatments of the justice metaphor by Forsyth and Barth. It is clear to Gunton that the justice metaphor is a pliable and living stimulus for conversation, rooted in real-life history and society.
It would have been interesting to see how Gunton would have approached the way this metaphor has been played out in the context of liberation theology, feminist theology and other such conversations.
Christ the Sacrifice: A Dead Metaphor?
Gunton begins by acknowledging the sentiment that the sacrifice metaphor has run its course due to the repugnance with which it is viewed today. He reminds the reader that even in the Greek and Hebrew contexts sacrifice means different things to different people in different contexts. The description of the life and death of Jesus as a sacrifice is treated by Gunton as an example of transfer of meaning. The Old Testament concept of slaughter and prayer together is moralised in the time of Jesus to focus on a gift of life outside the bounds of the usual temple context. The call to join in the sacrificial life of Jesus leads to a re-thinking of the metaphor beyond dying to an intentional offering of prayerful life to God.
Objections to the transactional nature of the sacrifice metaphor are explored in the consideration of Edward Irving’s nineteenth century christology. Irving rejects a stock exchange approach to divinity along with mathematical quantitative theology of sin. Irving taught that the sacrifice offered by Jesus was to live in the context of humanity affected by a relational sinfulness and randomness, prone to suffering and limitation like us. The Holy Spirit living in Jesus brought about the atonement in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus alike. Irving develops Calvin’s theology of the priesthood of Christ in both a human and cosmic context.
Gunton concludes that even though the metaphor of sacrifice has been trivialised and misused, tainted with punitive overtones for example, theologians such as Irving show us that the supposedly dead metaphor can open life-giving approaches to the doctrine of atonement.
Atonement, the Triune God, and the Community of Reconciliation
Gunton goes on to explore the relational dimension of atonement found in the triune God’s interaction with creation and lived out in the community of the people of Christ.
Alan Mann, who has just started blogging at www.alanmann.wordpress.com, published “Atonement for a ‘Sinless’ Society - Engaging with an Emerging Culture”, with Paternoster UK in 2005.
Alan was co-author with Steve Chalke in the controversial book, “The Lost Message of Jesus”.
Mann opens with the challenge of translation of the gospel into a post-industrialized, post-Christian, postmodern context. He suggests we need a new Pentecost experience to help us speak in the languages of those around us.
Mann suggests that we have lost much of the meaning of ’sin’, in wider society as well as in the church. He writes that it would have far greater meaning if we described sin as an absence of mutual, intimate, undistorted relating that ultimately leads the post-modern self into a lack of ontological or narrative coherence.
Alan says one of the key reasons for the loss of sin awareness is the increasing absence of the ‘Other’ in our understandings of the self. He traces this postmodern lack of awareness back to the expressionism of the Romantic era. Many in the postmodern context see little relevance in Christian doctrine that stresses our falling short of God’s mark.
Rather than being aware of our sinfulness, we are more likely to be conscious of being victims who have been ’sinned against’. We hunger an approach to atonement that grapples more with a chronic sense of shame (self-judgment) and alienation than with guilt.
“How can a community help the chronically shamed person if the only narratives of healing and atonement they have to offer are ones based upon a reduction of sin and guilt to moral misdemeanour.”
Mann writes about atonement for shame being a process in which the once-for-all act that opens reconciliation, healing and fullness is lived out in a series of healing moments. I would suggest that we would be well served by considering the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as a series of moments as well. The final breath of Jesus does not stand isolation to the rest of his life.
Robin Parry, in his response to Mann, points out that many Christians struggle with shame as they agonize over the chasm between their ideal selves and their everyday actuality. He wonders if we need to do away with the concept in favour of the concept of shame. Parry advocates for a retention of accountability to God and ’sin’ as a God-related doctrine.
Mann points out that the word ’sin’ is either meaningless or tainted by layers of shame. Maybe we need to develop an alternative vocabulary that does justice to the self-Other relationship, focused not on condemnation but on potential.
