I agree with the author's criticisms of certain parts of our justice system. I find his theology sloppy and incomplete.
Our jails are overflowing, people are receiving life sentences for minor crimes under three strikes laws, racial disparities leave minority populations disproportionately represented in the incarcerated population, and we’re so obsessed with killing that we’re now using untested concoctions of drugs that recently took a condemned inmate more than 20 minutes to finally die.Our system isn’t working.
I can agree with this
It might surprise you however, to understand how we arrived at such a broken justice system.We got here because of poor theology.While we do have a separation of church and state, it is undeniable that through the ages Christian theology has influenced laws, patterns of thinking, and social structures — especially in early America.
Of course I agree that theology has had this sort of influence. I don't know about the history of the penal system, and some of the comments that follow the article bring the author's order of influence into question, but I don't have the historical background to support or oppose the connection. I do, however, deny that the theology in question is "poor" as the author defines it.
One such theology is a theology of the cross. In theological circles we call it “atonement theology,” which has been an area of theology that has been consistently morphing for the past 2000 years. You and I most likely grew up with one specific type of atonement theology which has tended to dominate the landscape since the 16th century or so — an atonement metaphor called “penal substitution.”
Here is where I think the sloppiness begins. Atonement theology is about how humanity can be reconciled to God. To equate "theology of the cross" and "atonement theology" is to set us up for at least two errors. The first is to put us in an either/or situation because we have (unintentionally, perhaps) essentially said that God was doing only one thing (or at the most, two things) on the cross. He was either paying a penalty or He was defeating the works of the devil and reconciling creation to Himself. The Scriptural reality is that all of these things and more were at work. The second error this sloppiness sets us up for is the error of circular reasoning. If an atonement theory explains how God reconciled us to Himself, then for the author to suggest that his (better) atonement theory is that (instead of penal substitution) God was in Jesus reconciling the world to Himself, he has really not provided an atonement theory, only restated what an atonement theory is about. God reconciled us by reconciling us.
If you grew up within conservative evangelicalism or have seen even one episode of Way of the Master, you are familiar with the penal substitution theory of atonement even if you don’t recognize the theological name I’m using for it. It usually isn’t described as an “atonement metaphor” but rather is passed off as the “Gospel” itself.
A provocative statement, that last one. I suppose all of our language about salvation (even the word salvation) is metaphorical, but this is what God has given us to work with. He is the author of the metaphors we use. I've used any number of metaphors in explaining the gospel from the pulpit, freedom from bondage, healing from sickness, rescue from lostness... There probably ARE those who use only one metaphor and don't even recognize that's what it is (analogous to the preacher who explained the symbolic language "present yourself a living sacrifice" by saying you have to "crawl on the altar"), but to identify that ignorant way of using the penal substitution metaphor as the only way it is used is either uninformed or deceitful.
It goes something like this (if you grew up a fundie, you might remember “Romans Road” to explain it):– Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (true)– The wages of sin is death (also true)– Sin can only be forgiven through someone/something dying (not exactly true — even in the OT sacrifices only satisfied unintentional sins, not deliberate ones. We also see Jesus forgive people in the New Testament prior to the cross, showing God is able to gratuitously forgive without a blood sacrifice.)
The penal substitution theory doesn't say that sin can only be forgiven through someone dying at the same time as the extension of the forgiveness. It says that the death of Jesus on the cross makes forgiveness available across all centuries. I also disagree that sacrifices only satisfied unintentional sins. The Leviticus 16 description of the Day of Atonement specifically includes rebellious acts in the list of what is atoned for.
– When Jesus was on the cross, he was paying your fine/being punished in your place so that you could be set free (not quite true, or at least distorted/reduced).
It IS true. 1 Peter 3:18 says "Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous..."
Essentially, the cross is explained exclusively in legal terms.
No, penal substitution is explained exclusively in legal terms. Any preacher/teacher/bible student worth his/her salt knows that other things were happening on the cross at the same time.
You and I are the criminal, God is the blood-thirsty judge and executioner, and Jesus becomes the one who steps in between us and lets the angry judge beat and kill him in our place.
No presentation of the gospel I have ever heard represented God as bloodthirsty. The language used here seems intended to make penal substitution seem to be beneath God and unworthy of true theology.
Having killed an innocent person, this judge is somehow satisfied and a little less angry, so he sets friends of the innocent dead man free as he awaits the “end times” when he’ll finally get to let the bodies hit the floor and feel good about himself.
This is just ridiculous. God's wrath is entirely satisfied relative to those who are covered by the atonement of Christ. He is not "a little less angry." He is still full of wrath toward the unrepentant, and has ZERO wrath for those who repent. He need not wait for anything to "feel good about himself." This representation of penal substitution is a wonderful example of a straw man argument.
It’s actually quite twisted when you break it down.
Well, sure, when you put it like the author has...
Jesus protects us from God? Or, if you accept the inspiration of Scripture (which I 100 percent do), it gets even more uncomfortable when you see Jesus say things like: “If you have seen me, you have seen the father, for we are one,” or in Hebrews, when it is stated that Jesus is the “exact representation of God’s being.”Accepting both the inspiration of Scripture and the penal substitution theory of the atonement, one could actually say that Jesus died to protect us from Jesus.Which is quite silly, really — from one aspect this makes God look schizophrenic,
This just (to me) goes to show how shallow the author's comprehension of Scripture is. God's justice and mercy come together on the cross in order to show us how utterly undeserved the grace of salvation is. Certainly, we all fail to comprehend the full nature of God, but this author misses some of the most fundamental aspects (in my opinion) of the Scriptural narrative which spans both covenants. If you don't have room in your theology for a God who absorbs His own wrath then you miss a core component of the Gospel.
and on the other, it makes the cross look like a bad case of domestic violence — something I personally find offensive.
