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Critiquing Weaver, Grimsrud and the Non-Violent God Movement

This article came across my inbox, and I found in extremely helpful.  While I don't agree with everything in it, I think it is a helpful piece of writing and reflection on the nature of atonement and a good critique of the non-violent God/atonement camp.

Enjoy!
Download the_strange_case_of_the_nonviolent_god_dintaman.pdf

Thursday Afternoon Heresy

I was reading a piece of PR from a mission agency where the director stated that he was thankful:

For the privilege of sending teams to least reached regions of the world to plant churches and impact communities.

What, in God's green earth, does "least reached regions" mean.  Well, in technical evangelical missionary dialog it means:

[A region where] there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group. (From the website "The Joshua Project")

I have an objection to this terminology, not least of which is because it is so deeply embedded in the culture of marketing and franchising, where the goal is to get our product out to the "least reached regions."  Beyond that, I wonder about what exactly the following passage means in light of this remark:

John 1.29:The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

I take the implication of this, and similar passages, to mean that there is no such thing as an "unreached person."  Jesus Christ has reached out and granted salvation to the entire world.  Our task is not to bring this salvation.  Let me say that again, humans are not the agents of salvation; nor is the church, strictly speaking, the agent of salvation.  Rather, Jesus Christ, the Word of the Father, sent from heaven at one moment in history, is in fact the agent of salvation.

I am personally tired of evangelical rhetoric that blurs the important human-divine distinction between who is actually doing the saving.  A blurred line between the two can quickly lead to neo-colonial and triumphalistic mission efforts, where we are seen to have the "goods" that those "walking in darkness" lack.

My Response to Wright

This is a very helpful article (see previous post for introductory remarks), as I’ve been somewhat baffled by N.T. Wright’s insistence on using penal language. My sense of Wright has always been that he would stand against an angry God demanding a propitiatory sacrifice, but then I’ve wondered why he still wants to use the language of penal sub. Clearly, Wright is condemning what he feels is a caricature of penal substitution: angry God must kill innocent Son to deal with the sin problem. I heard Hans Boersma level this same critique against Recovering the Scandal. He feels that Mark’s and Joel’s presentation of penal sub is a caricature, not the real thing.

In the middle of the article Wright says this, “There are many models of penal substitution, and the vengeful-father-and-innocent-son story is at best a caricature of the true one.” He describes his version of penal sub as follows:

 The evangelists' understanding of the cross is that it means what it means as the climax of this story - the story of Israel compressed into the story of its representative, the Messiah, whose task was precisely to draw the threads of that narrative together. Read in this way, the multiple strands of idolatry, sin, evil, wickedness, oppression, violence, judgment and all the rest throughout the Old Testament come rushing together and do their worst to Jesus. He takes their full force, and does so because that was God's purpose all along. That is why, though I have argued here and in many other places for something that can be called 'penal substitution', I regard the 'Christus Victor' theme as the overarching one within which substitution makes its proper point…

 Do I find that convincing? I’m not sure. Again, I feel that the caricature has so dominated the idea of penal sub that I would rather find new and different language to describe what Wright is getting at. Wright’s friend, Steve Chalke (The Lost Message of Jesus) appears to feel that same way for “it is his [Chalke’s] experience that the word 'penal' has put off so many people, with its image of a violent, angry and malevolent God, that he has decided not to use it.” But in spite of its abuse, Wright insists that “there are several forms of the doctrine of penal substitution, and some are more biblical than others.” I think on this point Wright is probably correct, and those who reject the caricature need to be careful with our language. It cannot be denied that substitution with a penal flavor is found throughout theological writings.

 Wright goes on to say something also extremely important with regards to Paul’s theological method,

Part of the problem, of course, is that Paul never says the same thing twice when discussing the cross. The cross plays a thousand different (though interlocking) roles within his various arguments. Taking these references effectively out of their exegetical contexts and making them speak within a different context, a different line of thought…is bound to produce distortions.

