This morning I took a long walk in the cold mist. I love it. Could have been Vermont! (Minus the trees and mountains.) More hot days will come, but there is again the promise of autumn.
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I haven’t been able to catch my breath to do much blogging. This weekend I read Scot McKnight’s A Community Called Atonement (Living Theology)
What a good, thoughtful read. McKnight has a way of bringing the best in New Testament studies to a deep concern for the church and its mission. He places atonement in the larger biblical framework: “Atonement finally concerns union with God and, simultaneously, communion with one another as its mirror among God’s created beings.”
Perhaps the greatest strength is the way he anchors the understanding of atonement in — shocking!! — Jesus himself and the announcement of God’s kingdom.
“You might be surprised to find the number of books on atonement that simply do no interact with (or even mention) Jesus’ vision of the kingdom. . . . Why? Because atonement theories have been shaped by the history of atonement theories, and that history has been dominated by Paul’s letter to the Romans so one-sidedly that opening the door to the kingdom upsets the entire conversation. . . .
“The kingdom of God, in short compass, is the society in which the will of God is established to transform all of life. The kingdom of God is more than what God is doing ‘within you’ and more than God’s personal ‘dynamic presence’; it is what God is doing in this world through the community of faith for the redemptive plans of God — including what God is doing in you and me. It transforms relationship with God, with self, with others, and with the world.”
In light of criticism of the notion of penal substitution, McKnight has some helpful insights. While admitting the pitfalls of many attempts to explain it, he provides a way forward. As he says, “I believe the hue and cry by emerging Christians about penal substitution is a gut-level reaction to caricatures of the doctrine. I don’t know how to read elements of (especially) Paul without explaining his soteriology as penal . . . .”
Perhaps more later. This is a worthwhile read!
Mike said: I haven’t been able to catch my breath to do much blogging.
Paul intprets: Mike is out of breath from screaming at the TV yesterday watching his beloved Cardinals take a 12-3 beating at the hands of the loveable Cubs.
Sorry Mike….I’m sure the book was very good, but I just can’t think that deeply this morning. Actually, most mornings……
Go Cubs!!!
Blog overlap!!
Tony Myles over at “Don’t Call Me Veronica” (http://dontcallmeveronica.blogspot.com/)
blogged about this book yesterday. If two men I respect so much tell me I oughtta read something, well then I guess it’s time to add one to the stack.
Certainly I’ve been thinking about what “atonement” actually means for the past 24 hours. I can’t think of a better day than today to continue that process.
Penal substitutionary atonement is “in the Bible”, but it’s not. The version that includes God’s inherent enmity toward the sinful and unwillingness to tabernacle with them is shaky. Where this is seemingly attested in the scriptures, we need to be prepared to read the texts as they were written: in covenant community. They aren’t eighteenth-century natural theology.
Further, the version that insists on reading ontologically the passages about debt and payment is shaky. The texts don’t require it or, sometimes, even suggest it. That blanket approach arises from a prior philosophical commitment.
And it’s age-old human nature that has produced the violent, pendulum-swinging reaction in the other direction. We’re right to oppose the wrathful God ruled by honor more than love, but rejecting PSA (not prostate-specific antigen, for all you middle-aged men out there) outright tends to mute our obligation to the God of creation.
As to last week’s comment that penal substitutionary atonement is meeting its “cultural demise”: check your radar again. Even the bad version is completely alive and well in evangelical Christianity and is a shibboleth there.
McKnight’s book on the atonement is great. I read the pre-publication manuscript and loved it. Have you read his book, “Embracing Grace”? If not, you should pick it up. It’s profound. You’ll love it.
AE
There is a chapter in George MacDonald’s “Unspoken Sermons” called “Justice” (found in Series III), where he responds to common views on judgment and atonement. The chapter contains some of the most passionate language you will find from MacDonald. It really is amazing, and very persuasive. I could try to summarize here, but you really should just read it.
For those not familar with MacDonald, C.S. Lewis said about him, “I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master.”
Most of MacDonald’s work is fiction, but Unspoken Sermons is pure truth. It is available online, like most of MacDonald’s stuff.
I read “Turning to Jesus” a study of conversion accounts in the Gospel. It was great too.
http://www.matthewsblog.waynesborochurchofchrist.org
Wow! You should sell books on the side! I know I’m picking up a copy.
What do you put in place of your penal during this substitution?
A second for Turning to Jesus….it was great!
I read Praying with the Church. Its totally changed my private devotional life - and in some very positive directions.
…and I really, REALLY want to read this one when I get a chance.
Penal substitution is a valid and necessary element in the Atonement, but there are so many other views that each have their own contributions to the picture, like how the Lord affirmed our broken human existence by taking on humanity on Himself, affirming both male and female by being born Male, of the Virgin’s womb, etc. Every element of the Lord’s incarnation is food for a whole lot of reflection, and boat loads of worship- HalleluJah! God is Good!