Atonement and Cultural Anthropology

In Chapter 3 of “Christology and Science”, Leron Shults works with the interdisciplinary study of theology (specifically atonement theories) and the study of social structures. Our theories about atonement answer the deepest concerns of abandonment and isolation and reflect on how particular cultures understood reconciliation of individuals with their larger communities. The particular rules for atonement have closely followed the social structures surrounding each theologian. Anslem lived in a world of Knights and castles, where honor provided a kind of social glue and the codes of chivalry were the key to maintaining a well-ordered society. Teutonic law required that serfs obey their lords on whose land they were allowed to live. Those who dishonored their lords by breaking a law had to provide a satisfaction to the injured party or be punished accordingly. Anslem formed an atonement theory to fit that world. Calvin’s penal substitution model of atonement continued this line of thinking but wrapped it in a 16th century Genevan jurisprudence. Late modern Christianity has again wrapped this theory in a more familiar metaphor of a modern court of law.

However well we master social rules, however many goods we acquire, our deep longing for loving and just relations with others never seems to be satiated. We are still haunted by the fear of being banished from or suffocated by the social structures of our communities, and so we live in this ambiguous tension that is moral desiring.
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The doctrine of atonement is about a way in which divine justice is manifested in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in such a way that we are now invited to participate within the reign of divine peace precisely by sharing in the loving agency of God that overcomes sin and death. p. 65

Atonement theories developed long before modern science questioned Plato’s theories about substance and form. There is no uniquely human “stuff” out of which we are formed. There is no “human” atomic element. Before we learned this, our early Christian theologians had deeply embedded platonic dualism into the theories of atonement. Most agreed that the human “stuff” had been corrupted at the fall of Adam and Eve, and through Christ, the very substance of humanity had been healed. Some drew from Aristotle’s understanding of the perfect human form and through Christ this form (a definition or meta-human) was corrected. Either way, theologians have mostly accepted these out dated metaphysics and the focus of atonement has primarily been shifted to debates about who receives this atonement and exactly what we can do (or not do) in order to be atoned.

All of these theories hang on the mistakes of substance dualism and a literal interpretation of “The Fall”. Those theories focus squarely on the categories of “us and them” and miss the core of what it means to follow Christ as a means toward reconciliation. The irony is hard to miss. The doctrine of at-one-ment lost focus on reconciliation and union. It became to mean the violent exclusion (and in some theories the endless torture) of the other. Even worse is it’s fixation on individual salvation that results from our modern western individualism. We’ve lost the core message of atonement as reconciliation with community.

The question here is not whether there are (or should be) differentiations but whether a harsh separation between us and them ought to be the driving force behind the Christian doctrine of the atonement. Must soteriology be rooted in a basic negation of the other? Must we define (our) salvation in a way that requires (their) damnation? Is violent exclusion the only way for God’s justice to be manifested? p. 87

Postmodern conversations about atonement tend to have less emphasis on picking a “correct” metaphor to describe atonement, but rather on celebrating the variety of symbolic stories that convey our need for reconciliation. It seems to me that atonement theories have taken so many different forms because there are so many different reasons for separation. Treating all broken relationships with a single metaphorical story of hope would be like treating all illness with a single medicine. We need more than one parable.

Incarnation and Evolutionary Biology

Christian theology has often seen Evolutionary Biology (and science in general) as an enemy, but it doesn’t have to be that way at all. In fact, many of the ground-breaking theological moments have come from embracing new discoveries. Of course, there have been exceptions.

In early modern science the understanding of relation between the body and the soul was deeply shaped by Rene Descartes, who argued for a radical dualism between the (extended) material body and the (thinking) immaterial soul. In Cartesian anthropology, strong distinctions were made among the “faculties” of the soul (the intellect, the will and the affections) and between these soulish powers and the human body.