It would be helpful if we did in fact have a model of atonement that focused on gospel for this life, good news for living each day. That’s something I’ll pick up as I write on Mann’s engagement with narrative therapy in another post.
Mark Helm, Samuel Abbot Professor of Christian Theology at Andover Newton Theological School, Massachusetts, last year published his book, “Saved From Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross”. Using insights from Rene Girard, Heim focuses his thesis on the concept of scapegoating, suggesting that God used the human sinful practice of scapegoating to end that paradigm.
Heim begins by outlining the indictments against the doctrine of substitutionary atonement that focuses on the cross as punishment for our sins. The concept of sacrifice is no longer current in most cultures. The cross has been used as the keystone of Christian anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism. Critics point out that the death of Jesus stands alongside many other accounts of dying and rising in other cultures. “The theology of the cross is indicted for ignorant parochialism and spiritual immaturity”. Traditional understandings of the cross are criticized for painting God as a transactional ogre who must find violent means to bring about forgiveness. Heim points to the growing number of critics who connect atonement doctrines with validation of guilt, retribution and violence.
“The critiques of atonement theology are like magnets run over the biblical texts. They attract and lift out a whole range of problematic portions about which the church generally practices discreet avoidance”.
Heim says that the significance of the cross stands out with particular clarity when seen in the light of scapegoating violence that encompasses both the individual and society. With Girard he explores the treatment of violence in the Hebrew scriptures, both in descriptions of sacrificial and scapegoating practices, and in narratives (such as Job) that explore the involvement of God in human suffering.
Heim summarises Rene Girard’s approach to scapegoating in the Old and New Testaments. Sacrifice was a real solution to communal violence. For people to buy into the myth of sacrifice, the violent nature needed to be obscured. Religion provided a way for this to happen. The voice of the scapegoat had to be silenced. Scapegoats were chosen from marginalized groups, powerless people. Further, the murder of the scapegoat must not be portrayed as divinely sanctioned sacrifice rather than murder or abuse. The scapegoating mechanism must be exposed to save us from this collective sin.
Jesus, the resurrected victim, speaks out as the murdered one, challenging the powers that have chosen him as scapegoat. Through the resurrection we discover that God has stood by the victim and not the perpetrators. God has not punished or abandoned Jesus. The vindicated Jesus, in turn, does not condemn his killers.
Heim, along with Girard, explores the letters of Paul and the letter to the Hebrews to test this out. Paul uses the sacrificial theme but focuses on the role of faith in the one who has been unjustly murdered. The letter to the Hebrews begins with the ritual sacrifices written up in the Hebrew Scriptures but concludes with the assertion that the sacrifice of Jesus has made all sacrifices unnecessary.
Heim finishes by engaging with Anselm’s theology of atonement. He cannot agree with Anselm’s premise that Jesus offered unmerited suffering to pay the price of our punishment. He would rather say that God suffered the effects of our sin as God rescued us from it. He says “the passion is a divine act revealing, reversing, and replacing our redemptive violence, which we so long and tenaciously hid from ourselves in the very name of the sacred.”
“The God who paid the cost of the cross was not the one who charged it. We are saved from sacrifice because God suffered it. To be reconciled with God is to recognize victims when we see them, to convert from the crowd that gathers around them, and to be reconciled with each other without them.”
J Denny Weaver, professor of religion at Bluffton University in Ohio, focuses largely on the ‘narrative Christus Victor’ aproach to atonement in his attempt to grapple with violent dimensions of the traditional ‘appeasement’ understanding of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Bluffton University is a liberal arts university associated with the Mennonite Church USA.
Weaver acknowledges that the continuing focus on the punishment of Jesus on our behalf is understandable, given the prevalent systems of retributive justice found in contemporary society. The greater the misdeed or evil, the greater the punishment. However he brings to light the growing number of critiques of traditional atonement theories.
Weaver builds on the work by Mennonite theologians Gordon Kaufman and John Howard Yoder who attempted to recover the traditional ‘Christus Victor’ model of atonement. He draws on the work of Catholic theologians Rene Girard and Raymund Schwager, who had unpacked the mimetic violence embedded in the appeasement model of atonement.
