[Dialogue] 7/3/14, Spong: Part XXIV Matthew - Interpreting Atonement Theology, Part II

Thu Jul 3 14:17:49 PDT 2014

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Part XXIV Matthew 
Interpreting Atonement Theology, Part II
“Atonement Theology” assumes that human life, though created in the image of God, is now both fallen and evil. It assumes that God is a being who can be “offended” by human disobedience, is incapable of forgiving and must, therefore, exact the deserved punishment on the sinful human life. It assumes that Jesus’ death was the punishment that God required and that Jesus’ willingness to satisfy God’s anger on our behalf has brought us the reconciliation for which we yearned. Consequently, it assumes that salvation comes to us through the suffering and death of Jesus, enabling us to reclaim the status for which we had originally been created.
When one strips away the piety of the ages and states its premise boldly, as I have sought to do above, “Atonement Theology” is revealed as a barbaric idea, hardly worthy of a deity whose nature is supposed to be that of love. “Atonement Theology” needs to be seen for what it is and purged from Christianity. It is not about grace, as is so often claimed; it is about wrath. “Atonement Theology” is wrong at every point. In this column I want to expand on just why a Christianity that still speaks in the language of “Atonement Theology” has no future.
First, I begin by looking at what “Atonement Theology” does to our concept of God. It is not only an expression of dated theism in that it defines God as an external, supernatural being, but it also turns God into a monster. The God of “Atonement Theology” is a deity intent upon punishment. The God of “Atonement Theology” lacks the qualities of both love and compassion and is more concerned with guilt than with grace; with punishment than with forgiveness. Salvation, according to “Atonement Theology” requires the suffering, sacrifice and death of the divine Son, which means that “Atonement Theology” portrays God as the ultimate child abuser. Why anyone would be drawn to worship such a sadistic deity is beyond me, yet this concept is at the heart of the Christianity in which I was raised and the religion that has permeated my culture. Our hymns proclaim it, our liturgies reflect it, our sermons are based on it and that ever present mantra of traditional Christianity, “Jesus died for my sins,” proclaims it. This is the God before whom we are taught to kneel like slaves might do before a king. This is the God whom we are taught to beg for mercy. This is the God who proclaims us to be “wretches,” “miserable offenders,” people in whom there is “no health” or wholeness. Will an enlightened world continue to worship, to say nothing of continuing to believe in such a deity? I do not think so unless we are willing to accept a definition of human life that borders on being pathological.
Second, look next at what “Atonement Theology” does to Jesus. It reduces him to the status of a perpetual victim. Maybe he is a masochist, eager to suffer, eager to mount his cross, constantly reminding us of the pain that we have forced him to endure. Perhaps this is the reason that the primary symbol of Christianity through the ages has been, not the cross, but the crucifix. The crucifix was a constant reminder of the suffering that Jesus was forced to endure “for us and for our salvation.” The crucifix adorned the cell of every monk and nun in Christian history, reminding him or her constantly of the debt each of us owes this Christ. The church was apparently not aware in those days of the psychological truth that one never really loves the one upon whom we are made to be both dependent and constantly grateful. Who then needs the Christ of “Atonement Theology?” This Christ becomes an object only of our mental sickness.
Finally, look at what “Atonement Theology” does to you and me. It fills us with a debilitating guilt. Guilt indeed becomes the coin of the realm in Christianity itself. In every way possible, the church encourages us to feel guilty. We are controlled by guilt. We are taught to wallow in it. That is why our worthlessness is proclaimed so frequently in our worship. That is why we are taught to beg God for mercy over and over and over again. That is why the dignity of our humanity is systematically stripped from us in liturgy in the name of Christianity. Guilt, “the gift that keeps on giving,” is instilled in us daily. Can one imagine a more effective guilt producer than to proclaim to all of Jesus’ followers that it is our sins that are the cause of Christ’s suffering and death? The Christian Church made sado-masochism a virtue in worship, extolling whips and nails as Christ absorbs the pain due us and because of us. We even wrote sado-masochism into our hymns. What else could be the meaning of these words?
“Before thy throne, O Lord, we kneel, Give us the conscience quick to feel.
“A ready mind to understand the meaning of thy chastening hand;
“Wean us and train us with thy rod; teach us to know our faults, O God.”
This God is not urged to “spare the rod” and thus “to spoil the child,” but to use it!
Another of the Lenten hymns of my church also makes this guilt message very clear:
“Who was the guilty, who brought this upon you? Alas my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee;
‘Twas I Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee, I crucified thee!”
Is guilt ever a positive or healthy emotion? If not, why are we taught to wallow in it? Has any one of us ever known another to be helped by being told how evil he or she is? Would a parent do that to a child? Can any one of us imagine this parent-child conversation: “Look, child, you were born in sin! You can do nothing good without God. You deserve nothing but God’s wrath.” Would such a style of parenting ever produce a healthy adult? If, however, that is deemed to be an unhealthy way to raise a child, why have we Christians ever thought that this is the proper way to treat worshipers in liturgy? Is controlling behavior ever a pathway to holiness?
It is, however, not just in this life that the guilt message of “Atonement Theology” has been both projected and practiced. The Christian Church’s traditional understanding of life after death has simply extended this theology into eternity. “Be a good boy or girl and you will be rewarded with heaven. Be a bad boy or girl and you will be sentenced to the eternal punishment of hell.” Does that not sound familiar? How do these things give us the abundant life about which the Fourth Gospel’s Jesus is said to have spoken? If that is the essence and meaning of Christianity, then why does anyone think it will appeal to another? Is there any wonder that as consciousness grows and people begin to see that the Christian message really has been psychologically abusive, that more and more Christians are walking away from the church? What once was a trickle has today become a flood.
In our generation Christianity is dividing into two mutually repelling camps. First there are those who do not wish to escape the message of “Atonement Theology.” They have grown comfortable with this theology of abuse. They believe its only weakness is that it has not been proclaimed more stridently in the words of militant, hysterical fundamentalism. As the traditional adherents and yes, the victims of “Atonement Theology,” they do not see their own limited tribal mentality, causing them to fear racial differences. They seek to force women back into submissive pattern as the victims of male domination. They seek to reinstate male control over female bodies by not including birth control coverage in health insurance. Both by political vote and the establishment of new laws, they seek to force even those women who are pregnant by rape or incest not to abort the fetus. It is also hard not to notice that the primary source of negativity expressed in our society today toward gay and lesbian people comes from the institutional Christian Church. Those are the ones who seem intent on reducing the Christian Church to the theology of yesterday, seeking to recover that security they think they once had in their “unchanging church.” It is an appealing fantasy to many and those congregations that live this message out are filled with worshipers. Everyone recognizes, however, that a church built on dehumanizing people of color, women or homosexual persons will not survive into the next generation. Does anyone really think that black people will stop clamoring for the power long denied them? Does anyone really believe that women will resubmit to male authority? Can anyone really believe that homosexual persons will be content to return to their closets of denial, fear and shame? Such tactics at best are a pitiful quest for security. It will not endure.
The other camp into which Christians are flowing in ever widening streams is made up of those who leave organized religion in general and Christianity in particular, to become members of the “Church Alumni Association.” That is the fastest growing organization today in the Christian West. The largest single “Christian” group in America now is made up of secularized former Roman Catholics. Exiled Christians are not always sure why they have left their churches. They have only a vague sense that what they hear in church no longer relates to the world in which they live. They are mostly subconsciously, though sometimes it rises to a conscious awareness, that the words they hear or the words their liturgy requires them to say are no longer believable and they are tired of being told that they should feel chronically guilty.
If “Atonement Theology” is the meaning of Christianity then the “millenials” are correct and their massive abandonment of religion is actually a step into health and wholeness. There is no future in a Christianity that is still bound to “Atonement Theology.” The real questions are “Can Christianity step out of those concepts which, in the past, have so totally defined it, and still have something of value to offer the world? Can Christianity still be Christian outside of “Atonement Theology?” My conclusion is that every precept underlying “Atonement Theology” is now inoperative. So is Christianity if we cannot extricate ourselves from this theological pattern of the past.
~John Shelby Spong
Read the essay online here.

