Atonement and Punishment

The Confession of Faith from a Mennonite Perspective (CFMP) has not included any notion of punishment in its understanding of atonement (Article 8. Salvation). While the consequences of sin are death and separation from God, punishment for sin is not seen as a prime cause for the need for atonement. We are our own agents of punishment, refusing to accept God's gracious invitation and provision for reconciliation, thereby dooming ourselves to eternal separation from God. As well, I find it noteworthy that neither "the wrath of God" or God's holiness are mentioned in this article. It is the love of God that draws the sinner and the reconciling work of Christ which redeems the believer. This process is called "the new birth." We were once enemies of God but God was and is never our enemy. Any response other than a loving response by God is seen as" God taking revenge" as the explanatory note four under the article indicates. God's only desire is that we respond to his love and receive the new life promised to us by Christ redeeming work on the cross.

Peter Berger in his celebrated little book entitled Rumors of Angels describes five signals of transcendence which naturally orient humankind toward some aspect of transcendent reality, a greater being, life after death, etc. One of these signals is punishment and the possibility of punishment after death. It satisfies the intrinsic human need for justice and the potential for an appropriate response to heinous evil. On an emotional level,  there is I believe an appropriate human desire for at least some proportionate response to genocide and mass murder. Eternal punishment as God's holy response to evil and people who commit overtly evil acts goes at least some way to address this issue. The inclusion of punishment in the theology of atonement at least attests to the severity of evil. The Mennonite response in recent times has been to refer to the Amish people extending their forgiveness to the gunman responsible for the Nickle Lake, Pennsylvania killings of the young defenseless Amish school-girls. Is this enough?

Books on Sermons

I'm not sure how many pastors like or read books of sermons but I do. Some of my favourite writers of sermons are Stanley Hauerwas, Herbert McCabe, Rowan Williams, N. T. Wright, Barbara Brown Taylor and Frederick Buechner. But two I've recently come across are also high on my list. Speaking the Truth: Preaching in a Pluralistic Culture by Samuel Wells and The Word in Small Boats: Sermons from Oxford by Oliver O'Donovan are excellent collections from two scholars at their rhetorical and prophetic best. Samuel Wells is the Research Professor of Christian Ethics at Duke University and the Dean of Duke Chapel. Presently at the University of Edinburgh, Oliver O'Donovan was for many years the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford University and a Canon of Christchurch.

At the moment I'm finishing Samuel Wells' volume and I've decided the the sheer oddness of it is why I like it. Having heard variants on the "Three Point Sermon" for most of my life, Wells comes as a significant exponent of "narrative preaching." His eye for details, his creativity in speaking to culture and the ability to hear "the strangeness of Scripture" is a tonic to preachers who sometimes feel jaded or recycle old ideas. Moreover, as a primer to Wells' theology, I can think of no better or accessible a book.

This being Advent, here is a sample of Wells' sermon on Matthew's account of the virgin birth of Christ.

   "The Bible is the story of salvation, but it starts with the story of creation that we call Genesis. The Gospel is the story of salvation but it begins with the story of creation that Matthew calls "genesis."
   What that word genesis means is that the conception of Jesus is the beginning of all things. Not chronologically, maybe, but the conception of Jesus names God's decision never to be except to be for us in Christ - and that decision is the beginning of all creation. of all life, of all salvation, of everything that matters. And so we see that creation itself is a kind of virgin birth because it was creation from nothing, and it was brought about by the Holy Spirit. And the virgin birth is a new creation - or perhaps even the original creation - because it, too, is brought about in some ways out of nothing, by the action of the Holy Spirit, although this time, gloriously, with a woman at the center of God's action. We have been brought out of nothing to be made for relationship with God, and God has made a home among us to unite our hearts with his. Creation is a virgin birth. A virgin birth is creation. As we say in North America, "How about that?"
   Maybe it's time believing in the virgin birth came into fashion."

