Dana Ames #18, I think you are right, immoratality of the soul is a Greek idea and not neccesarily a biblical one. The scriptures teach that only God is immortal!

Brad Nassif #24, says there have been multiple atonement views throughout the history of the church. If the Bible gives multiple images for atonement, I simply don’t get the insistence by some of the Reformed folks that not only can substitionary atonement not take on different nuances, but it HAS to be elevated above all other atonement views. Why?

Steve and Mark,
I have been reading Torrence’s book “The Mediation of Christ,” and I am humbled by the sheer simplicity, brilliance, and broad historical perspective Torrence brings to so many issues.

And Bev, your insights and remarks are always excellent (thanks so very much!).

Exactly. “Mediation of Christ” was a formative book for me, too.

“Better for all the World – the History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity” by Harry Bruinius.

http://www.amazon.com/Better-All-World-Sterilization-Americas/dp/0375713050/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338215905&sr=8-1

Bonhoeffer wasn’t a flippant pacifist – and anyone who thinks so need to read more widely. His was an intense struggle with prevailing ideologies of his day – and – how, exactly, should he respond as a Christian. We have so much to learn!

In the US there are multiple churches.

OK, though, there is a propensity in the US for the church folks to align with one political party, so the fault seems to get laid at the feet of that one party.

I have a difficult time generalizing to the US on this.

Thanks for this simple word of encouragement. I’ve been tempted numerous times in the last 3 months to give up on a difficult ministry situation where I feel ill-fitted for the tasks that are before me. I’ve found myself wrestling on an almost daily basis with trusting God’s leadership in my life in bringing me to this place – despite my earnest prayers beforehand that God would plant me where I could bear fruit for his kingdom. I need this reminder that almost anything worth doing is going to be difficult at times. To leave simply because of difficulties does not seem to be the Jesus Way… Most of us long for a life of relative ease and peace, but it is hard to see how that desire coincides with participating in the kingdom of God in a broken world.

Thanks again for these words. Keep pressing on!

He was willing to risk his security and literally walk into the lion’s den. He knew he was risking his life to return to Germany. He was willing to risk his life for his beliefs.

Further, in the context of German militarism in the 1930s, Bonhoeffer’s pacifist statement was more radical than it sounds to us–Bonhoeffer’s close friend Bethge recounts how stunned the seminarians were at the illegal seminary in Finkenwalde in 1935 when Bonhoeffer brought up the idea of pacifism as a response to Nazi sword rattling–it was simply an unheard of position, even among seminarians opposed to Nazi ideology.

Torrance has certainly become my go-to guy when the need arises, often, to re-connect with the centre. His insistence that we always focus on the Trinity, always working outward from there, is much needed counsel for today’s wandering evangelical. It’s a pity he is not better known. BTW, he is highly recognized in the east for making outstanding contributions to a much better understanding between reform and Orthodox positions. As a life-long Arminian leaning toward open-theist, I benefit greatly from just about anything I can understand from Torrance.

Second, there is a book entitled “What About Hitler” by Robert W. Brimlow that I read concerning the kind of challenge this question of the title presents to Pacifists (I don’t like the name Pacifist simply because it has all kinds of connotations associated with it, least of which in most minds is cross-shaped obedience to Jesus for the sake of witness – marching orders! – to a God who was willing to do for us that which we are unwilling to represent to others). Brimlow opened my eyes to how most people think Hitler just “fell from the skies” one day without taking into account how a faithless and disobedient church (and not just Lutheran) allowed his rise. I find when I bring this up, those who justify disobedience to Jesus just don’t want to process it. And while there can always be some tyrant waiting in the wings regardless, conventional wisdom seems to always think the way history is always prosecuted has to be “the way.” Not much chance for a person to tease out the implications of following a crucified Messiah with this kind of thinking. No wonder John the Baptist, in prison under Herod (when was the “threshing floor” going to be swept?), asked Jesus if he had been mistaken as to His identity. Jesus response? “Blessed is he who is not offended by me.” A calling to the same kind of shame and humiliation that Jesus endured is not for the faint-hearted, and not easily done anywhere, but especially not easily done in America.

Long before I had any notions of becoming Orthodox, Robert Webber convinced me that Christus Victor was the dominant understanding of the early Church, along with some idea of ransom secondarily. Again, if anyone wants to know what Orthodoxy teaches, you have to look for it in the services. Those 2 understandings are there. PSA is not.

Please forgive me if I sound short (well, I am only 5’1″ tall…). I’m tired and I’m going to bed now.

Dana

I’m certainly not an expert, but have been thinking some of these issues through, and have appreciated the comments here.