Question & Answer
Robert Pike, via the Internet, writes:

Question:
I read your article on homophobia. I know that the topic is the immorality of homophobia and I agree with you on this topic. Concerning slavery and the Civil War, there is an additional moral question rarely mentioned. That is, what was the best means to end slavery? Yes, slavery is immoral, but so is war. The defeat of the South resulted in slaves being freed; while at the same time the Confederate veterans lost their right to vote. This resulted in much racial hatred and the birth of the KKK. It would have been better to kick the South out of the Union and refuse to readmit them until they abolished slavery. In Utah, polygamy was legal before Utah became a state. Utah was not allowed to become a state until polygamy was abolished. It worked for Utah and would have worked for the South. Because of the violent way in which slavery was ended, it took 100 years until the Civil Rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. peacefully ended the Jim Crow era.

Answer:
Dear Robert,
Thanks for your letter, but I must tell you that I regard it as a rather weak attempt to do some revisionist history. I am a child of the South, raised in segregation in North Carolina and I think your assumptions are incredibly naive. You do not seem to recognize that the South decided they would rather have slavery than remain in the Union. Utah was willing to give up polygamy so that they could join the Union. I suppose that if slavery had not been ended on the battlefields of Gettysburg, Harpers Ferry, Antietam, and Appomattox, that economic pressure on a slave-owning confederacy, might have forced them to give up slavery in another 100 years or so. Economic pressure from the world did force the Republic of South Africa to give up Apartheid in 1994. You seem to assume that to achieve a peaceful end to slavery legitimizes that inhumane institution lasting for another hundred years or so; that is a moral compromise I would never be willing to accommodate. Slavery is wrong, it is inhumane and it violates everything I believe about the Christian faith. Its end had to be achieved and the hidden racism that still lives just below the surface in the world and in our nation today also needs to be confronted openly. Listen to the racist voices that still speak in our world. Watch those states where Republicans control both the governor’s office and the state legislature where overt efforts are still being made to prevent people of color from voting. I am not willing to countenance a system of government that will compromise the freedom and dignity of black people, to give white people more time to adjust to required changes or to enable changes to take place at a pace white people can tolerate. Justice delayed is not morally neutral, it is justice denied. It must be condemned, confronted and rooted out.
Yes, I think war was a dreadful alternative and the Civil War brought great suffering on a lot of innocent people, but if slave owners were not willing to give up slavery voluntarily and immediately, I will not say that that war was somehow unnecessary. When Adolph Hitler burned Jews in the crematoriums, I believe that act warranted a war to force the Nazi government out of power.
So I regard your analysis as simply wrong. The Arc of the Universe bends toward justice and when justice is systematically denied to people because of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or religion, I believe the power of an ultimate force must be brought to bear on those who think their behavior should be tolerated, I would be quite prepared for Confederate veterans to lose their right to vote as punishment for supporting a state that sought to enslave human beings legally. Racial hatred is a disease that must be rooted out; it is not an attitude that anyone should support because changing it might upset some of the slave owners. Racial hatred needs to become so expensive that the racists are forced to give it up in order to continue to live. Slavery itself is violent; to remove it from life is not to increase violence.
I enjoyed a church sign board recently that read, “I have made some of you black and some of you gay. Get over it!” It was signed “God.” I do not just want to “get over it,” I want to celebrate it.
~John Shelby Spong

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