"Getting" Jesus

Hat tip to Graham. And Christians wonder why non-Christians don't want any of our "Good News". It often seems that non-Christians "get" Jesus better than we do.

Some tid-bits from the video:

If you're a Christian who supports killing your enemies and torture, you have to come up with a new name for yourself.

...Christians have been lawyering the bible to try to figure out how "love thy neighbor" can mean "hate thy neighbor" and how "turn the other cheek" can mean "s***w you, I'm buying space lasers". Martin Luther King gets to call himself a Christian because he actually practiced loving his enemies.

...Jesus lays on that hippy stuff pretty thick. He has lines like "Do not repay evil with evil" and "Do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you." Really. It's in that book you hold up when you scream at gay people. And not to put too fine a point on it, but "non-violence" was kinda Jesus' trademark. Kinda his big thing. To not follow that part of it is like joining Greenpeace and hating whales.

Jesus - Suffering Servant, not Conquering Messiah

Here is another excellent commentary on tomorrow's gospel reading, this time from Preaching Peace.

We reject Jesus self-identification [as the Suffering Servant] too when our Christology sacrifices Jesus on the altar of the violent God. Some espouse a Christology in which God has a wrathful (if temporal) relationship with Jesus; a Christology that demands propitiation; a Christology wherein Jesus is scapegoated by God as well as by us. This Jesus gets even in the end, brings justice through violence, “his terrible swift sword.” To the extent that we claim all or part of this Christology, we stand rebuked as well.

Why do I keep going on about this and why do I think it's important? Well, first of all, there is currently a debate going on about 'theories of atonement'. In plain English, Christians are discussing how it is that we come to be reconciled with God. Why does God forgive us?

Some people are quite concerned to say that God forgives us only after his anger at our sin and / or his anger at sinners has been satisfied by the death of his Son. I do not agree with this view and may therefore be representing the view unfairly because it's not my own. As I see it, people who believe this are worried that those of us who don't hold to their view don't believe that sin is a serious thing.

The reason that I have a problem with this view is that I believe that Jesus was quite clear that he came as the Suffering Servant and not as the conquering Messiah. Tomorrow's Gospel reading actually makes that quite clear.

Sin is very serious indeed. The problem is that the idea that violence can be conquered by violence just plays into the 'worldly' agenda in my view. The great myth that our human nature would love us to buy into is the myth that if only my enemies could be destroyed, peace will reign in my heart. It will do. Temporarily. Until I find another person or group to hate.

The only way to achieve peace is to become peacable and act peacfully.

Bibliography - Non-Violent Atonement

Buried deep in another thread, I promised to email someone a bibliography of works pertinent to the subject of non-violent atonement theories.

I thought I'd post the bibliography here for two reasons. First, so that it might be useful to others. Secondly, so that others can mention additional works.

Addendum on 7 December: I've decided to update the bibliography as suggestions are added to keep things neat. (Cue Dawn saying "How J") I've taken Michael's comments on board and started a new section entitled "General Resources on Atonement"

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Bibliography – Non-Violent Atonement

Alison, James. 1998. The Joy of Being Wrong: original sin through Easter eyes. New York: Crossroad Publishing.

----- 2003. On Being Liked. London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd.

----- 2006. Undergoing God: dispatches from the scene of a break-in. London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd.

Fiddes, Paul. 1989. Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement. London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd.

Gorringe, Timothy. 1996. God's Just Vengeance: Crime, Violence and the Rhetoric of Salvation. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Green, Joel B. and Baker, Mark D. 2000. Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: atonement in New Testament and contemporary contexts. Downer’s Grove, Inter-Varsity Press.

Mann, Alan. 2005. Atonement for a 'Sinless' Society: engaging with an emerging culture. Milton Keynes. Paternoster.

Moltmann, Jürgen. 1993. The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ As the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology. Minneapolis. Augsburg Fortress Publishers.

Soelle, Dorothee. 1967. Christ the Representative. London. SCM Press.

Sykes, Stephen. 1997. The Story of Atonement (Trinity and truth). London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd.

Young, Frances M. 1983. Sacrifice and the Death of Christ. London, SCM Press.

Weaver, J. Denny. 2001. The Nonviolent Atonement. Cambridge. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

General Resources on Atonement

Aulen, GEH. 2003. Christus Victor: an historical study of the three main types of the idea of the atonement. Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers.

Gunton, Colin E. 2004. The Actuality of Atonement: a study of metaphor, rationality and the Christian tradition. London: T&T Clark.

Grace

I loved this take on Grace from James Alison*:

Gratuity is experienced as the lack of retaliation where some sort of retaliation is to be expected, and then as the giving of something unexpected. This surprising nonreciprocation is what pulls the person experiencing it out of the reciprocating mode-of-being and enables that person to begin to recieve and then transmit love as something simply given.

To me, this explains why Grace can never be limited to a select few and why God can never be violent.

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*Alison, James, The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin through Easter eyes, The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 1998.