Thursday, November 01, 2007
Divine Child Abuse or Cosmic Suicide?
This is the last post about my disagreement with the basic assumptions of John Stott’s book “The Cross of Christ”. After this, I'll try to wrestle with ways to build bridges between Christians with different theological views.
John Stott doesn’t describe how the divinity of Jesus could physically happen so I’m left to try and guess how he might imagine it. I guess he wants us to imagine that God is a physical being (atoms, molecules, flesh) or that God must be able to temporarily become physical matter and interact and possibly even mate with a human (a type of shape-shifting to human form as needed). This is again something commonly found in Greek and Roman mythology as the gods from time to time intervene in sexual relationships with humans to produce divine sons leading their people to victory. Both Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar had divine birth stories defining them as sons of god and they had corresponding religious narratives created to honor and immortalize their political achievements. Most modern religions have correctly labeled that type of thinking as ancient symbolism rather than historical facts. Fundamentalists insist on hanging the validity of their faith on the historical accuracy of these stories which often leads to missing the more than literal meaning. I don't want the validity and fate of my Christian faith to hinge on something that will not last much longer. I think there is a better solution.
Finally, Stott wants us to assume that any statement made by any biblical author is actually something said by God. This is more than saying the bible is “God’s Word”. It is saying that the bible is "God’s words" (plural). Even most modern Evangelicals wouldn’t take this hard line literalistic approach. This means that if one of the gospel writers has his Jesus character say something, then Stott wants us to assume that the historical Jesus said it and phrased it exactly as the character in the story said it. Even highly symbolic language in books like the Gospel of John are supposed to be historical accounts. That is a huge stretch and it forces us to do intellectual back flips in order to fill in the resulting holes in the theory. It eliminates the important factor of the author's intent which is actually the most valuable aspect of any story.
We are left with a choice between divine child abuse or cosmic suicide. Stott favors the suicide option by stressing the fact that it is God himself who sacrifices his own life on the cross. The biggest problem I've had in getting through this book is that it makes too many metaphysical assumptions and concerns itself mainly with arguing for one formula of cosmic atonement over another. These types of doctrines reduce Jesus to the level of a silly comic book character and I feel like this book spends page after page trying to decide if kryptonite will kill Superman or simply render him ineffective. At least it reminds me of an interesting song...
3 comments:
You know, after reading all three of your posts, I'm feeling like everyone is forcing other people through a kind of metaphysical strainer. Your world view pushed through my philosophical viewpoint. My scriptural story pushed through the screen of someone else's philosophical analysis That kind of thing. These stories and viewpoints use language is such very different ways.
The traditional view of the atonement came out of the earliest followers of Jesus. All Jews. admittedly, much later writing and careful defining of it was pretty influenced by Greek thought. But I think Peter was being very Hebraic when he proclaimed the first story of the atonement in the 1st chapter of Acts. He's probably be surprised to be accused of making God into a character in Greek mythic spirituality.
But I prefer to read this all in a more mythic way. Meaning, the language of the atonement works. Not many people in the world have the advantage of a formal education. Not if you are looking at the whole world. And these kinds of stories and events communicate deep and simple truths. "I can't live the way I should." "Evil has dire consequences and is SO hard to set right that it would take something amazing to do it."
That kind of thing.
I find meaning in Christianity in part by giving myself to simple language, in a child-like way. Doesn't mean I don't retain my own intellectual integrity. But in order to participate int he community, a community that speaks to everyone in a fairly inclusive way, then I participate in the main story.
How it all works - exact theory of atonement - isn't as important to me.
Thanks for that comment RLP. I agree. I wouldn't argue for the death of our Christian language. I have come to like it and I still struggle to speak of God and this transformation process in any other other languague. It feels like home. BUT, I sense our language will soon die because so many fudnamentalists refuse to allow discussion of what the language means and how other language often means the same thing.
People are killing others over differences in language and symbols when they should be sacrificing their lives in order to bring real change.
The other issue is that when the conversation exists ONLY on the surface level of the metaphors, it rarely effects real change and shifts from public to private. As Jim Wallis says, the gospel may be very personal but it was never intended to be private.
Yes, I agree with that. One of the terrible problems with American Christianity is that religions is all a mess of words. Just spit out the right ones in the right order and you're saved.
I don't even know how to get my mind around that kind of thinking.
I truly think a better starting place for Christianity would be falling in love with Jesus via the stories about him and struggling to live like him in a community.
Grace comes in when you fail and need to deal with it. That's kind of the way it was with Jesus and the disciples. Try to obey him and then get his help when you fail.
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