Samuel Wells, "The Action of God and Miracle" in Speaking the Truth

Orthodoxy, Chesterton, and Hyperbole

I've just finished rereading Gilbert Keith Chesterton's justly famous Orthodoxy in time for our book club. Again, what a wonderful experience! Chesterton's enthusiasms and "extraordinary" writing style make this little exercise in apologetics an experience one can't forget. The image I get from the book is the good knight Sir Gilbert, mounted on his steed, looking for dragons to slay, and when he thinks he's found one, it's a hoop and a holler, a big belly laugh and on to the battle. Chesterton loves the thrust and parry of debate and it shows by the grandiose language and nothing left half-said approach that he uses.

For the most part I am sympathetic to his larger agenda which is to speak for a world which is congruent with the claims of Christian doctrine. This world is created, flawed, in need of salvation and offers clues to the reality of transcendence, clues which in turn give witness to God. The "modern" alternatives such as evolution, scientific rationalism, progress, and pragmatism, are dead ends, unable to deliver what they claim: individual free will, rational thought, salvation, and freedom. For Chesterton, it is only the Christianity which delivers all that humanity desires and needs and more besides. (Note the idea of "joy" which echoed throughout C.S. Lewis' account of his own turn to Christian faith in Surprised by Joy.

And yet there the places where I take great exception to Chesterton's tone. For example, Chesterton's unbridled appreciation of Christendom and his enthusiasm for Empire wear a little thin in the light of subsequent historical analysis. He is patronizing, arrogant, somewhat racist (in that imperial British superior way), and sometimes cruel, especially to proponents of alternative points of view. But he is always cheerful! When I read sublime passages like the one which concludes the book, I am ready to forgive (almost) all.

"Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian. And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on his open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet he concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that he hid from all men when he went up the mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometime fancied that it was His mirth."
                                                                                                     G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Reflections on cross-culturalism in film: "Cooking with Stella" directed by Dilip Mehta

Having recently seen the movie "Water" written and directed by the Indo-Canadian director Deepa Mehta, I looked forward to seeing "Cooking with Stella" this time co-written by Deepa along with her brother Dilip who also directed it. Set in New Delhi, the movie's premise is the clash of cultures which begins when a young couple from Canada flies in to New Delhi's Canadian embassy to begin a new diplomatic posting and moves into the Canadian government housing where Stella happens to be employed as their new cook and housekeeper. I was not very impressed by the story or by the acting but I came away from the movie asking a number of questions. For example, why do movies or books tend to trade in stereotypes even when the audience should and usually does know better? Are the new and developing relationships between countries of differing economic development always predicated on what one or the other can get away with? Do the new relationships between developed and developing countries necessarily involve a clash of ethics? Put differently, is stealing always stealing, or lying always lying? And just because people can afford to lose money or possessions, is stealing them then justified? The director Dilip Mehta describes this film as being "very issue-driven...an iron fist in a velvet glove." I just found it tedious and driven by stereotypes. I also felt sorry for Maury Chaykin, a wonderful character actor, who recently passed away. I hope this was not his last film.

Atonement Theology in the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective

The first impression I get from reading Article 8 is that none of the atonement models is given primacy of place. The Christ-as-Victor model describes the victory of Christ over the powers and forces of evil and death which have enslaved humanity. The Substitutionary model describes the debt owed by humanity now paid for by Christ’s sacrificial death on our behalf. The Moral-Influence model suggest the example of Jesus as inspiring humanity to receive and live out the love and grace of God in the new life opened for them. Each of these three types is given a positive role to play in describing the dimensions of Christ’s atonement for humanity. While each by itself is insufficient to describe the immensity of atonement, together they form a fully-orbed description of what Christ achieved on the cross. Thus the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (CFMP) attempts to steer a middle course between the Scylla of doctrinaire conservative fundamentalism and the Charybdis of sentimental liberalism, preserving the Anabaptist notion of the Atonement as having both objective and subjective aspects. This all-inclusive quality results in what Robert Friedman described as the effect of not just declaring us righteous but also, through the new birth, making us righteous. Not only is our salvation achieved by Christ’s “alien” work, it is made effective by the “creative” work of the Spirit transforming the inner person.

A second impression is that the Spirit’s work of transformation corresponds quite closely to the more traditional doctrine of sanctification which both Luther and Calvin articulated in their theological writings. For both Luther and Calvin though the difference was that the effects of atoning work of Christ could be separated into distinct aspects conceptually even if not existentially into justification and sanctification. For the Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition, however, the two aspects were inseparable from the outset. To be justified meant to be made righteous. In Anabaptist/Mennonite theology, to separate the two could lead to indifference in the life of the believer and, more seriously, to a reliance on the “objective” work of Christ on the cross to the neglect of discipline and discipleship in one’s response to follow the call of Jesus.