Weaver’s work is given courage and strength by contextualist theologians from the Black, feminist and womanist streams of theology.
James Cone, in God of the Oppressed, points out that white people have used the traditional atonement perspective to claim salvation (in the after life) while accommodating and advocating the violence of racisim and slavery.
Feminist and womanist theologians, such as Joan Carlson Brown, Rebecca Parker, Rita Nakashima Brock and Delores Williams, write about the classic atonement doctrine as images of ‘divine child abuse’ or ‘divine surrogacy’.
Weaver draws on insights from postmodernity to consider the contexts in which classic doctrines of atonement originally formed and were then perpetuated. He sets out to explore the possibility that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus may have particular and distinctive meanings in different contexts.
Weaver sets out to develop an understanding of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that avoids all the dimensions of violence in traditional atonement imagery. He explores the assumed violence found in the traditional images of atonement: accommodation of the violence of sword and various forms of systemic violence by the abstract formulas of satisfaction atonement, modeling of submission to abusive authorities, and modeling the assumption that doing justice or making right depends on punishment or sanctioned violence.
The Narrative Christus Victor is first set out in an analysis of the Book of Revelation. On the surface it would appear as though this apocalyptic work is about universal cosmic conflict between good and evil in which the church confronts the empire. Weaver argues that the church in Revelation is called to a nonviolent participation in the already achieved victory of Jesus’ resurrection.
Weaver goes on to explore the non-violent approach of Jesus as he proclaimed and lived out the Kingdom of God.
“Jesus was ready to die and he was willing to die. It was not a death, however, that was required as compensatory retribution for the sins of his enemies and his friends. It was a death that resulted from fulfilment of his mission of his mission about the reign of God.”
Weaver challenges a narrow understanding of atonement based on retributive justice. Here, he says, we see Jesus talking about and modeling an understanding of salvation that is about being free from the evil forces represented by the imperial structures, the holiness code, the mob and the compromising actions and attitudes of his own disciples.
The resurrection, Weaver suggests, is more than an inspirational event. It reveals the balance of power in the universe, whether people recognise it or not. The resurrection overcomes acts of evil and becomes an invitation to join in the life-transforming rule of God in the world.
I’m writing a paper on the impact of modernism on doctrines of atonement and making my way through a few texts.
First book on my reading list is Stephen Finlan’s 2005 book, “Problems with Atonement: The Origins Of, And Controversy About, The Atonement Doctrine”.
Finlan graduated with a PhD in Pauline Theology, University of Durham, in 2004, focusing on the background and content of Paul’s cultic atonement metaphors. He’s now a research assistant for the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture at Drew University.
Stephen draws attention to a pattern of correction, rationalization and spiritualization that has dominated both scholarly and confessional discourse on atonement. He’s concerned that Hebrew, Gentile and later metaphors of atonement have been uncritically conflated and calls for a re-examination of life, death and resurrection through the lense of the doctrine of incarnation.
Sacrifice and Scapegoat
Finlan’s first chapter explores the depth of meaning found in the Hebrew and Gentile rites of sacrifice. He begins with sacrifice as gift, propitiation, an offering of the best to please and/or appease God. On another level Hebrew sacrifices were used as form of purification, releasing the life-force of the blood to restore order, cleanness to the temple and God’s people. Sacrifice came to be seen as a means of expiation, bringing forgiveness, dealing with sin. The Hebrew concept of ‘kippering’, translated into the English word ‘atonement’, is described as payoff, ransom, turning away potential retaliation.
Finlan provides a matter-of-fact description of the spiritualization process associated with the concept of sacrifice in Hebrew and other cultures. An early example of substitution, hinted at in Hebrew Scriptures, would be the replacement of human sacrifice with animal sacrifice. Moralizing interpretations insert moral and universal meanings into the sacrificial practices. Internalization of religion focuses on the attitudes of the sacrificer. Metaphorical use of cultic terms is found in Paul’s reference to the body as the temple. The most radical spiritualization is the complete rejection of sacrificial practice, a move seen in writing by Isaiah, Jeremiah and Hosea.