The sciences of neurobiology, however, have shown how human cognition is deeply rooted in and dependent upon the electro-chemical neural function of the brain. In fact, all ‘reasoning” (and “willing”) emerges out of and is shaped by the “feeling” of the embodied brain. Higher cortical processes depend upon and are regulated by the functioning of various parts of the limbic system, which are linked through the brain stem into the whole energetic network of the body as it responds to its environment. Rationality could not have evolved, nor can it emerge within an individual, apart from the emotional responsivity of the biological organism. - LeRon Shults "Christology and Science" p. 35

Human communication is a complex system of symbolic reference. We associate mental frames (images, symbols, pictures) with physical pictures (letters, words, characters, etc.) Memory is a process of our brains developing a strong signal path from one frame to another. Narratives are the complex web of these frames. Our brains physically change by strengthening those frequent pathways between frames. The strength of these embedded narratives can influence how we then interpret the world around us. It becomes impossible to access a single frame without pulling up the entire web of related frames. Our understanding of humanity is one of those narratives and it shapes how we do theology. It becomes impossible to think about theology without speaking through our understanding of human origins and what it might mean to be a living, thinking organism.

The origin of modern Homo sapiens involved the crossing of a “symbolic threshold.” The conditions for the emergence of this capacity are clearly related to changes in the human brain. It has often been assumed that human plausible explanation for the selection pressure that led to the prefontalization of the brain in hominid evolution is that the brain and language “co-evolved.” Changes in the brain were a direct consequence of the use of words. The first use of symbolic reference by some distant ancestors changed how natural selection process have affected hominid brain evolution ever since. So in a very real sense I mean that the physical changes that make us human are the incarnations, so to speak, of the process of using words. - Leron Shults “Christology and Science” p. 42

It seems that we did not simply develop language as a result of our larger brains. Our brains developed as we began to form symbols and make language. The use of symbols (language) made us more and more uniquely “human”. You might say that humanity has literally been spoken into existence. If our humanity is what happens when words become flesh as a complex web of synapse connections, then it radically changes how we might imagine God becoming man. However, it may only serve to reinforce our use of the metaphor “the word became flesh and dwelt among us”.

Christology After Christmas

In “Christology and Science”, Leron Shults has written an interesting exploration of the doctrine of incarnation. There are elements of this book I like, and some I don’t, but it does what all good books should do; it has me thinking.

The task of reforming Christology will indeed require the reconstruction of previous doctrinal formulations, as it has throughout the church history. Many traditional depictions of the person, work and coming of Christ are shaped by assumptions about humanity and the world that no longer make sense in light of contemporary science. One way of responding to these challenges would be to try and insulate theology from science, defensively maintaining one’s favored ancient or early modern doctrinal formulation. Or one might try to insulate science from theology, defensively reducing the human longing for redemptive transformation to one’s favored disciplinary explanation. Extreme responses are often the easiest. However, the more difficult reconstructive response, which attempts to maintain the integrity of theology while integrating relevant scientific and philosophical insights, will also be more rewarding. p. 1

Shults brings the question of Christology back to the table. Does that scare you? He does this with a faithful recounting of the complex history of theological viewpoints about what it might mean for Jesus to be God, and then by showing the theological connection between those theologians and the science of their day. Since science is always expanding our understanding, theology can’t function well if it remains stagnant in either the ancient world of the bible or the medieval dogma and creeds. The biggest challenge in rethinking the incarnation is the problematic philosophical contribution of substance dualism found in ancient Greek philosophy. Most of the theology we’ve come to embrace surrounding the incarnation demands the acceptance of Plato’s dualistic understanding of the mind and body (or soul and body) as two different substances. This dualism translated directly into what we now know as the two natures of Christ (divine/human or God/man). That way of interpreting Christ may have helped people with an ancient world view, but it has failed to be productive for many people today. In fact, it has created unnecessary tension between faith and science.

Despite their openness to reformulation, most Reformers and early modern theologians did not challenge the underlying anthropological analogy for understanding the relation between the divinity and humanity of Christ, nor the substance metaphysical categories that saturated both sides of the analogy. p. 35

In my experience, the two modern responses to this problem have been to (A) dig further into dualism and fundamentalism or (B) reject the doctrine of Christology and throw away our ancient stories. I think there is a better alternative to those two extremes that honors our ancient stories and also does them justice by reinterpreting them with a current understanding of what it means to be human. This third way understands that parables (mythical stories) are the best way to communicate these transcendent concepts. These stories help us imagine what it might mean to incarnate love, forgiveness, and reconciliation into our own culture using our own understanding of the world. Our ancient stories are limited and any attempt to read those stories literally just shifts our attention squarely on their limits rather than their wonderful transcendent contributions. We can’t abandon our stories. They are the illusive but illuminating word of God.