Amen, I say to that – and this is my issue with many (though not all) of the Girardian exegetes. The Girardians often ignore the Old Testament narrative context within which Jesus’ and Paul’s message lie firmly rooted. They want to expunge the Old Testament of all vengeful language, or so reduce the concept of judgment to ‘God handing people over to the consequences of their actions’ that they are forced to ignore large swaths of the Old Testament where God very much does seem actively punish and take vengeance. But, I digress.

 I find myself wanting to affirm Wright’s project, with some reservations. I think he is pushing in several similar directions as Recovering the Scandal, and as some in the Emerging Church who decry a scholastic-Pauline approach to theology in evangelicalism and instead promote a more serious reading of the gospels. He continually affirms Christus Victor as an overarching theme through which to read penal substitution, which I think is also helpful, as long of Christus Victor is also carefully defined (there are many version of CV too, health and wealth is certainly one aberration).

I worry, though, that his use of the language of penal sub is going to increasingly lead what he laments in this article - to being used by certain evangelicals to trumpet their distorted views of penal sub.  The Glory of the Atonement seems to just that. He is trying to walk a carefully argued middle ground by redefining popular language, and I think this approach is fraught with difficultly. Maybe he should go with J Denny Weaver’s approach and attach a modifier to his view – narrative penal substitution, perhaps?

N.T. Wright and the Atonement

I just received this email from Mark Baker, alerting me to a new article by N.T. Wright on the atonement. 

http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/news/2007/20070423wright.cfm?doc=205

Mark writes:

I am interested in your help in discerning what N. T. Wright is saying about penal substitution. On one hand he calls this new book "profoundly unbiblical" yet he also strongly affirms penal substitution. Clearly to say both of those things means he is using "penal substitution" in a different way than it is commonly used. His view clearly does not include the sense of a vengeful God eager to punish because he likes/needs retribution--the portrait of God that although not in many scholarly version of penal substitution is definitely present in what Brian McLaren in "Proclaiming the Scandal" calls popular atonement theology. I want to say that Wright's version of penal substitution also does not carry the sense of transaction and the sense of appeasement of God that the traditional scholarly view does. But I am not sure that is accurate. What do you think?

 

Joel and I have tried to affirm substitutionay atonement, but critique "penal substitution" and for many the distinction gets lost. What then are the chances of what Wright wants to do distinguish between types of penal substitution? I wish he had used different language entirely, but perhaps I am reading him to be more of an ally than he is, what do you think?

I will write my own response once I've read more carefully through Wright's article.

Anthony Bartlett and the Possibility of a Truly Non-Violent Atonement

Recently, Conrad Grebel Review published an article of mine on the atonement.  In it I take issue with J Denny Weaver's "Narrative Christus Victor Approach," questioning both his historical approach and his contention that Christus Victor is inherently non-violent.  I then examine Anthony Bartlett's concept of Abyssal Compassion and argue for its superiority as a non-violent model of the atonement.

I've attached a link to the PDF form of this article.  Make sure to reference it if you cite it.

Download eagleCGRarticle.PDF

The Non-Violent Atonement Conference

Conference on The NonViolent Atonement
January 22-23
Mennonite Central Committee's Welcoming Place
Akron, PA

How shall we understand the death of Jesus? Is it necessary to speak of the wrath of God when discussing atonement? These questions have been asked and answered many times throughout the history of the church. In today's world with our growing awareness of the dangers of violence, sacrifice, and militant religion, the death of Jesus need no longer be construed with divine violence. This two-day event will engage these questions with plenty of time for interaction, discussion and dialogue so that we can process what we are learning. Come, expecting an invigorating and enlivening conversation!

Speakers and their books/essays include:
J. Denny Weaver (The Non-Violent Atonement) Anthony Bartlett (Cross Purposes) Mark Baker (Recovering the Scandal of the Cross) Tom Finger (A Contemporary Anabaptist Theology) Peter Schmiechen (Saving Power: Theories of Atonement and Forms of the Church) Sharon Baker (By Grace: An Economy of Atonement) David Eagle (Anthony Bartlett's Concept of Abyssal Compassion)

The Wrath of God

In much of evangelicalism, there is an assumption that God's wrath is something both essential to God's character, and that the object of God's wrath is the sinful human person. 