Finlan goes on to explore the expulsion rituals of the Hebrew scriptures and commonly found in Hittite, Greek and Mesopotamian societies. The scapegoat concept was used by these societies to transfer curse or sin onto the victim. Finlan stresses that the concept of scapegoat must be distinguished from the concept of sacrifice. Sacrifice, he reminds us, “has nothing to do with punishing the animal but with the purifying power that the lifeblood is thought to have”.
Paul’s Use of Metaphors
Finlan goes on to the heart of his PhD, Paul’s use of cultic metaphor. His thesis here is that Paul uses multiple metaphors and models to ullustrate the meaning of the death of Christ. Paul refers to Christ’s death in terms of sacrificial sin-sprinkling and sin-bearing scapegoat. He also appears to have made references to the Hellenistic rhetoric of nobly dying for his people (later seen in terms of martyrdom). He goes on to use social metaphors to describe the beneficial results of Christ’s death for believers: justification (from the legal court), reconciliation (diplomatic metaphor), and adoption (family metaphor), and ransom (freedom for slaves). Paul used many of these metaphors in the same sentence, focusing on the many meanings of the death of Jesus, rather than developing a systematic theology. It was in the combination of the metaphors that the concept of penal substitution began to emerge.
I like this quote from Finlan:
“In the interests of making the Gospel marketable, Paul poured the new wine into old conceptual forms, spiced with a dose of spiritualizing, and enlivened by the real spiritual experience that he and his fellows were having. But this means that some incompatible religious ideas were yoked together. Whatever could “preach” could stay; but this has caused confusions to later Christians”.
Finlan provides an analysis of atonement doctrines developed in the early Church (Patristic theologians), medieval Church and Reformation movement.
Rescue Theories
Finlan classes together the Christus Victor and so-called ransom theories as the Rescue Theories - concepts of cosmic rescue and triumph over evil forces. Irenaeus sees Christ rescuing humanity by rescuing human nature itself. Origen of Alexandria sees the whole of life and teaching of Christ as saving. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, is described as seeing salvation as a salvage and restoration job that emanates from the incarnation itself. Augustine combines a ransom theory (tricking the devil) with a judicial theory in which Christ takes the penalty for our sin.
Satisfaction Theory
Finlan writes that Anselm (11th century) constructed a theory based on the social structure of his time, providing a feudal structure to salvation. God, the offended Lord, must have compensation for the affront to his honor by sinful humanity.
Moral Influence Theory
Peter Abelard, not long after Anselm, rejected all ransom and satisfaction theories, focusing instead on the moral effect of Christ’s life and death on the person who honestly believes it. Abelard pointed out that the whole of Jesus’ life counted, not just the violent end.
Reformation Theories
Finlan explores the atonement theories developed by Luther and Calvin. He points to the doctrines of absolute depravity, universal guilt and a ‘horrifying transfer of divine wrath to the undeserving Son’ as monstrous teachings that have made Christianity unpalatable to believers.
I think this section is perhaps the weakest in Finlan’s book. Finlan gives us a conflated view of the voices of the Reformation, focusing largely on Luther, ignoring the large number of alternative voices of the time.
The Incarnation
Finlan is concerned that the primary Christian doctrine of the incarnation has been interpreted through secondary doctrines such as substitutionary atonement, rather than the other way around. He acknowledges the concern that the rejection of such secondary doctrines can lead to a wholesale rejection of all doctrine. He acknowledges that much of Paul’s writing points to the life and death and resurrection of Jesus in terms of atonement metaphors. Finlan hopes to convince his readers to read the rest of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures without imposing the ‘penal substitionary atonement’ model on them. He concludes with the thought that the early Christian doctrine of theosis may be a useful way ahead in developing a deep and useful understanding of Christ.
