Since it’s after Easter I feel like stirring the pot up a little bit when it comes to the topic of atonement.
On newattitude.org in an interview with Justin Taylor he comments about those affiliated with Emergent:
Broadly speaking, we can use the term “emerging churches” to describe any church that is seeking to incarnate and contextualize Christianity for a postmodern culture. That’s a really broad definition–so broad, in fact, that it includes folks who would quickly disavow the “emerging” label! Within that broad category would be a subset called “Emergent.” Emergent Village is an organization with a national coordinator in the U.S. (Tony Jones). Its proponents would say that this Emergent subset is more innovative and progressive and provocative in terms of theology and philosophy; its critics would say categorize it as being the more liberal wing of the movement. Most of these folks don’t believe in inerrancy and seek to minimize substitutionary atonement (if they believe it at all). So it’s hard to see how these folks really fit under the broad evangelical label. (Which is why some of them have adopted the “post-evangelical” label.)
Now, I don’t want to throw Justin Taylor under the bus here and bash him – in the very next paragraph he does offer some praise for those affiliated with Emergent Village (I would encourage you to go read the whole article, it’s question #10)
But here’s what I have to ask – what’s the deal with these two doctrines being the biggest hang ups? Before I go any further, let me be clear that I am a recovering five-point Calvinist. I was introduced to that approach in college and still appreciate what it taught me, but I eventually rejected it in favor of a more neo-orthodox approach. Needless to say, I am very familiar with the type of thinking espoused by newattitude.org All that being said – why are these two doctrines so central for Reformed types?
The Inerrancy of Scripture as a doctrine is fraught with problems from a purely philosophical point of view. The definition of inerrancy that I am familiar with (and I believe more people adopt) is that in the original manuscripts the bible was inerrant. This is of course needed, because there are so many manuscripts of the bible floating around that don’t all agree. But here’s the problem with that doctrine: it cannot be tested, nor is it taught by scripture. The bible never talks about it’s original documents or anything of the sort. I know people appeal to various scripture verses to argue that the bible claims inerrancy and I’m not going to get into disputing that. My rejection of innerancy doesn’t come from a lower view of biblical authority, but because I realize that a doctrine that cannot be tested (such as the innerancy of scripture) should not be taught. You can say that you just need to have faith – and that’s fine, but I’ll put my faith in Jesus Christ, the living and reigning LORD, and not a series of manuscripts that were lost long ago.
The hang up on substitutionary atonement is almost more puzzling. My guess it that if asked, people like Justin would freely admit that the atonement is a multi-facted thing. Atonement doesn’t just deal with our own personal salvation – but why has that been so elevated? I know personally I don’t reject the substitutionary atonement as a whole, I simply believe that its an aspect of God’s mission to become at-one with the whole world. I believe that atonement is a cosmic thing, with a number of different implications, one of which is substitutionary. However, the traditional reformed camp seems to have elevated one aspect of the atonement to the standard of an essential – as long as you believe that you’re okay. Needless to say, I do reject their understanding of atonement because I believe it’s too focused on one aspect, so they’d count me out too. So am I trying to minimize substitutionary atonement? Perhaps, only because it seems to be the only thing about the atonement we’ve emphasized in Reformed circles. And here’s why:
- When you ask a lot of people why Jesus died on the cross, they’ll respond : To save us from our sins. Now this is a true statement, no argument there. The problem is that when you ask them, “But why did he end up on the cross if all he did was come to save us so we could go to heaven after we die?” you realize that there are people who don’t understand that Jesus’ ministry was do subversive and threatening to the powers that be that they decided they needed to get rid of him. (For the sake of self-promotion, check out my post on Why did Jesus die?) For people not to understand this is a huge indictment against us. People cannot be disciples of Jesus if they don’t understand what it cost him and hence what it may cost anyone who seeks to follow him
- The cosmic element of the atonement, which is especially strong in Revelation and Romans, it completely missed. Many Christians today are gnostic, just passing through this world so they can live in the next one, rather than understanding the atonement as part of a universal new creation of all things – the making of all things new (Rev. 21) rather than the making of all new things. Hence, people don’t think environmental matters are as important because eventually this world is going to get destroyed.
- I even find that we’ve focused so much on substitution that we’ve failed to understand the significance of the atonement when it comes to hope. The good news isn’t just that our sins are forgiven, but rather that death, the one enemy no human can defeat, has been defeated and the world has been radically altered. The hope of the atonement is that death will not have the last word on our lives. As the classic hymn states, “Where oh death is now thy sting?” It is only because of Jesus that we can sing that line and taunt death
- Speaking of death, what about Jesus’ victory over the power of evil? While we in post-mainline circles tend to avoid the topic of spiritual warfare entirely, in many evangelical circles it’s a big topic. If we believe with Paul in the principalities and powers of the world we should not forget that Jesus waged the battle that is the turning point in the war between good and evil.