Here is where I've found NT Wright's general approach very helpful.  Wright is a passionate advocate of avoiding the abstracting tendencies of theology in favour of a careful understanding of Jesus in his own context.  And for Wright, the centre of the New Testament message is eschatology - that somehow in the event of Jesus the Present Age and the Age to Come overlap.  Wright is not one to formulate abstract theological doctrines to explain God's wrath and the atonement, he is looking for interconnections that resonate with the context of Jesus and Paul to help explain how they understood and interpreted the significance of the events they participated within.

Earlier, someone asked about Augustine and his role in the development of penal sub. He certainly played a pivotal role in laying the ground work for the later development of penal sub.  Many popular notions about God's wrath that are integral to evangelical penal subsitution represent a later innovation in the theological tradition, beginning with Tertullian and cemented by Augustine, at least in the majority appropration of him (Augustine was a more polyvalent, paradoxical thinker that the tradition suggests). 

Thus, for me, it is not a theological given that humans are stained by the taint of original sin and belong to the massa damnata (the lump of perdition), rescuable only by the capricious choosing of the saviour (see Augustine, Faith Hope and Charity, 8.27). 

...we ought to understand that from that mass of perdition (massa damnata) which originated through the first Adam, no one can be made to differ except he who has this gift, which whosoever has, has received by the grace of the Saviour. And this apostolical testimony is so great, that the blessed Cyprian writing to Quirinus put it in the place of a title, when he says, “That we must boast in nothing, since nothing is our own.” (ref)

Augustine's thoughts represent a significant interpretation and adaptation of the Biblical text under the influence of Roman judicial law.  And if you are willing to leave some of Augustine's theological innovations behind, then penal substitution no longer becomes necessary, as the stain of original sin no longer prevents us from being in relationship to God. The idea that all people are forever tainted with original sin, which requires God's eternal punishment is a theological development in the tradition that I find difficult to uncover in Paul and Jesus without the addition of significant outside influences (and I think scholars like Wright and others would mostly agree).

If we can escape the cycle of sin-wrath-transaction-redemption, then the cross becomes open to a wider (and I hope more Biblically faithful) interpretation.  The cross can become something that unravels the human propensity towards violence, or the singularity that interupts the system of sin and death, or the profound message that God still loves us even when we do everything within human power to destroy him, or the marker of the Age to Come breaking into the Present with power to heal and transform.  These, I think, are ideas that resonate more deeply with the concerns of Jesus and his early interpreters.

The Danger of Transactional Views of the Atonement

I am encouraged by some of the recent discussion on this blog regarding substitutionary/satisfaction atonement.  I am heartened that within the satisfaction theory there are some scholars looking for ways of expressing subsitutionary language that resonates more deeply with the Biblical text.  Recently, a commentor, speaking from this position, said that we need to revisit:

1. What God's wrath entails and why He is angry,
2. How Christ absorbs that wrath, and
3. What it means to say that we are saved from it.

I think these questions reveal what I feel is a fundamental problem - that of God's wrath needing satisfaction/absorption in order for us to be saved.

It is at this point that I must part ways with penal sub. in all of its forms.  I simply do not feel that any transactional view (under which I group penal sub and Christus Victor) of the atonement does justice to the unity of God's work in Christ.  I cannot accept a theory where Christ is some sort of agent that deals with the Father's wrath against humanity.  There is too strong a divide created between the work of the Father and the Son in transactional views of the atonement.  In penal sub, you end up with a God abusing his Son in order to assuage his wrath; or you have a sadomasocistic God, taking his own wrath upon himself.  In Christus Victor, you have a schizophrenic God creating the evil powers in order that he might triumph over them through his death (why create the evil powers in the first place?).