I’ll finish with a quote from a quote from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (2 Cor 5:19):
“God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself”.
As I read the text around that statement, I’ll be reading with an appreciation of the many metaphors being used by Paul. I’ll also be looking to see what difference it makes to read through with the doctrine of incarnation as the lense.
The third instalment in a series on doctrine in the context of Pacific Parks, the house church I meet with each week.
Pacific Parks for four years has worked around the three core values of being relaxed, relational and relevant.
Founding members of Pacific Parks were aware of the difficulty many Australians have when first attending traditional worship. We identified cultural cringe factors for most Australians of our age and younger and undertook to develop a culture of gathering that did not feature ceremonial vestments, long sermons and hymn singing accompanied by organs. However our understanding of ‘relevance’ hopefully goes deeper than cultural preferences.
When we say ‘relevant’ we mean:
“We seek to make Jesus accessible to people, and seek to break down any barriers that might prevent people from knowing him personally. We value people, wanting them to discover and exercise their unique giftedness.”
As we developed our approach to being church in a number of new housing areas, we were deeply aware of the diversity we faced. There is no one culture on the north Gold Coast. Even though we had ‘postmodern’ and ‘emerging generations’ in our received mandate, we were very much aware that it would take several different approaches to connect people with the good news of Jesus.
Take music, for example. A number of our original members were embedded in the country music scene. Others were more into electronica and ambient music. Some enjoy singing praise and worship songs. Others don’t like singing in public at all. We have been tempted to develop formulas that will attract people from each of these cultures. What we’ve ended up doing though is focusing less on marketing, entertainment and ‘ambience’, and focusing more on relationship building that is uncluttered by programming.
We seek to make Jesus accessible to people, and seek to break down any barriers that might prevent people from knowing him personally.
Our value of accessibility is grounded in the doctrine of incarnation. We believe that God was in Christ, reconciling the world with Godself. As the Uniting Church Basis of Union says, our call is to be a fellowship of reconciliation, a body within which the diverse gifts of its members are used for the building up of the whole, an instrument through which Christ may work and bear witness to himself.
We believe Jesus to have lived as “God in the flesh” in the context of Roman-occupied Palestine. Looking at Jesus’ ministry we see a range of relationships. Jesus camped out and went fishing with the disciples. He dined in with wealthy society leaders. He took part in public expressions of worship in synagogues and in the temple. In all of these situations the focus was not on form. The focus was on accessibility.
With accessibility in mind we have let go our preoccupation with purpose-built church buildings, choosing instead to meet in places where people naturally gather. We meet in parks, homes, cafes and taverns, and at times in church buildings.
The doctrine of the incarnation tells us that God was prepared to become embedded in a small backwater local culture, without expecting instant success.
As frustrating as this has turned out to be, we have made a commitment to growing a relationship at a time.
One of the temptations of working with a commitment to accessibility is “fear of offending”. We have the challenge of presenting the good news of reconciliation in a way that leads to people living lives in harmony with the values of the Kingdom of God. We ourselves are confronted by the priorities of Jesus. We shouldn’t be surprised when others take offence at Jesus’ teaching. However we want to avoid offending people with cultural insensitivity or arrogance.
We value people, wanting them to discover and exercise their unique giftedness.
Our valuing of people is founded in a Christian doctrine of the human person, traditionally referred to as “Doctrine of Man”.
Most approaches to the Christian doctrine of the human person begin with creation - the belief that the human is created by God to be an expression of God’s character earthed in a environment of fragility and uncertainty. The inherent value of each person is grounded in the value given by God’s gift of life. As a community of faith we are challenged to see each person in our wider community as an expression of the image of God.
We believe that God has given us the capacity to continue discerning the depths of God’s call as a community, and also as persons in community. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, “Now I see in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” In our shared life-transforming interaction with God’s Spirit, we are equipped to recognise what it means to be truly human in our own context.
