Atonement theology is comfort food for the fearful—filling but hollow. Mary Magdalene’s witness at the Cross reveals a deeper truth: love doesn’t pay debts, it fulfills itself. This scroll dismantles debt-and-payment religion and uncovers the Franciscan vision of incarnation as Plan A—love as the blueprint of creation itself.
Deeply thought out and beautifully written. I am so in agreement with you, Borg, and Bourgeault. I consider it abuse to tell someone’Jesus died for your sins.’ What an unbearable weight! What cheap theology.
The older I get the more angry I get at this aspect of church teaching. First it is as you say very transactional. Second, it was constantly used to distance you from God. The "Look what God had to do to even consider being with you. You have to do A, B, C, etc. to see if you can get God to notice you and consider you for heaven".
Pile of crap theology.
In the mean time, God is screaming on the sidelines, to be seen now and start the work on Love. It is so abominable that any church would try to withhold God from anyone, especially children.
It is abominable that any church would deny the presence of God in the real world for everyone.
I can count on one hand the times I wanted to put into words what I was thinking/feeling/absorbing/experiencing & honestly am struggling to do it. Ask anyone who knows me & they’ll say that’s a lie & impossible - loquacious doesn’t even do my blabber mouth justice. I talk all day out loud and i live alone. I am consciously making an effort to shut up & LISTEN when i ask for guidance instead.
I remember feeling this before & stating it, that this was the best thing I’ve read that you’ve written. Well, maybe you’re just getting even better & I still havent even read every post of yours on here.
So I’ll just say that there wasn’t a single thing in there I disagreed with. As usual, I learned a few tidbits of history (sarcasm, a shitload) I’d never known (or if i did, I’ve forgotten).
I was never moved in church like i was reading this.
I laffed out loud more than once.
I yelled out loud more than once - yes it was profane. Usually cussing is involved when i yell. Or even open my mouth.
And I cried my eyes out more than once too.
I always relished Patty Smith’s “Gloria” with the lyrics “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine”. Courage to sing that.
The first laff out loud was “the cross is my credit score!” I actually would’ve believed it was a thing if you hadn’t said nobody actually does that.
And I just love Magdalene even more than I did before i read it. Loving Jesus & God - well that IS one thing i brought with me from church. Just not in the way I was taught to love them & even having a very different definition of the word “love”.
I’m on an emotional roller coaster right now & don’t even know how to say how thankful grateful moved overwhelmed & touched I am without sounding insincere. But anyone who lies about how they feel about sacred writing i think works for some part of the government….
Atonement, I almost wrote a poem on atonement, I was angry and wanted to tell people that there is not enough time in a human life to atone for some things (genocide, the slaughter of children, mass murder are a few) I never finished the poem, it was too dark. So for some Christians, particularly for those whose personal atonement would need lifetimes, it must be handy to look on the cross as a quick way out of the responsibily for actions, remote atonement if you like. As you have written so well, love is not denial or deflection, it isnt a spiritual slight of hand, it is transformation. Thank you for your wise words.
I’ve never really considered this before. It seems to me that I recall three of Jesus disciples with him during his ordeal. There was his mother, the disciple whom he loved, (John), and Mary Magdalene. If she stayed all night, that might explain why Jesus first appears to her in the garden.
The good news gospel is not that Jesus was able to obtain a pardon from the big judge. It is much simpler. It’s contained in what the angels sang to the shepherds the night Jesus was born. It’s the simple truth that God loves humans. His favor rests on us. He has given us dangerous freedom, but he has not abandoned us and is willing to join us in paying the costs of that freedom.
If my friend commits a heinous act, I may be able to diffuse some of what he has done by assisting the victim, but the real problem here is a lack of repentance, the need for forgiveness and then reconciliation. I may be able to make my friend see his error, but there’s nothing I can do to personally remove the sin. Likewise, I don’t see how what Jesus did can pay the father off. Jesus was forgiving sin before the cross. He showed us how not to retaliate with hatred and violence. He showed us how to trust his Father to make things right. The Father was “in the Son reconciling the world to himself “. I’ve heard it said that if you look at the Father‘s wrists, you can see the same scars.