I'll be posting more as I work through this...

Struggling With Incarnation

Like most kids, I loved Christmas growing up. The smells, sights, and sounds were exciting. My favorite part was the living nativity scene at our church. I remember the sound of my father’s voice as he read the story of Jesus' birth while the characters acted out the scenes. I remember helping gather up farm animals to make the whole thing seem “real” and I also remember the first time I was old enough to play the part of a shepherd. I even remember the year that one of the angels fell off the roof of the church and broke his leg. But I also remember having doubts about the story. Something didn't seem right.

I was taught that the main point of telling this story was to convince people that it really did happen. Belief in Jesus meant believing these things about him. Having faith meant having the inner strength to deny what seemed rational and assert certainty in what seemed implausible. Like many, Christmas was my first encounter with the C.S. Lewis style of false dichotomy that suggests “either it happened, or it is a lie”. I wonder how my religious experience might have been different if I had been shown how a story can be very true without ever actually happening. I wonder how much easier it might be to have peace in the world if we stopped fighting about which one of these ancient beautiful stories "really happened" and began living out their symbolic meanings.

It’s Christmas and today we celebrate the birth of a story. It is a story that never actually happened, but it continues to be true every day all around the world. It is the story of a transforming way of life coming into the world. I’m glad I finally found a way to relate to this story and take part in it. There have been many wonderful progressive theologians who liberated this story from fundamentalism and opened up the notion of incarnation to mean so much more than ancient superstitious beliefs or the bizarre Greek fascination with gods having human children. The Christmas story is a symbolic, subversive, declaration against oppression. Every culture has these kinds of stories, but instead of the typical religious myth about a warrior coming to power through violent victory over their enemy, this community chose to create a story about making peace by loving your enemy, restoring relationships by forgiving unconditionally, and finding strength by giving up your power. Instead of creating a story about overthrowing a single emperor, this story directs us toward methods that could end all empires by stopping injustice and devoting ourselves to peace at all costs (even death). This story invites us to participate in the transformation of this world rather than placing our hope in some future "plan B". This story asks us to direct our attention to the lowest of places rather than the highest palace. This story is about changing the world through a different way of living that rejects the methods of empire. This story suggests that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.

Brian McLaren on the Birth of Jesus

Never mind the low tech quality...this is really great stuff! Enjoy some Brian McLaren Christmas goodness...

Climate Disinformation

Energy companies would like us to think there is confusion about global climate change.

The Search for Knowledge

In the latest weekly address, President-elect Barack Obama took a bold stand for making decisions based on science and facts rather than ideology as he introduced leading members of his science and technology team.

“The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry,” President-elect Obama said. “It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States—and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.”

This is a refreshing change for a U.S. president in the 21st century. Obama is using actual scientists as advisers rather than surrounding himself with oil company lobbyists and former executives from Haliburton and Exxon Mobile. Read more...

HT: Dave Rochelson at change.gov

Obama Knows Best

Amidst all the responses about Obama's choice to invite Rick Warren to pray at his inauguration, it seems Obama does know what he is doing. Today, Rick Warren's church removed anti-gay rhetoric from their site and replaced it with more inclusive language. It may be merely lip service, but it's a step in a better direction. It proves that by treating people with respect we can actually shine a light on their mistakes and give them encouragement to change. I'm not sure that would happen if we simply berate and belittle these kinds of people.

I'm as disgusted as anyone about Rick Warren's comments and his theology, but Obama is simply doing the kinds of things that he promised he would do. Obama took heat for declaring his intentions to speak with bad people BEFORE they come around to his way of thinking. While the Bush administration consistently takes the "pay before play" approach of political negotiations, Obama invites his adversaries to "belong before they believe" in hopes that having a seat at the table will help change their perspective. Obama believes in a better way to handle conflict. In this particular battle Obama appears to be right. Maybe next time we will give him the benefit of the doubt.

Am I an Atheist?

More from Peter Rollins...

Wrestling With Scripture

More parables from Peter Rollins...