As we connect with Jesus, God’s character in each person emerges. We are gifted with the opportunity to participate in God’s ongoing act of creation. We can become tempted to interpret this challenge by filling out skills inventories to determine our contribution to weekly church life. The deeper challenge is to daily discern the ways in which we are called to live out an incarnational presence in our unique sphere of influence.
Pacific Parks Uniting began with a group of people who were keen to explore an alternative to the hectic pace of a church addicted to excellent performance. We’d been in churches that measured effectiveness by the number of people attending Sunday worship and midweek on-campus programs. We’d also been in churches with a focus on correctness, in which newcomers were carefully tested for right belief and respectable lifestyles.
We were committed to exploring an alternative approach to church that would equip its members to live out radical discipleship largely in the context of everyday relationships. Our gatherings would need to inspire and support people to engage with real life, seven days a week.
To summarise this approach, we started describing ourselves as “Relaxed Church”.
We come together in a welcoming, warm, encouraging and inclusive way.
The primary doctrine that we affirm here is the doctrine of grace.
Serene Jones describes a similar connection between the doctrine of grace and the ryhthms of a church’s life in her article, “Graced Practices: Excellence and Freedom in the Christian Life”, found in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life, edited by Mirsolav Volf and Dorothy Bass, 2002. Jones is a theologian with membership in a United Church of Christ congregation in New Haven.
Serene Jones describes the ambitious vision-casting process developed by a ‘Millennial committee’. As they presented their plans to the congregations they found people becoming tired, overwhelmed and without enthusiasm. In response, the committee went back and explored the benefits of the good news of Jesus Christ. They unpacked what it meant to live out of justification and sanctification. They revisited the Scriptures and found there the narrative of God’s grace, from creation through to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The congregation’s leaders then began to explore what it would mean to develop gatherings that would be good news to their participants. Practicing the sabbath, grounded in the freedom of justification, became a gift to people already exhausted by hectic lifestyles.
So what would living in the grace of God look like for a new network of house churches? Pacific Parks began with the grace-imbued practices of Sabbath and hospitality. Instead of beginning with running worship services, we started with leadership meetings on Sunday mornings in each others homes, over a barbecue. We moved to public parks and started inviting friends and family. Our first purchase as a church was a large catering barbecue. We followed that up with sports equipment.
At first some of us felt a little anxious, perhaps guilty, about missing out on Sunday morning worship. We weren’t busy ‘running Church’. There were no rosters to fill. There were no offerings to take up and count as we had already made arrangements for direct debit giving. There was no ‘order of service’ and no post-event evaluation. It was strange for people who had spent all their lives ‘doing church’.
We discovered that our energy was now available to focus on expressing the hospitality of God to those around us. God brought into our circles people who would not have fitted neatly into a church committed to excellence. Like the woman with only one outfit for wearing in public who was anxious that her grandson was sipping on a drink during a worship time. We pointed out that most of us had a cup of coffee in our hands. The couple who were living together who joined one of our house churches, later holding their wedding in one of our homes and regularly bringing their extended family and network of friends. The young people who struggled with multiple addictions, who time and time again found themselves responding to God’s grace.
We seek to be flexible, accepting and authentic, creatively responding to others.
As in the relational approach to Church, our relaxed approach is connected with our perception of how God dynamically relates to the world. We believe that God interacts with the world as it is, continually helping creation respond in tune with God’s call. We don’t believe that God has a blueprint that we must discover and follow slavishly. In the life of Jesus we see constant examples of responding to people as they are, in the settings in which they live, using the elements of each scenario.
Earlier this month I met with a family network for a baptism in the park. When the parents of the boy being baptised asked if we had to hold the service in church on Sunday I explained that the Uniting in Worship regulations did specificy that baptism should be held after a sermon during a Sunday worship service. But because Pacific Parks was committed to developing flexible and creative approaches to church, we could say yes to Saturday morning in the local park. Besides, we didn’t have a church service on Sunday. Neither did we have a church building to hold it in!