In my reading on this subject, it is only moral influence, with a Girardian and deconstructive twist that creates an understanding of the atonement that prunes it of all transaction, and thus preserves the unity  of God.  This is just a teaser, I know.  I deal with this subject in greater depth in subsequent posts.

NT Wright and Atonement

I want to thank Matthew (http://theoloblog.blogspot.com/) for posting a nice summary of Wright's understanding of penal substitution.

[Wright] would articulate penal substition, as he notes, centered around the terms of Isaiah 53...

In Wright's view, the sin of the nation is the cause of God's wrath, and thus the nation is the target of that wrath. The nation's suffering is His means of purifying that nation. After his sufferings, Isaiah notes, the servant Israel will see the light of his soul and be satisfied. Wright sees this passage as a prophetic motif - punishment is followed by God's restoration.

Wright sees Jesus as precisely the one in whom Israel is summed up. Christ, on behalf of the nation, endures all the things that Israel must endure. He is baptized with the baptism of repentance. He walks in the way of the righteous; He is the blessed Man of Psalm 1; He is the Law Keeper. He endures the coming wrath of God visited through the nations; as Schweitzer so brilliantly notes, Christ sees the wheels of Rome coming and throws Himself upon them by dying on a Roman cross. Through His cross, the true Israel escapes, but the earthly Jerusalem falls and the earthly temple is thrown down...This vindication of Christ and His people comes through the downfall of Israel 'according to the flesh' in a way that is reminscent of Israel passing through the sea, and the waters falling upon Egypt. Likewise the Israel of faith escapes from the waters of judgement, but they fall upon the fleshly Israel, who turns out to be identified with Egypt after all, having the mind of the slavemaster.

Of course all of that typology's just a side note, but the point is this: Christ does what Israel had to do, but could not: suffer and be vindicated. That is why he is the substitute. He is the priest. He is the sheep. He is the one who stands in the place of us and offers himself to God as a propitation, as a covering for our sin. The wrath of God is expended upon Him, and thus is expended on us, since we are crucified with Him. It seems that, after all, "the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him."

I must confess that I have not read a lot of Wright, especially on the atonement.  Now that Matthew has so nicely summarized Wright for us, it raises a number of interesting questions, most pertinently - is there a way to talk in penal, subsitutionary and satisfaction terms without going down the standard evangelical route?  Or in other words, is there a way to talk in the language of penal substitution, but mean something different?  I wonder this because it would allow one to still be "one of the club," that is say the proper Shiboleth, but all the while subtly undermine the hegemonic power of a single, narrow definition of the atonement.

I still have lots of questions about Wright's views.  I'm still not totally comfortable with how wrath is being directed, but I'm intrigued.  I think I will heft a copy of Jesus and the Victory of God onto my desk and start reading.

Would the REAL Penal Substitution Please Stand Up

I think that NT Wright and others like him (Hans Boersma, for example) are trying their best (and they are to be commended for it) to redefine "penal substitution."   The redefinition they are attempting is twofold:

1. Penal subsitution is not the only or even the primary theory of the atonement in the Bible. Rather, it is one of the metaphors or images that the Biblical writers use to talk about the saving significance of Christ. Wright would say that Christus Victor is a more significant theme than penal sub, Boersma would pick recapitulation.  And so while Wright wants to say that he believes in penal sub, penal sub has a particular definition in his mind that differs from the views of others.  For him it is not a theory, but an image or metaphor of atonement.  But by both evangelicals and Wright using the same phrase to mean different things, a great deal of confusion is injected into the mix.
2. Penal substitution doesn't have to carry the freight of God punishing his Son as a somewhat separate/distinct entity.  Nor does it mean that humanity is unloved by God without a sacrifice.  All penal sub means is that there was punishment involved, and substitution involved.

But the question remains: who controls the definition of what penal substitution really is?   And defined in the terms of Wright and others, would evangelicals still feel satisfied that this is the same thing they are talking about when they say "penal substitution?"