I think one of the best statements on the atonement comes from our own Book of Confessions:God’s reconciling act in Jesus Christ is a mystery which the Scriptures describe in various ways. It is called the sacrifice of a lamb, a shepherd’s life given for his sheep, atonement by a priest; again it is ransom of a slave, payment of a debt, vicarious satisfaction of a legal penalty, and victory over the powers of evil. These are expressions of a truth which remains beyond the reach of all theory in the depths of God’s love for man. They reveal the gravity, cost, and sure achievement of God’s reconciling work. (Confession of 1967, A.1)
Thoughts?
About Brian Wallace
A very well thought-out post. Thank you, Brian.
Brian,
Thanks for your thoughts. I would agree that we need to expand our thinking about atonement to encompass all the various scriptural metaphors and images.
Since neither of us had responsibilities at our churches on Good Friday, my wife and I went to a service at a local Lutheran church. The service was centered on the seven words from the cross, but their interpretation left us with the impression and overall message of how bad we are and how Christ HAD to die because of our sin. I grew up in some pretty strong substitutionary atonement circles but this is the first time I have EVER attended a service where they seriously sung the song called “There is a fountain filled with blood.”
My point with this is that we left asking two questions:
1. How does the stress on substitutionary atonement, as you say, keep one from simply passing through this world so that they can live in the next?
2. Why is this singular understanding of atonement seemingly so attractive and popular with most church going folks? Is it that it is promoted so much that that this is all they really know? Or is it that no one really seriously questions it? Or is it so easy to understand and people are aware that it lets them off the hook? What is it?
You’ve got me thinking, I’m almost tempted to do a sermon series on this.
Brian,
As for why some cannot let go of inerrancy, I think it has to do with the teaching about inerrancy itself. If you grew up in a church that is strong on this belief you are taught that “once you start poking holes in this doctrine the whole ship will sink”. I look at someone like Bart Erdman. Here is an intelligent man who grew up in the Moody Bible way of thinking on inerrancy (take all the discrepancies and explain them away by weaving them together to try and make a master narrative that makes sense), and when a professor challenged this belief at Princeton Seminary he lost his faith. Not just in his belief in inerrancy but his entire belief in the gospel seems to have collapsed (he now calls himself a happy agnostic). I think this is the fear that those who hold to a literal inerrant belief cannot let go. Unfortunately I think those who teach in this way are their own worst enemies, because when a student trained in this way is faced with some serious academic questions in college or elsewhere what happened to Erdman might happen to them because of a lack of nuance and understanding. As for Inerrancy not being able to be tested, be careful with this line of thinking because how many things having to do with faith can be tested and empirically shown to be true? As for my personal belief I believe in a type of inerrancy. I believe that the moral and spiritual truths of the bible are inerrant in the autographs, and yes I know we don’t have those autographs and yes I know that people have added things that have worked there way into the bible so I am quick to confess this is simply my belief and I could be wrong. I also know that just because the scripture is inerrant on matters of faith and morality (within my belief that is) that my interpretations of those truths are not inerrant. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Jason Rea
Speaking as someone coming from a more traditional Reformed perspective, I think the issue with inerrancy is we’re not always 100% sure there’s a real viable alternative. Personally, I’m uncomfortable w/ inerrancy as it was explained by the fundamentalist dispensationalists I was surrounded by growing up, but I have less difficulty with it as articulated by R.C. Sproul or Wayne Grudem. I’d be curious to here from other people who have read “What is Reformed Theology?” by Sproul or Grudem’s Systematic. I’m not going to circle the wagons over inerrancy, but at the same time, I don’t see a better position to accept. (As to Jason’s post- I think that’s very true, that was the fear of Francis Schaeffer when he wrote The Great Evangelical Disaster and adopted his watershed analogy)
As to substitutionary atonement- I like the way Tim Keller explained it at Mark Driscoll’s Reform and Resurgence conference last May. He said he has no problem with a gospel that places the center on kingdom-building, he thinks there is a lot of good to come from that. And if that’s your primary understanding of the gospel, obviously you’ll emphasize other aspects of the atonement.