So where’s the doctrine here? The Uniting Church in Australia does have well developed doctrine around the connection between word and sacrament, designed to ensure that baptism is a corporate experience of the wider Church and not just an individual rite of passage. In planning the baptism service one of my first priorities was to ascertain who the congregation of the faithful would be in this case. I had two couples from Pacific Parks Uniting who would be affirming a commitment to nurture faith in the child and his family. The parents themselves were keen to express their own emerging faith. His parents, sister and brother-in-law were Catholics and were able to participate meaningfully. For others it was a case of being welcome, included and encouraged to explore faith for themselves.
We have deliberately sought to delineate between primary doctrines of Christian faith and more practical doctrines that are not essential in these settings. For the sake of authenticity and consistency we seek to develop shared experiences of faith that are consistent with the Uniting Church services of baptism and communion. However, we sense no obligation to maintain the traditional or even contemporary ‘order of service’ for worship. For example, we rarely sing together. In our earlier days together we did. We bought a keyboard and practiced hard for our corporate gatherings. But as we moved into separate house churches we discovered that not everyone finds singing helpful in connecting with God. We came to see singing as a practice of faith that would be used when appropriate.
We have struggled with issues of sexuality and how they apply to doctrine. The Uniting Church Assembly in 2003 clarified that each Presbytery had the capacity to ordain people on a case by case basis. As a local leadership team we found it impossible to develop a shared understanding of how that related to doctrine. Was the Church’s traditional doctrine relating to homosexuality a primary affirmation, requiring a Christian to be heterosexual or live a lifetime of celibacy? Or was it possible that God was more flexible and welcoming than the Church had allowed for over time?
The next post will focus on doctrine in relation to being ‘Relevant Church’.
Pacific Parks Uniting began with a group of people who were keen to explore an alternative to the hectic pace of a church addicted to excellent performance. We’d been in churches that measured effectiveness by the number of people attending Sunday worship and midweek on-campus programs. We’d also been in churches with a focus on correctness, in which newcomers were carefully tested for right belief and respectable lifestyles.
We were committed to exploring an alternative approach to church that would equip its members to live out radical discipleship largely in the context of everyday relationships. Our gatherings would need to inspire and support people to engage with real life, seven days a week.
To summarise this approach, we started describing ourselves as “Relaxed Church”.
We come together in a welcoming, warm, encouraging and inclusive way.
The primary doctrine that we affirm here is the doctrine of grace.
Serene Jones describes a similar connection between the doctrine of grace and the ryhthms of a church’s life in her article, “Graced Practices: Excellence and Freedom in the Christian Life”, found in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life, edited by Mirsolav Volf and Dorothy Bass, 2002. Jones is a theologian with membership in a United Church of Christ congregation in New Haven.
Serene Jones describes the ambitious vision-casting process developed by a ‘Millennial committee’. As they presented their plans to the congregations they found people becoming tired, overwhelmed and without enthusiasm. In response, the committee went back and explored the benefits of the good news of Jesus Christ. They unpacked what it meant to live out of justification and sanctification. They revisited the Scriptures and found there the narrative of God’s grace, from creation through to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The congregation’s leaders then began to explore what it would mean to develop gatherings that would be good news to their participants. Practicing the sabbath, grounded in the freedom of justification, became a gift to people already exhausted by hectic lifestyles.
So what would living in the grace of God look like for a new network of house churches? Pacific Parks began with the grace-imbued practices of Sabbath and hospitality. Instead of beginning with running worship services, we started with leadership meetings on Sunday mornings in each others homes, over a barbecue. We moved to public parks and started inviting friends and family. Our first purchase as a church was a large catering barbecue. We followed that up with sports equipment.
At first some of us felt a little anxious, perhaps guilty, about missing out on Sunday morning worship. We weren’t busy ‘running Church’. There were no rosters to fill. There were no offerings to take up and count as we had already made arrangements for direct debit giving. There was no ‘order of service’ and no post-event evaluation. It was strange for people who had spent all their lives ‘doing church’.