To demostrate that NT Wright means something different than many when he says penal substitution, I offer this quote (quoted earlier):

It is of course possible to present penal substitution in such a way as to remain open, if not even to invite, the kind of riposte which liberal theology has traditionally made, namely that it makes God look like a bloodthirsty tyrant who wants to kill someone and doesn’t much mind who (http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Auburn_Paul.htm)

Wright goes on to criticize the tendency in theology to develop systematized understandings of Biblical concepts:

But precisely because I believe that God gave us, through Paul, the letters we have, rather than the books of systematic theology which we have deduced from them (necessary though that task of theology obviously is), I have insisted and shall insist on understanding the full sweep of the letters themselves, giving exact and due weight to the statements and arguments that are actually being mounted, instead of ransacking them to fight in-house battles between rival schools of interpretation (ibid).

What I understand Wright to be saying is that he wants to respect the integrity of the writings of Paul and others and speak in terms of the themes and metaphors that are found there.  Wright challenges the idea that we can deduce a complex theory (like the penal sub/ satisfcation theory) by reading between the lines of the Bible.  The difference here between Wright and many evangelicals is between penal sub as one image of the atonement, or penal sub as a comprehensive, singular theory of the atonement.

Perhaps "penal sub theory" is a better term to describe what I am critiquing under the label penal sub.  Or maybe I should use the tag line: penal sub/satisfaction theory.  In the NT Wright quote above he takes exception to penal sub as a singular theory of the atonement.  Many evangelicals would call the "penal substitution" or "satisfaction" theory THE singular Biblical atonement model.  [Incidentally, the two phrases (penal sub and satisfaction) are used interchangeably by evangelicals (see Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. Baker, 1998. 833) where he says "[the satisfaction theory of the atonement] is also commonly refered to as 'the penal substitutionary theory' of the atonement."]

My contention is that in popular evangelical circles, both of Wright's assertions (in 1. and 2. above) would be challenged. 

On point 1, that penal sub is one image of atonement, rather than a unifying theory, Millard Erickson, THE final word of evangelical theology writes:

...it is the satisfaction theory of the atonement that seizes upon the essential aspect of Christ's atoning work (Erickson, 833).

So, for Wright to attempt to dethrone penal sub as the only or primary or essential theory of the atonement, and reduce it to the level of one image among others is to empty penal substituion of a key definitional component in evangelical minds.

Again, to demonstrate that to Wright, the penal sub theory cannot be the essential definition of atonement, I offer the following quote (also argued by Green and Baker):

Solus Christus is a way of saying that the entire world turned its critical corner when God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus the Messiah and then when God began the new creation in his resurrection, the new creation which was at last possible because the forces of corruption, decay and death had been defeated on Good Friday. That, incidentally, is a theme not sufficiently noticed within Reformed theology and exposition of Paul, but it is one of his greatest subjects, fully integrated of course with everything else. (Wright, referenced above, emphais mine).

 

On point two, that penal sub doesn't need to carry overtones of Divine child-abuse or a blood thirsty God, again I think that in its mainstream definition these aspects of the penal sub/satisfaction theory are essential.  Erickson writes,

Christ died to satisfy the justice of God's nature.  He rendered satisfaction to the Father so that we might be spared from the just deserts of our sins...By offering himself as a sacrifice, by substituting himself himself for us, actually bearing the punishment that should have been ours, Jesus appeased the Father and effected a reconciliation between God and humanity (Erickson, 833).

In conclusion, I think the real penal subsitutionary theory of the atonement has stood up.  It does have strong overtones of a God in need of appeasment through sacrifice.  Wright takes exception to these elements, as do I. 

Wright can say he believes in penal sub, but he is speaking of one metaphor or image among others in the Bible and the writings of Paul.  For evangelicals, however, penal sub is not one image among many.  In evangelicalism, it is the central, essential and unifying theory of the atonement.

For someone to say, I'd like to have penal sub and Christus Victor and moral influence, is to distance oneself's from mainstream evangelical thought.  It reduces penal sub to merely one image of atonement, and thus challenges a core confessional statement of evangelical theology.