So either I unwittingly hold an Orthodox view or the Protestant view presented in the video is one-sided, as Scot says above (#9).

It is not clear to me, in fact, that there is one Protestant view. It seems more likely that there are multiple Protestant views with some basic commonalities and the video presents the one that gets the most attention (for whatever reason).

Scot McKnight’s book “A Community Called Atonement” strikes the balance we’re all looking for: “Jesus dies ‘with us’ — entering into our evil and our sin…; Jesus dies ‘instead of us’ — he enters into ‘our’ sin, ‘our’ wrath, and ‘our death; and Jesus dies ‘for us’ — his death forgives our sin, ‘declares us right,’ absorbs the wrath of God against us, and creates new life where there was once only death.” (p. 69).

In my view your comments assume that Empire is always right in determining how to respond. And that Christians should get into lock-step behind whatever political power happens to be in power.

And the second, how do we understand God’s action relative to this alienation. Is it moral, a standing along side (parakletos) that woos the human? Or does the alienation require some reweaving of Creation? (That is, does alienation have a metaphysical reality beyond the subjective?) Is God to be understood as so self-contained that we only deal with this One by extension (as seems to be the direction of apophatic spirituality), or do we understand this One engaging, Self-identifying with the human? Rather than an arising by shedding, the latter sees a Divine reaching toward.

In a word, why isn’t my alienation or the enormities of this Age the final word?

The strength of the Western understanding lies in its treatment of this alienation as something deadly serious and something inescapable. It is also something dealt with by God’s action. The intimacy and fellowship so ably spoken about in the video is a fruit, a consequence of this action. The end of alienation, the answer to the enormities of mass, industrial death, lies in God’s action of taking that alienation into God’s own life.

And at a practical level, that strikes me as the difference; while the Anselmic doctrine formally addresses a metaphysical status that very question of human status and change imagines different ordering of this world. The double view of Righteous demands and Restored fellowship underscores the seriousness of Creation and makes possible a politics that is more than the mere exercise of Power. In a time drenched with depravity this possibility can seem tenuous at best. It can be and always has been a path a walked by faith.

“I pray that God will give me the strength not to take up arms in the defense of innocent lives, such that when I see the blood of children stain the ground, and mothers pulled from their little ones, that I will remain steadfast in my principled commitment not to take up arms in their defense, because that is what I think Jesus would want me to do.”

So what effect, what real effect would this have had on the lives of innocents if Hitler had no one to oppose him? Or perhaps for the next egomaniacal tyrant wanting to decide who dies, who lives, and how? There will always be aggressors in positions of power – despite any moral influence pacifists think they might eventually have if given sufficient numbers. And those with the power to destroy, whether it’s Hitleresque or just plain old terrorism, absolutely require some capability for armed response, a response that the like of Bonhoeffer apparently find morally repugnant.

But for me, a man or woman who stands by and paralyzes themselves from preventing the slaughter of innocents just so they can feel that the stuck by their principles carries it’s own vulnerability to a charge of morally repugnant behavior. Take the stain on your soul if you feel there will be one, lose your sleep at night and what you thought ought to have been your pristine character, but save another human being and quell the anguish a child or their mother, by protecting them from pain no human being should have to bear.

I’m also very saddened by the number of Christians that think God really wants nothing to do with them. Maybe it’s my Vineyard roots, but it seems to me that this cerebral, no-contact religion isn’t there….All of scripture is about encountering a God that cares deeply, but a lot of us have convinced ourselves that it stops there.

What the  Incarnation, life of Christ and the Resurrection have accomplished, and what our response to it should be always seem inextricably entangled with our speculations about the mechanism, the western how? Does anyone’s theology effectively disentangle these? Can we be certain about ‘what’ while being a bit less certain of our own version of ‘how’? Has anyone analyzed the NT record in terms of clear What and/or How texts? 

From another perspective, we all personally know non-theologically inclined brothers and sisters who often show clear evidence that the Holy Spirit is working in and through them. They seem to be too busy following the Lord to worry much about how it all works. So, by observation, it must be possible to disentangle the two questions, without doing much damage. Maybe we should try harder to do this when thinking theologically.

“Conclusion – The doctrine of the toll-houses, of the particular judgement of souls after death, is indeed a fearful doctrine. But it is a true and salutary and Orthodox one. Let us therefore gather this saving fear into our souls, in accordance with the word: “Remember thine end, and thou shalt never sin” (Sirach 7.36).”

Having been both Orthodox and Protestant, I think either side’s claim to have the correct doctrine of the Atonement vis-a-vis the other side is a mischaracterization of both the other side and their own.

