Forgiveness without Reconciliation?

In his post, What’s Wrong with Penal Substitution?, James F. McGrath makes the very interesting point that

The penal substitution view of atonement takes the metaphor of sin as debt and literalizes it to the extent that one's actions are viewed in terms of accounting rather than relationship. It is not surprising this is popular: in our time, debts are impersonal and most people have them, and it is easier to think of slates being wiped clean and books being balanced than a need for reconciliation. But the latter is the core element if one thinks of God in personal terms. And for God to forgive, all that the Bible suggests that God has to do is forgive.

I've been puzzled for awhile why people hold to penal substitution with such emotional ferocity. In their book Recovering the Scandal of the Cross, Joel B. Green and Mark D. Baker explain the attraction of penal substitution by our society's obsession with assigning blame to individuals.

But I think that McGrath is on to something here. It's the same thing that many Jewish people complain about with respect to Christian forgiveness: that our moral system doesn't require us to seek reconciliation with the people who we have hurt, but that we simply pray to God and all our sins are forgiven.

I think that the popular view of Christianity as practiced in the West has its roots in 'quietest' tendencies. Quietism stems from the idea that sinful human beings cannot be reconciled with God unless God makes the first move. It goes on to say that because human beings can do nothing to be reconciled with God, that any attempt by human beings to 'do good works' is a rejection of God's grace. So any attempt to grow in holiness is often condemned as not believing in salvation by faith alone.

This whole system turns Christianity into a 'God and me' religion. God saves me by grace - however I think that happens - and then I don't actually have to change anything in my life. If I wrong someone, all I have to do is pray to God for forgiveness; I don't need to attempt to communicate or reconcile with the person whom I have wronged. 'Reconciliation' thus remains a 'spiritual' thing between me and God and it imposes no difficult practical demands on my life.

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.

Is it PSA? Or not?

In the post below, I recommended Myron S. Augsburger's article Justice in Forgiveness.

Some comments have been made to me elsewhere (i.e. not on this blog) to the effect that the article: 1) Does support Penal Substitutionary Atonement; 2) Does not support Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

Perceptions are interesting. For anyone who thinks that communication through language is easy or that communication of ideas is straight-forward, here's a great example of how people might have very different ideas.

What do you think? Does the article support PSA or not?

Stephen Sykes 'The Story of Atonement' - Ch 1 What is Atonement?

I'm starting to blog through the chapters of Stephen Sykes' The Story of Atonement over on my book blog.

I've just posted on Chapter 1.

Thinking about Penal Substitutionary Atonement

I've not blogged about all the controversies that have been happening recently around the subject of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA). I have, however, been having some rather lengthy conversations on the 'Ship of Fools' Christian discussion board with individuals who support PSA.

As a result of these conversations, I have developed a theory about one central point of disagreement between supportors of PSA and non-supporters of PSA. I throw it open here for any comment anyone might want to make. (And I speak as a non-supporter of PSA.)

I think that one of the central points of controversy is whether forgiving a wrongdoing actually names the wrongdoing as wrong. I say that it does; PSA supporters seem to say that it does not. A related point of controvery from the other direction is whether a wrongdoing needs to receive a punishment in order to be ontologically 'wrong'. PSA supporters seem to think that 'without punishment, wrongdoing has not been named.' I disagree.

NT Wright on the Atonement

Fulcrum's website has posted a very long article by Bishop of Durham, NT Wright, in response to the current on-going debate on atonement. The Cross and the Caricatures.

Update 26 April: The authors of Pierced for our Transgressions have issued a statement in response to Tom Wright's article here.

The Wrath of God

Paul Nuechterlein's website, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary quotes Robert Hamerton-Kelly's very interesting take on divine wrath:

...the wrath revealed in the gospel is not the divine vengeance that should have fallen on us falling instead on Jesus, but rather the divine nonresistance to human evil (cf. Matt 5:39), God’s willingness to suffer violence rather than defend himself or retaliate. It is the permission granted us by God to afflict ourselves unknowingly; it is the divine nonresistance to human evil. It is God’s unwillingness to intervene in the process of action and consequence in the human world by which we set up and operate the system of sacred violence, and so paradoxically a sign of love as the refusal to abridge our freedom and a respect for our choices even when they are catastrophic.

There are interesting connections here with theodicy and free will.

For those not familiar with the Girardian concept of "sacred violence", the basic premise is that all human societies maintain internal cohesion by first identifying and then expelling/murdering a scapegoat. The completion of the violence against the scapegoat results in a temporary and false "peace" for members of the "in group" as they contemplate ultimate matters of life and death in the wake of the violence. But sacred violence does not last and must be repeated over and over in order to keep the "peace".

The concept of sacred violence and its inability to bring about permanent peace is why I am increasingly coming to reject penal substitionary atonement as a legitimate theory of atonement. PSA seems to substitute the temporary, human, sinful tool of "sacred violence" for the divine and permanent tool of God's "Shalom".

The idea of "God's wrath" essentially being His refusal to interfere in our human, violent wrath is intriguing. It is certainly consistent with the commentaries on Matthew 13 - the Lectionary reading a fortnight ago - which insisted that "wars and rumours of wars" originate in human society, not in God.