I have seen this characterization before. The author takes the metaphor of father and son, and use the human relationship to critique the Divine relationship. This would be like me saying that someone who claimed to be "hungry as a lion" was lying if they ate a bowl of cereal instead of raw zebra. You can't take the Trinity and judge Them based on human categories. God pouring His wrath on Christ is not child abuse.
Many of us grew up with this understanding of the cross, yet were never told that this was not the way Christians had historically understood the atonement. This idea began to emerge about 1,000 years ago when people began to view the cross as God having his honor “satisfied” (called the “satisfaction theory”), and about another 500 years later it morphed into the concept that God had to punish Jesus in our place in order to forgive us — a concept that has remained the dominant understanding in most evangelical circles. (I believe this is largely in part to some of the dominant theologians of the reformation periods having backgrounds as attorneys prior to becoming theologians, which gives shape to why they would have preferred to understand the cross in terms of legalities, punishment, etc.)
This is a red herring. Such and such has only been a widely held position since such and such time. It's like me saying: Well, the idea that the statement "all men are created equal" implies that women should have the right to vote is a relatively recent idea. The earliest leaders of our nation did not hold such a view.
Of course, we would say to that, "so what?" When the view came into vogue isn't important. What is important is its truth or falsehood. Concerning the matter at hand, the legal background of the reformers isn't nearly as relevant as the question "Did Paul say in Romans 5 that Christ died for the ungodly?"
Historically, Christians had seen the cross as (a) defeating the works of the Devil (1 John 3:8) and that (b) God was in Jesus reconciling all of creation back to himself (Col 1:20). Yet, somehow a beautiful picture of defeating evil and reconciling creation got turned into this idea that God is so angry that he must have his anger satisfied by killing an innocent person.
A recognition of penal substitution doesn't rule out a recognition of these other aspects of Christ's work.
Penal substitution then, causes us to see God’s justice satisfied not because Jesus restored us but because Jesus was properly punished.
Here is more sloppiness. Not once in Scripture does justice come from being restored, but SINCE justice has been satisfied, we are restored. "Punishment for our peace was on Him." (Isaiah 53:5) Jesus being punished is not at odds with us being restored; it is the means by which it is accomplished.
How does this play into America’s broken justice system you ask?For 500 years we have focused our understanding of God and God’s justice as the need for punishment instead of the need for reconciliation, and this has led to a broken framework in our country in regards to justice.
God's justice is making things right. It is (1) restoring the injured and (2) punishing the injurer. Psalm 9:16 The Lord has revealed Himself; He has executed justice, striking down the wicked by the work of their hands. Psalm 10:18 doing justice for the fatherless and the oppressed so that men of the earth may terrify them no more.
When we allow this broken framework to influence the application of justice (as we have) we see criminal acts in terms of “need to punish as justice” instead of “need to restore as justice”
The author here either (1) confuses the two aspects of justice I listed above or (2) confuses justice with other aspects of God's character, like mercy or compassion.
(a poor theological understanding that I also feel has led to an evangelical culture of spanking).
No, agree with it or not, the source of the evangelical "culture of spanking" is the book of Proverbs.
Yes, there are many criminal acts that require a person to be removed from society for their protection and for ours, but this theological framework has caused us to view “justice served” when a person receives what we feel is an appropriate sentence instead of seeing “justice served” when both the offender and the offended (even if that’s just society in general) have had their lives reconciled (perhaps not with each other, but in a general sense).Justice becomes punishment, not healing and restoration.
Justice and reconciliation are different things. Both have their place in theology. They may both have their place in how we deal with criminals, but they are not identical.
And so, our prisons are overflowing. Why? Because our theological framework has told us that justice can only be satisfied when someone has been properly and fully punished, instead of telling us that justice is most fully satisfied when a life has been restored . The justice we seek in society today all gets traced back to how we view the justice of the cross.The fact that our prison system has now become de facto mental institutions for individuals who are ill reveals that we are focused on justice as punishment, not justice as restoration and healing.The fact that we have elderly people in the prison system who look nothing like the act they committed 70 years past — but yet will never see the light of day — tells us that we see justice as punishment meted not as a life changed.The fact that we currently have more than 2,500 children serving life without parole because of murders committed as juveniles, and 3,200 people serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses , tells us that we prefer a sense of justice that sends people away from society instead of a justice that finds creative ways to restore people to society.I believe this is largely because we have misunderstood God as someone who will only be satisfied when he has his pound of flesh, and so we do these things and call it “justice served” when in reality, it is “justice broken.”
This a mischaracterization of the holiness and wrath of God.
The cross wasn’t about an angry god who needed to get punches in to be satisfied, but rather about a loving God who was reversing the narrative and sending the story in the direction of restoration and healing. It wasn’t a horrific act of divine child abuse, but a beautiful act of reconciliation.
It was about an angry God who was reversing the narrative. It's not either or, but both (without the perversions the author inserts like "divine child abuse")
However, since we’ve understood the cross in terms of punitive justice, we push forward a culture that is drunk on punitive justice — thus arriving at our current predicament.The reality is that the cross was an act of restorative justice — God was reconciling everything to God's self, and in turn, inviting us to become what Paul called “ministers of reconciliation” — people who go forth and reconcile lives as Jesus reconciled lives.In order to fix America’s broken framework in regards to justice, we must recover a holistic understanding of what happened on the cross and no longer reduce and distort it into to a punitive legal action. If we do this, we just might begin to build a culture that is hyper focused not on punishing people, but restoring lives.
The greatest irony of the article is here. It is the author who is dismantling a "holistic" understanding of what happened on the cross by choosing to reject portions and embrace only part of the truth.
