HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR
Charting a New Reformation
Part XXI - The Sixth Thesis, Atonement Theology
“Atonement Theology, especially in its most bizarre form, which we call ‘substitutionary atonement,’ presents us with a God who is barbaric, a Jesus who is a victim and fills human beings with little more than life–destroying guilt. The phrase, ‘Jesus died for my sins,’ is thus not just dangerous, it is also theologically absurd.”
We begin today the examination of this sixth thesis on “Atonement Theology.” To do so we must go back momentarily to our earlier discussion of “Original Sin.” Like love and marriage and even Jack and Jill, “Original Sin” and “Atonement Theology” go together, and because they do the future of Christianity demands that we discuss both. We turn first to examine just how deeply “Atonement Theology” has distorted the Christian message.
Few people today use the word “Atonement” in common conversation. When they do normally the word simply goes up and out of most people’s understanding. Familiarity does breed, not only contempt, but also amnesia. Even when one points to the obvious fact that the word “atone” was created by linking the words “at” and “one,” together and what they mean refers to the experience of being “at one” with God, still the essence of this word remains elusive. For many there appears to be a deep human yearning for oneness with that which we call God or perhaps meaning, but little seems clear about that yearning. If we take the time to explore the depths of human restlessness, the meaning of human loneliness, the human desire, perhaps the human need to belong, then perhaps we could force the word “atonement” to become once again a translatable concept. Even then, however, we still might not connect those ideas with religion in general or with the Jesus story in particular. Nonetheless, let me begin our discussion of atonement on this level of human experience and only then seek to relate it to the Jesus story. The result just might be salutary.
There is indeed a discernible and radical loneliness that appears to be part of every human life. Perhaps it is born in that pre-conscious moment of our birth. Prior to the onset of labor, each one of us was “at one” with our mothers. The temperature of our mother’s body was perfect for the yet to be born infant, whether the mother was hot or cold. Prior to the birth, the fetus was fed through the umbilical cord before it experienced hunger. The infant had no awareness of the limits placed on his or her life in the womb, since this infant had never known anything else. Then this apparently perfect world was disturbed when, as the Bible says, “in the fullness of time,” the infant was propelled involuntarily into a much larger world. In that process the infant experienced radical separation from that to which it had been attached. The typical infant thus endures hunger, thirst, soiled diapers, temperature variations and a variety of other things never before known. All of these things serve to create a sense of separation and thus of loneliness in the human psyche, which I suspect none of us ever fully escapes.
We overcome this separation only in relative ways. We attach our little mouths to our mother’s breast. We lean against the warmth of her body while being rocked or cradled in her arms. As life expands new dimensions of belonging minister to our innate loneliness. We learn that we are part of a family that normally includes a father, siblings, grandparents and friends, who in addition to our mothers move in and out of the family constellation. Each person has a place at the family table, a bed, clothes, shoes that are his or hers alone. A sense of belonging is thus quickly built into the human experience, but it is never total and that sense of loneliness is never quite extinguished, creating our constant yearning to be at one. Friends enter our lives from time to time in powerful ways. Sometimes these friends are called “best friends” and are described as “inseparable,” but such childhood attachments seldom last for a lifetime. People move, grow and change. For most “best friends” become finally little more than a happy memory.
There is also in the human experience an amazing ecstasy associated with what we call “falling in love.” Falling in love is as if one has discovered the other half of one’s self in one’s mate and, in that union, one feels strangely and wonderfully whole and complete. I do not minimize or wish to denigrate these feelings. Being “in love” is a powerful emotion for those of us privileged to know it. When one is “in love,” the grass is greener, the sky bluer, the air fresher and life is almost always universally sweet. The ability to sustain such an “in love” relationship for a lifetime is rare enough to draw notice and admiration. While falling in love is genuinely real, it is apparently, however, never eternal. Life is mortal and lovers lose their loved ones. Grief is sometimes inconsolable. Yes we adjust, life moves on, but empty spaces once filled by the love of another are so deep in our psyche that when one loses a partner or soul mate, that loss is experienced as a wound to our psyches that remains forever. All of this is to say that there is in the heart of life a yearning for oneness that never quite goes away. Atonement is the theological word we have formed to describe that reality, and much of what we call “the experience of God” is fashioned to meet us at this point of our human vulnerability. It was Saint Augustine, writing in the Confessions, who gave these words to that experience: “Thou, O God, hast made us for thyself alone and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” That is perhaps what atonement means at its deepest, experiential, religious level. As such it is a legitimate part of our humanity.
Inspired by a literalized understanding of the mythical fall into sin, however, the religion called Christianity took this valid human experience and transformed it into a doctrine. “Original sin” was the way the Church articulated this problem. “Salvation” was the church’s stated resolution of this problem. In the process of working out the details of this doctrine, however, God was turned into a righteous judge, who required satisfaction and was quite incapable of offering forgiveness. Jesus became someone whom God required to suffer. Every offense had to be punished and human beings were loaded with life-destroying guilt. “Atonement theology,” as spoken about today in Christian circles, thus represents the deepest distortion of what Christianity means that I can imagine.