Andrew Tatusko, I’m looking forward to reading your blog.

I don’t think it’s Orthodox teaching that the work of Christ restores us “to our natural state of immortality”. Only God is “naturally” immortal. Christ has “bestowed on us incorruption”, but I’m not sure I would call that the same thing. See http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/immortality_soul.htm, and do talk with your priest about this. I may be misrepresenting or misunderstanding something, as I was received only 3 years ago…

Dana

What I found fascinating about Brondos’ work was not only how well he explains nuances in the theories of Atonement, but his bringing additional questions to bear upon them that bring out problems with each. In an earlier book, “Paul on the Cross: Reconstructing the Apostle’s Story of Redemption” he works within the narrative of Israel to bring across atonement linked much more closely with that story than the “theories” that had arisen since. I was reading him while also reading your current offering and found much in common.

You can just sense the overwhelming power of his black garb, and yet his melodic and soothing voice provides nuturing support to me in his wisdom. The contrast of how the surroundings are decorated and crafted by man, but the vision of man in those surroundings is clean, simple and speaking directly to me. I wish I could have sat on the white god chair as he was moving it, …

I think I should stop.

There does seem to be some caricature going on with the Protestant view. Is the Protestant view “really” that Jesus doesn’t say any of those things to sinners (the woman at the well, the man in the tree, etc)? It sort of makes it sound like Protestants don’t think Jesus really loves anyone, that God only loves Christ. Orthodox love paradox and mystery, so I wonder, why can’t God have wrath and love towards someone at the same time (but in the western “logical” mind, without doing it in the same respect).

I, too, am troubled about the implications of universalism as mentioned by a few here. It almost sounds like no one really needs to believe or have faith in Christ at all. “Love wins” after all. I’m not sure that is their belief or not.

At any rate, it is always interesting to see the Orthodox view of things. Both Rome and Protestantism have so completely ignored the East, and it is having a very significant impact on former Protestants in the West now, we can’t afford to pretend it doesn’t exist. I do appreciate quite a bit of the tradition. But I’m certainly not ready to jump my Reformed Protestant ship any time soon. Thanks for the post.

The baptists definitely would not think the evan/prot view presented is slanted in any way. Many times when I talk to them they actually physically stoop and almost duck a bit when thinking about how the wrath of god is out there. It is quite interesting body language.

One could say that the Orthodox faith sees the gospel message as “How did Jesus defeat death” rather than “How did Jesus turn God’s wrath.” I don’t mean to put words in the mouths of the Orthodox, but perhaps they would respond that “Our version of salvation does not seek an answer to ‘how does Jesus turn away God’s wrath?’ because it deems it an artificial problem manufactured by a gross misreading of Paul’s epistles.”

It is worth noting that there are many descriptions of the final Judgment (the judgment that comes AFTER Christ’s return and AFTER the second resurrection) and not a single one of them portrays it the way modern evangelicals do, where Christ parachutes in to take the blame. You don’t see that motif in John 5:22-29, you don’t see that motif in Revelation 20:12-21:8, and you don’t see it in Matthew 25:32-46 or Matthew 7:12-27.

What I want to emphasize is that for Orthodoxy it is part of a liturgical life. If it’s not part of that, then it’s only partially understood. As my Father says, the theology is in the prayers of the church. Now that legacy is very different as you well know.

Christ is Risen from the dead
Trampling down death by death
And upon those in the tombs bestowing life.

In other words, Atonement begins with the Incarnation. It is the incarnation that redeems Adam.

Jesus dies to defeat death in order to heal us from sin which is a sickness and something that is not part of our natural state given to us by God.

Jesus does not “pay God” to clean the balance sheet to satiate God’s requirement for justice. He dies and raises from the dead to restore us to our natural state of immortality.

As noted above this is not so much a theory as it is a practice. We take the communion, take confession, participate in the Liturgy, follow prayer rules, and so on in order to prepare us for the final judgement where we will know God and God will know us intimately already. Those not prepared will not know God. See Matthew 22 and the man who did not have on wedding clothes.

I am actually going to start a blog on Patheos hopefully next week where I will talk about my journey from Catholicism, to Reformed, to Orthodoxy. I am being received into Orthodoxy next week during Pentecost and am humbled. I hope my blog will help some folks out with some of these questions and would very much like this kind of dialogue there too!

The second part, the Orthodox view, seemed like it could lead towards Universalism, but I didn’t take it that way. I thought that most Protestants would probably be fine with all of it I mostly was…

While I couldn’t talk my wife into converting to Orthodox Christianity with me, I really learned a lot listening to “Our Life in Christ.” Great stuff!