The Duality of Atonement Theology

 

Atonement Theology— As regards the idea that Jesus died for our sins; that he was killed as a human sacrifice to persuade God to forgive human beings for all that they had done wrong.

I was listening to a lecture by Bishop John Shelby Spong that addresses this weird perversion of the message of Christ, and I noticed something; something that has always appeared obvious to me, but this time it occurred to me that it isn’t necessarily obvious to everyone. Maybe even, to most everyone, it isn’t obvious at all. It was this: In order to even imagine the notion of substitutionary atonement, a person has to conceive of God and Christ as separate, individual beings. God is the Great Patron, the Overseer, the Authority, and Jesus is the obedient, subservient, dutiful son. God is mad at humans for breaking the rules, and when Jesus volunteers to take the rap for us, God agrees and executes him instead of us.

The not-so-obvious part is that this just doesn’t make sense. 

No, really, it doesn’t make any sense at all!

I want to offer an entirely different way of looking at it. This viewpoint is based on three passages of Scripture that to me are the most important gateways to understanding the Christ Event: “In (God) we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) and “Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Matthew 22:37; Deuteronomy 6:5) If we indeed live and move and exist in God, then God cannot be separate from us and we cannot be separate from God. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers, neither what exists nor what is coming,  neither powers above nor powers below, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God.” (Romans 8:38-39)

Bishop Spong was very eloquent about the toxicity of seeing ourselves as guilt-ridden “sinners” who need to beg God for mercy, but as I listened to him I found that I agreed with him only as long as I imagined God as separate from me. When I stopped doing that, I found that the prayer, “God have mercy, Christ have mercy” became instead a plea that sank deep within the essence of my humanity— a profound appeal for the bestowal of the quality of mercy. “God, grant us mercy,” becomes “God, teach us mercy; make us merciful; show us the Way of mercy.”

If we cannot be separated from God, then the whole Christ Event realizes itself as God’s holy helplessness. It manifests in us as the deepest ground of Love; a Love that cannot be broken, damaged, betrayed or destroyed: not by any power, or dominance system, or oppression, or injustice— not even death itself. God is the willing Victim, and because we exist in God, we are participants in this astounding love; this love that dares to surrender. In this love we learn what it means to be human. This is why I often refer to Christ as The Human. (Jesus often referred to himself as “Ben Adam” or “Son of Man,” a term which can also be translated as “Mankind” or “Humanity.”)

This way of seeing it also alleviates the age-old sense of betrayal that causes us to ask the question: Why does God let these awful things happen? Why doesn’t God, the All-Powerful, intervene and make everything okay, once and for all?

If God is Love, then God must be all and only Love. There is no room within God for anything but Love. This enormous and infinite, endless and all-encompassing Love cannot limit itself to a lesser love. It cannot pick and choose; it cannot say "This but not that.” This is a Love that we can only behold from behind as it passes by. This is a Love that can only and forever Be what it Is— the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.