However, as Keller pointed out, if you don’t have a keen understanding of the substitutionary nature of the atonement, will you be as profoundly grateful to God? Will you be humbled before him as you ought to be? Will you be able to write lines like, “Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be!” I can’t help but compare the leadership in the two camps- there is a maturity and wisdom I see in guys like Piper, Harris, Mahaney, Keller, and Taylor that I simply do not see in most emergent leaders. Many emergents seem very defensive and sometimes outright angry. Sure there are reformed guys who sometimes demonstrate that attitude as well (Driscoll, MacArthur, Phil Johnson, etc.) and emergent guys who do not (Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo if you want to call him emergent) but generally I see a greater individual maturity in the reformed camp.
Put shortly, substitutionary atonement doesn’t do a lot to direct my life on a day-to-day basis (and if it’s your only understanding of the atonement I think it does lead to an escapist thinking). However, substitutionary atonement gives me the motivation I need to then allow other theories of the atonement to inform how I live practically on a day-to-day basis. If it weren’t for substitutionary atonement, I wouldn’t understand my desperate need for God and debt owed to him.
Does that make sense? For anyone who is interested, I’d strongly encourage you to check out the Resurgence featured audio podcast and get Tim Keller’s talk on Preaching the Gospel.
I’m a recent eavesdropper on the emergent church. I know very little about the movement. Forgive me if I come across as ignorant, because — in this venue, at least — I am.
I was led to believe in my readings about the emerging/emergent movement that doctrinal debates such as these are not the norm. I thought that there was more openness to diverse views, and that the conservative/liberal disputes taking place in the “established church” were something the movement wanted to steer clear of.
If that is not the case, and doctrinal debates rage within the movement, then I think I can address Jake’s comments about the supposed maturity of “the reformed camp” versus the supposed defensiveness of “the emergent guys”. And I think I can do it without knowing most of the names he mentioned.
Simply put, most conservatives don’t have to worry about losing their jobs because of their theological views. Liberals, however, often times do, unless they are in protected “zones” like progressive presbyteries or financially indepedent liberal churches. Unprotected liberals are often put on the defensive, or else they learn to keep their mouths closed in order to keep their jobs and continue feeding their families.
Call me cynical, but as an unprotected liberal, that’s how I view things.
Yours in Christ,
Mark
I think what is difficult is that, in doing a bit of scripture study afternoon, substitutionary atonement pops up quite clearly. (or at least the scripture passages used to argue for it are quite easy to pull out, quote, and interpret towards sub. atonement.) The other metaphors and nuances surrounding other theories of atonement are much more subtle.
Greetings Sons O’ Calvin…hah…even if you’re having some issues with what your theological father had to say. I’m a Lutheran, the “Fountain filled with blood” guys (I don’t think I’ve ever sung that either…).
Brian, you and I will obviously differ on our understanding of Scripture’s role. I am more than a little concerned that you say that Scripture never talks about itself since that’s a basic Lutheran hermeneutic (Scripture interprets Scripture). It does seem to cross reference itself all over the place, and we tend to see it as a whole partially because of that fact. As to “inerrancy”, I think that is just as equally misunderstood by those who want promote it and those who want to bash it to pieces. The idea is that the Word (Logos) stands behind Scripture and that these words inspired by the Spirit are inerrant because they were written by people being used as tools by the Spirit. He continues to provide for us those words in a variety of languages and translations – and He continues to stand behind them.
As to substitutionary atonement – this has been the classic way of understanding what Christ has done for us since Anselm. It’s baggage that we have been carrying since then. I think it’s good to look for other metaphors for what Christ has done for us, but if we destroy substitionary atonement as a metaphor we are doing ourselves as much injustice as if we threw out all of Paul’s writing (or reinterpreted them in such a way that they were no longer Pauline – such as what E.P. Sanders might do).
Gustav Aulen has a very good book on the different metaphors called Christus Victor and my implication of Anselm comes from agreeing with what he had to say.
The point of departure that I have, as a fairly conservative theologian, with the more “EmergENT” types such as Pagitt and McLaren is not so much disagreement with them that we need new metaphors or at least attention to metaphors we’ve left behind. It’s that their metaphors are generally crafted poorly and do little else than construct a fictional justification much worse than what my man Luther was ever accused of.
Good to be wrestling with these questions though. I’ll put my prayers with you this week as you struggle with this.
In Christ,
jW
I’ll respond in full tomorrow but I wanted to comment read quick on this one:
Brian, you and I will obviously differ on our understanding of Scripture’s role. I am more than a little concerned that you say that Scripture never talks about itself since that’s a basic Lutheran hermeneutic (Scripture interprets Scripture). It does seem to cross reference itself all over the place, and we tend to see it as a whole partially because of that fact
That’s actually not what I meant to say, I agree with that principle of interpreting scripture in full. What I was saying is that scripture never mentions the original documents or anything of the sort.