The third impression I have regarding this Article 8 is that the omission of the penal substitutionary model of the atonement is deliberate. There is no mention of the wrath of God which needs to be appeased or some quid pro quo arrangement of a perfect sacrifice to be made in exchange for humanity to escape the finality of death and everlasting punishment of hell. The biblical texts which have been used to describe this view are nowhere in sight. In fact, there is no mention of hell at all. The atonement frees humanity from sin, death and the powers of evil, but not from hell.

Interesting.

Book and Movie Night at Covenant

Our church congregation had its annual Book and Movie Night last Friday. Each of those who come together for the evening are asked to share one book title and one movie title which has significantly impacted them over the past year. In previous years I have shared books like Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, Gilead and Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, and Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. This year I chose two: Home by Marilynne Robinson and Hannah's Child by Stanley Hauerwas.

Marilynne Robinson is such an intelligent writer! She writes with deep understanding of the male psyche and the nature of family dynamics. Home is a sequel of sorts to Gilead. A retelling of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Home is a study of the relationships of a father with his children and the many ways he can (and often does) burden them with lifelong burdens and neuroses. Things said and unsaid, expectations met and unmet, events explained and unexplained, and hopes realized and unrealized, all combine to leave this family demoralized and estranged in spite of the best intentions of everyone. I was challenged as a parent to reflect on my own practice of parenting and the many things that may or may not add to the burdens my children have to carry. For a child to emerge unscathed from a family even if the parents are well-intentioned is quite a miracle. And yet the novel is not hopeless . There is a lot of forgiveness in the book and more is needed at the end but who knows, maybe...And so I continue to hope and pray.

Hannah's Child is Stanley Hauerwas's autobiography. Full of insight into Stanley's character and iconoclastic theological writings, Hannah's Child is never dull. The threadof his own personal life weaves its way through his theological development and career. Names are dropped, friends and influences warmly embraced, and personal pain and suffering unstintingly shared. I enjoyed it immensely not only as Stanley's attempt at self-explanation but also as a tribute to the way in which the church is called to be the church sometimes from within and sometimes from without. Stanley was (is) one of those rare gifts to the church in which God's use of an unlikely instrument brings renewed vision and hope.

Mennonite atonement theology

As I said in an earlier post, I propose to examine different atonement theologies in light of the Confession of Faith from a Mennonite Perspective. The statements from the C(onfession) of F(aith) from a M(ennonite) P(erspective) are contained in Article 8 "Salvation". They read: "God so loved the world that, in the fullness of time, God sent his Son, whose faithfulness unto death on the cross has provided the way of salvation for all people. By his blood shed for us, Christ inaugurated the new covenant. He heals us, forgives our sins, and delivers us from the bondage of evil and from those who do evil against us. By his death and resurrection, he breaks the powers of sin and death, cancels our debt of sin, and opens the ways to new life. We are saved by God's grace, not by our own merits."

In the commentary, the explanation given for human appropriation of salvation turns on a particular interpretation of the phrase "justification by faith." This justification by faith is "reckoned" to humankind as salvation by its experience as a covenantal relationship with God. The faithfulness is God's, not ours. The just or righteous person has received the offer (of salvation), lives according to (the terms of the new) covenant, and trusts in God's faithfulness. The justification by faith and obedience to the (new) covenant are sides of the same coin. They are inseparable. A second image is used to interpret the experience of salvation and is described as "the new birth." The new birth signifies the change one experiences when salvation occurs. Through sin, human beings became children of the devil and forfeited their identity as children of God. Through salvation, human beings are "born again" and adopted into the family of God.

In an earlier section of the commentary, three views of atonement are given as forming the substance of the Mennonite atonement theology: the Christus Victor model, the substitutionary atonement model, and the moral-influence view. All three are seen to be integral to the overall theology of the Mennonite perspective. None are predominant but all say something important about the nature of Christ's atoning work. I will look further at what each says in the next post.