We discovered that our energy was now available to focus on expressing the hospitality of God to those around us. God brought into our circles people who would not have fitted neatly into a church committed to excellence. Like the woman with only one outfit for wearing in public who was anxious that her grandson was sipping on a drink during a worship time. We pointed out that most of us had a cup of coffee in our hands. The couple who were living together who joined one of our house churches, later holding their wedding in one of our homes and regularly bringing their extended family and network of friends. The young people who struggled with multiple addictions, who time and time again found themselves responding to God’s grace.
We seek to be flexible, accepting and authentic, creatively responding to others.
As in the relational approach to Church, our relaxed approach is connected with our perception of how God dynamically relates to the world. We believe that God interacts with the world as it is, continually helping creation respond in tune with God’s call. We don’t believe that God has a blueprint that we must discover and follow slavishly. In the life of Jesus we see constant examples of responding to people as they are, in the settings in which they live, using the elements of each scenario.
Earlier this month I met with a family network for a baptism in the park. When the parents of the boy being baptised asked if we had to hold the service in church on Sunday I explained that the Uniting in Worship regulations did specificy that baptism should be held after a sermon during a Sunday worship service. But because Pacific Parks was committed to developing flexible and creative approaches to church, we could say yes to Saturday morning in the local park. Besides, we didn’t have a church service on Sunday. Neither did we have a church building to hold it in!
So where’s the doctrine here? The Uniting Church in Australia does have well developed doctrine around the connection between word and sacrament, designed to ensure that baptism is a corporate experience of the wider Church and not just an individual rite of passage. In planning the baptism service one of my first priorities was to ascertain who the congregation of the faithful would be in this case. I had two couples from Pacific Parks Uniting who would be affirming a commitment to nurture faith in the child and his family. The parents themselves were keen to express their own emerging faith. His parents, sister and brother-in-law were Catholics and were able to participate meaningfully. For others it was a case of being welcome, included and encouraged to explore faith for themselves.
We have deliberately sought to delineate between primary doctrines of Christian faith and more practical doctrines that are not essential in these settings. For the sake of authenticity and consistency we seek to develop shared experiences of faith that are consistent with the Uniting Church services of baptism and communion. However, we sense no obligation to maintain the traditional or even contemporary ‘order of service’ for worship. For example, we rarely sing together. In our earlier days together we did. We bought a keyboard and practiced hard for our corporate gatherings. But as we moved into separate house churches we discovered that not everyone finds singing helpful in connecting with God. We came to see singing as a practice of faith that would be used when appropriate.
We have struggled with issues of sexuality and how they apply to doctrine. The Uniting Church Assembly in 2003 clarified that each Presbytery had the capacity to ordain people on a case by case basis. As a local leadership team we found it impossible to develop a shared understanding of how that related to doctrine. Was the Church’s traditional doctrine relating to homosexuality a primary affirmation, requiring a Christian to be heterosexual or live a lifetime of celibacy? Or was it possible that God was more flexible and welcoming than the Church had allowed for over time?
The next post will focus on doctrine in relation to being ‘Relevant Church’.
Duncan Macleod posts on life, faith and culture in Australia, drawing from his involvement in the creative industry, the Uniting Church, the blogosphere, generational research, the emerging church and life on the Gold Coast.
Walter Lowe, emeritus professor of systematic theology at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, has written an essay on Christ and Salvation in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology.
Colin Gunton, Professor of Christian Doctrine at King’s College London until his death in 2003, published “The Actuality of Atonement: A Study of Metaphor, Rationality and the Christian Tradition” in 1988.
Alan Mann, who has just started blogging at 
Mark Helm, Samuel Abbot Professor of Christian Theology at 
J Denny Weaver, professor of religion at Bluffton University in Ohio, focuses largely on the ‘narrative Christus Victor’ aproach to atonement in his attempt to grapple with violent dimensions of the traditional ‘appeasement’ understanding of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Bluffton University is a liberal arts university associated with the Mennonite Church USA.
I’m writing a paper on the impact of modernism on doctrines of atonement and making my way through a few texts.