Just to clarify!
Ahhh…Ok, that clarifies it a bit. Thanks. Looking forward to what you have to say.
in Christ,
jW
Mark- Great point… Hadn’t thought of that. Still have a question though- I once heard a leading member of emergent village talk about a time he was excommunicated from a fellowship of Christians for some doctrinal disagreements. His first response when he spoke w/ a close friend was not, “Am I way off here?” but rather “Can they do that?” Personally, that seems like the wrong question to me. And if you saw how Piper handled the criticism he received after his “kick our ass” comment at the Passion conference, I think you’d be hard-pressed to deny that Piper showed the greater humility in how to handle it. He even printed a letter from a close friend that was, essentially, rebuking Piper for his language and telling him he’s incorrect in his interpretation of certain verses.
I don’t say that to try to refute what you’re saying, but just to help clarify where I’m coming from. But I think you’re also right that the emergent guys perhaps are forced to be defensive in a way that established reformed guys aren’t.
Thanks for responding, it’s good to see things from another perspective. It’s sometimes difficult for me to relate to that b/c of where I am now but I also kinda know where you’re coming from b/c I grew up in a fundamentalist church where anyone who is not like C.I. Scofield dispensational is suspect at best, and oftentimes thought to be a heretic. (Needless to say, if you think Scofield was crazy, like I do, you don’t really fit in. So I do relate to feeling very vulnerable because of theological positions.)
~jake
Brian,
I think the emphasis on SA comes from people seeing it as the answer to the burning question of late medieval Christians: How is it that a person is Saved? (with the meaning of “saved” being, at its base, reconciled with God).
Different Reformation thinkers had different nuances on the matter, but their nuances came from the view that scripture (newly widely available due to the printing press) held the key to answering the question, not the teaching body of the Roman Catholic Church- that the bible was the authority.
Luther had training as a lawyer and was very focused on the legal aspects of the transaction between man and God, and his views were very widely promoted- again, through the use of the “new medium”, the printing press. His spin is basically SA, as I see it (or PSA, if you want to refine it further and call it penal).
It is this combination of:
1) focus on the individual which was characteristic of the Renaissance/Enlightenment;
2) concern about the Law, also an Enlightenment ideal (Locke, other philosophs);
3) repudiation of the teaching authority of the church in favor of now widely available bibles, with insistence on the ability of each *individual* Christian to interpret the bible;
4) dissemination through printing presses (not unlike our internet) of the thoughts of those who made good arguments (Luther and his followers were very good at this- both the dissemination and the arguments)
that led to SA being widely accepted then and is basically THE protestant view on it now.
The reason that some people are so torqued about its losing pride of place among “atonement theories” is that they think this is the clear, main, plain teaching of the bible, and if you reject this teaching then you reject the bible, and if you reject the bible you can’t know God, have answers, be saved, have hope… the world very much comes to an end for those people. I understand this; I used to be one of them.
The problem goes further back, though. When people ceased reading the New Testament with 1st century Jewish lenses (due to passage of time, anti-semitism, change in custom) it became more difficult to find Christus Victor, let alone have that view of atonement be the one that orients all the others, which was the case through the patristic period, as I understand it.
That is why NT Wright and others who have emphasized the C1Jewish understandings, as much as we can know them, have made such an impression on serious students of theology. I have infinitely more hope and trust in God’s goodness, love and mercy, having moved to a Christus Victor view as the result of Wright, R. Webber and -yes!- Dallas Willard (he’s not explicit about this, his concerns lie elsewhere, but his explanation of “heaven” and “kingdom of God” in “The Divine Conspiracy” pried open the locks of my mind) than I EVER experienced with SA/PSA as the controlling atonment “motif”. I am so much more tuned into the Incarnation. I am so much more about worshiping Jesus. The ramifications are indeed cosmic.
Thanks for raising the question. I think more understanding is needed on both “sides”.
An interesting and thoughtful post on an issue I’ve struggled with in my own blogging. The doctrine of literal inerrancy is fascinating, particularly because there’s a solid and defensible argument from both Scripture and Calvin’s Institutes to suggest that the authority of the Bible isn’t found in literalism, but in the interplay of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit and the witness of the Spirit as manifested in the authors and redactors of canon. “Pneumati, ou grammati,” as Paul might say.