I begin this exploration with a statement that will offend some, amuse others and shatter a few, but which still needs to be said: Jesus did not die for your sins or mine! This distortion of Christianity must be lifted out of the unconscious realms of our faith story, challenged and expelled. It is so deeply part of our religious jargon that precise, radical theological surgery may be required, for like a malignancy it has wrapped itself around vital Christian organs.
The way this idea has been explained in Christian history is straightforward. Let me state it briefly. We human beings are all fallen people. “Sin” is the universal mark of our humanity. We were created in perfection, but we live in sinfulness. Our humanity is thus distorted, infected with a sickness that we cannot overcome. Our destiny is to live forever in the stance of a penitent, begging for mercy and hoping for a rescue from above. That is why in Christian liturgies we portray ourselves as groveling on our knees in the position of a slave, begging God for forgiveness. In the story of Jesus, so central to our faith, we describe just how it was that God effected our rescue. Salvation can only come as God’s initiative. That is why Jesus had to be clothed in divinity and portrayed as “God incarnate” and ultimately even as the second person of the Trinity. If Jesus is not God, the rescue effort would not work for human beings cannot save themselves from the effects of both original sin and “the fall.” This means that salvation requires that Jesus be not just the agent of God, but also the incarnation of God. Jesus must not be of “similar” substance with God, but of the “identical” substance with God. That was at least the conclusion drawn by the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, when the creeds were adopted.
How was this Jesus going to accomplish this task? Here the doctrine of the atonement gets even stranger. God would force the divine son to suffer the fate that all human beings deserved, but which no human being could possibly endure, namely to absorb the punishment that God required in order for the justice of God to be totally satisfied. That is how the story of the crucifixion was told. Remember the scourging scene in Mel Gibson’s motion picture? No pain detail was left unexploited. Indeed the more grotesque his pain and his death were, the more secure, we were taught to believe, was our salvation. It was sado-masochism at its worst.
Who required this suffering on the part of Jesus? The answer was clearly God! What kind of God is this? Is it a deity who has been wronged; a God to whom restitution must be paid; a God who needs a human sacrifice and a blood offering before the restoration of the sinful can be achieved. So we are told the “Father God” punishes the “Divine Son” in order to achieve atonement with sinful human beings! Does this make sense to anyone? Did it ever make sense? Does this theology cause you or me to want to worship? Does not this deity become the ultimate child abuser? Paint it with beautiful colors as much as you will, perfume it with pious phrases, but nothing can rescue this understanding of God from the judgment of being evil. Is this what “atonement” means? If so I want no part of it.
Next week, we will look at a radically different way to tell the Christ story. So stay tuned.
John Shelby Spong
Read the essay online Here.
Question & Answer
Susan T. via the Internet, writes:
Question:
I’ve been reading your book, The Sins of Scripture, and it has really opened up my mind to see God in a whole new way. As a child of incest, I’ve always had a hard time with “God the Father” talk. When I came into Christianity, I understood the concept of God, but was confused about Jesus. Now I feel like I can relate to Jesus, but I truly don’t understand God. I’m comfortable thinking that God is not a person and that God cannot rescue or punish, but then God becomes this big question mark. The term “mystery” fits well, but then I’m left feeling a little flat, specifically wondering how do I pray to such a God? If this God has no real authority or influence over my life, then are prayers really necessary, even heard?
Thank you so much for your work on trying to evolve and explain Christianity.
Answer:
Dear Susan,
Thank you for your letter. I have identified you in this column only with an initial since your letter revealed so much personal data.
I share your concern. For many, parental names for God bring up a flood of good memories, but there are a number of dysfunctional families in our world and human, parental experience is not always positive. I recall a family in my early ministry dominated by an abusive father. The idea that “God’s Commandments” require that we “honor our father and mother” was more than the children of this family could tolerate. So often we apply universal principles to situations where human experience renders these principles null and void. This is why ethics must always be situational!
In my current column series, entitled Charting a New Reformation, I have been or will be (depending on when this particular letter is published) dealing with both the issue of God and the meaning of prayer. Both subjects are, however, far too complex and complicated to be answered in a question and answer format.
Let me simply observe that almost everyone since the dawn of humanity begins with the concept of God as something like a person. If one remains there, neither God nor prayer will ever make sense. Can we then move to a non-personal language for God? This is not easy but ultimately, I believe we must learn to develop a non-personal concept of God that we as persons can still access. When I say that, however, my religious language begins to sound like gibberish.
It helps me to separate the God experience from the God definitions. Is the experience of transcendence real or is it delusional? If it is real, how do we talk about it? Maybe instead of trying to define God, we should limit ourselves to trying to define our experience of God. There is a difference. When I say that I experience God as the meaning of life, the source of love and the ground of being, what I am saying is that God is somehow present in the life I live, the love I share and being that I am. So living, loving and being become the manifestations of God in me. Prayer then becomes not an activity in which I seek God’s help, but a part of what it means to share life, to increase love and to enhance being. In this process, we have moved very far away from the supernatural parent figure in the sky, to whom our petitions are traditionally addressed. So walk with me, if you will, through the present series in my column, join the online discussions and let us see if we can find a new way to talk about God, who is real and the activity of prayer that is not petitions to a supernatural being.
John Shelby Spong
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