The Case Against Civil Unions

I received a few detailed responses in opposition to my recent post on gay marriage. The main thrust of this opposition lies in an attempt to argue against gay marriage by ignoring the constitutional issues and shifting the conversation into the realm of theology. They fixate on what the bible says about homosexuality. The bible also says things about adultery, drinking, and particular dietary rules, but arguing that point is off topic. Those arguing the "anti-marriage" position against gay marriage have shifted us away from a conversation about our constitutional responsibility to provide equality for all citizens. In a last gasp of hope, my responders have evoked a plea for civil unions.

I agree that civil unions would be a step in the right direction, but so was "separate but equal" treatment of African Americans. In the end, "separate but equal" didn't work because it didn't address the underlying stigma and associated discrimination that comes from being declared different, separate, or less valuable by the law of the land. History has shown that separate treatment can't actually result in equal treatment and that type of "separate" status shouldn't be perpetuated by state laws (like those governing marriage). It seems to me that the motive behind this argument is that they feel allowing homosexuals to marry would somehow taint their own marriages in the same way bigots suggested that their lives were tainted by close contact with African Americans.

This is where the civil union argument has completely fallen flat on its face. By recognizing the need to provide equal access, they've acknowledged that their intention has nothing to do with the legality of marriage and EVERYTHING to do with their particular bigoted religious views. They've continued to do their best to move the conversation into a religious emotional frame to avoid the constitutional implications, but individual religious views should not be legislated by our government. Marriages may (or may not) involve religious ceremonies, but we are not talking about those here. We are talking about the legal implications of those state sponsored legal arrangements called "marriages". Marriage is already a civil union no matter if it has a religious ceremony that goes along side it. The religious ceremony is not even a requirement. Simply signing the forms is enough to make a marriage. Therefore, whatever you think marriage is, we should agree it is not religious. The state does not (or should not) care. It is a matter of legal paperwork. It is hard to find a resolution to a debate when the two sides are really talking about different topics.

Here are my questions to those who support civil unions as a "compromise"...

1) By suggesting civil unions are you really meaning to argue for separate but equal treatment?

2) If we follow your logic to completion, should we invent a term that could describe gay American citizens without using the word "citizen"? Should we call them "civil participants" and grant them all the same legal rights and privileges but deny them the use of the actual institution of citizenship? Would declaring homosexuals full use of the word "citizen" taint the meaning of "citizen" when you use it for yourself?

3) If civil union is essentially the same in your eyes as marriage, then why not strike down ALL state sponsored heterosexual marriages and replace them all with the term civil unions. If you are willing to make that compromise, I think I'd agree that it is fair and equal under the constitution. However, at that point, we would have done nothing but waste time and money changing the terminology on millions of forms. It would seem pretty silly.

4) Do we really need to take this baby step by allowing temporary separate but equal laws like we did with the civil rights movements?

More Huckalogic

The second half of Mike Huckabee's visit to the Daily Show is just as interesting as the first.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Mike Hardheadabee

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 1

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

You might think conservatives would learn a few lessons from recent mistakes. There have been many effective phrases developed by the conservative spin masters, but there also are some real stinkers. The neoconservative movement is still clinging to the left over rhetoric of the Ronald Reagan era. That model for disastrous deregulation left us at the mercy of unregulated markets and the policy of tax cuts for the wealthy left us deep in debt. Even faced with the fact that the corpse is rotting and the smell has become unavoidable, Mike Huckabee is still unable to get past simplistic slogans meant to divide and lead people away from the truth. I'm surprised to hear the same mentality all over again.

Hopefully, America has moved past the tendency to be swayed by these silly slogans. People were drawn in by slogans like the infamous "Government is the problem" and "Drill Baby, Drill". How could less government control be the solution to unregulated markets run a muck? How can more oil be the solution to our oil addiction? Why should Americans elect government leaders who don't think government should actually do anything?

Thank you Jon Stewart for cutting through the crap. Huckabee seems like a nice guy but it is obvious that he won't entertain reason, even in a friendly dialog. He'd rather just shut down and fall back on his canned rhetoric.

A Better Case for Gay Marriage

Newsweek took on the Gay Marriage issue this week and proved once again that progressives usually don’t know how to play the political game well. It also proved that the media seems out of touch when it tries to talk about religion. The Newsweek article was good and I liked it, but it makes the mistake of arguing for Gay Marriage from within the conservative framing story. By discussing gay marriage in the same breath as the bible, you’ve subconsciously invoked the religious frame. You've hinged the whole debate on the bible's verdict on homosexuality. That may be a good case among theologians, but it isn't one you'll win in public opinion. Newsweek has made two key mistakes. First they reinforced the conservative idea that government has a role in dictating morals. Then they made the mistake worse by trying to tell conservatives their religious views are not biblical and their most heralded theologians interpret the bible wrong. Progressives will not make a dent if that is their approach. Regardless of how nice you are, you can’t tell someone their religious authority structure is wrong (and has been wrong for 2000 years) and expect them to listen to what you have to say. The conversation is over at that point. There has to be a better approach than trying to convince Christians that homosexuality is not a sin.

This conversation should be held inside the progressive framing story. It should be discussed as an issue of upholding the integrity of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution is built for these kinds of debates. It cuts right through the religious rhetoric and emotional partisanship. Debates held within this frame provide a much different tone. It isn’t about moral correctness of homosexuality; it is about equal access to privileges, tax advantages, and even social financial guarantees (like social security) granted by the state. In this frame the progressives, conservatives, and libertarians become strange bedfellows (pardon the pun) as they all seek to honor the integrity of our Constitutional freedoms. Inside this frame the conversation is about applying the same treatment to all people. Now we would need to consider if our Government should give ANY preferential treatment to people based on marital status (either gay or straight). This Constitutional argument would suggest that either the state gets out of the marriage business completely or else it applies the rules equally to all citizens. Conservatives would be faced with the tough choice of ending their own state sponsored marriages or allowing gay’s access to the same rights and privileges that their marriages provide.

Gay Marriage is another case of conservatives clearly setting the frame for the discussion, and progressives fighting hopelessly to negate the emotionally charged conservative argument by fighting on their turf. Instead, progressives should be making their own case in their own frame using their own emotionally charged language about liberty, justice, and Constitutional integrity. Making the case that everyone deserves the same rights and privileges despite religious views or sexual orientation is a much easier argument than trying to convince Christians that the bible approves of gay marriage and their pastor doesn't understand the bible.

Open Government

Obama's transition team is giving us access to look inside the transition process. If you haven't visited change.gov lately, then it's worth your time. Here are just a few of the things you can find:

• Recap of daily meetings about policy


• Interviews with new staff members and appointees


• Weekly addresses from the president-elect


• Agenda items for his staff


• Innovative ways for individual involvement

Improving Evolution Education

"The results are in, and they’re not pretty. The United States leads Western nations — all 30 of them — in ignorance about evolution. We have a higher percentage of citizens who don’t accept evolution than any other developed country does. Oh … except Turkey. The reason why these two countries are on top (or at the bottom, as the case may be) is that they have more fundamentalists than other countries. The only difference is that Turkey’s are Muslims and ours are Christians." - Kevin Padian

Read the whole article...

In the following video, Padian gives a wonderful explanation of the larger problem of fundamentalism and it's error of "revealed truth that is not subject to investigation". More importantly, he goes on (in the full length interview) to dispel the myth that science is the 2nd side of the same modern coin as religious fundamentalism. There is this tendency that I often hear in Emerging (post-conservative) Christian discussions to lump scientists into the modern problem of overt certainty. I struggle with that tendency because I don't want Emerging Christianity to simply become a return to pre-modern naivety and superstition (i.e. a new form of fundamentalism). I love how Padian describes uncertainty and doubt in science without grasping for the crutch of supernatural intervention. I see an opportunity for a robust marriage of faith and science to emerge. Evolution education and discussion may be a great place to start. It is good to see churches having this discussion.


HT: James McGrath

Prop 8 Musical - Jack Black as Lord and Savior

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Birth

"The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Birth" is a wonderful look into the story of Jesus by two of the world's best known Jesus scholars, John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. This book came out last Christmas so many people have already read it, but I really enjoyed a recent interview with Dr. Crossan on Tripp Fuller's Homebrewed Christianity podcast. Tripp allowed me to submit a question for Dr. Crossan and I thought the answer was very interesting. Thanks for reading my question Tripp!

Whenever Christianity feels too goofy and I get to the point of giving up, I look to Crossan and Borg. They make Christianity make sense even when mainstream Christianity appears to be going insane.

Advent Conspiracy