Jesus was simply showing us who God really is. He came to show us that retribution and sacrifice are no longer needed because that’s not what pleases him. What really pleases him is when we forgive each other and love each other, the way he loves us.
Thanks for lifting up some good alternative perspectives. Going back to early viewpoints, sketchy as they are, it seems to me that early formulations, including "This is my body. . . " and the "Lamb of God," were a window into grace. Paul, surely the great formulator of grace theology, seems to have had an expansive view of grace, ("My grace is sufficient" and "He gives more grace," for example) which can be thought of as a flow of agape love, and an alternative to the empires of wrath. But fairly early his rendering in terms of a heavenly mechanism led to turning the whole matter into a kind of transactional and otherworldly accounting gimmick, as in the Epistle to the Hebrews with its clunky declaration that there remains no sacrifice for an apostate.
My other comment, following on, would be that junk food is still food. Many people have been led by gratitude over Atonement to lives of transformation (there seems no real alternative for Paul), and "he died for me/my sins" is still a window into grace. Even so, clergy and serious laypersons should be able to give a better account of the whole matter. I have not had any pastors preach Substitutiary Atonement since I started attending mainline Protestant churches instead of Evangelical.
Deeply thought out and beautifully written. I am so in agreement with you, Borg, and Bourgeault. I consider it abuse to tell someone’Jesus died for your sins.’ What an unbearable weight! What cheap theology.
VMB - thank you.
The older I get the more angry I get at this aspect of church teaching. First it is as you say very transactional. Second, it was constantly used to distance you from God. The "Look what God had to do to even consider being with you. You have to do A, B, C, etc. to see if you can get God to notice you and consider you for heaven".
Pile of crap theology.
In the mean time, God is screaming on the sidelines, to be seen now and start the work on Love. It is so abominable that any church would try to withhold God from anyone, especially children.
It is abominable that any church would deny the presence of God in the real world for everyone.
OK Rant over...
I can count on one hand the times I wanted to put into words what I was thinking/feeling/absorbing/experiencing & honestly am struggling to do it. Ask anyone who knows me & they’ll say that’s a lie & impossible - loquacious doesn’t even do my blabber mouth justice. I talk all day out loud and i live alone. I am consciously making an effort to shut up & LISTEN when i ask for guidance instead.
I remember feeling this before & stating it, that this was the best thing I’ve read that you’ve written. Well, maybe you’re just getting even better & I still havent even read every post of yours on here.
So I’ll just say that there wasn’t a single thing in there I disagreed with. As usual, I learned a few tidbits of history (sarcasm, a shitload) I’d never known (or if i did, I’ve forgotten).
I was never moved in church like i was reading this.
I laffed out loud more than once.
I yelled out loud more than once - yes it was profane. Usually cussing is involved when i yell. Or even open my mouth.
And I cried my eyes out more than once too.
I always relished Patty Smith’s “Gloria” with the lyrics “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine”. Courage to sing that.
The first laff out loud was “the cross is my credit score!” I actually would’ve believed it was a thing if you hadn’t said nobody actually does that.
And I just love Magdalene even more than I did before i read it. Loving Jesus & God - well that IS one thing i brought with me from church. Just not in the way I was taught to love them & even having a very different definition of the word “love”.
I’m on an emotional roller coaster right now & don’t even know how to say how thankful grateful moved overwhelmed & touched I am without sounding insincere. But anyone who lies about how they feel about sacred writing i think works for some part of the government….
but I’ve been wrong before. 😇💝✝️❤️🩹❤️🔥💕
Atonement, I almost wrote a poem on atonement, I was angry and wanted to tell people that there is not enough time in a human life to atone for some things (genocide, the slaughter of children, mass murder are a few) I never finished the poem, it was too dark. So for some Christians, particularly for those whose personal atonement would need lifetimes, it must be handy to look on the cross as a quick way out of the responsibily for actions, remote atonement if you like. As you have written so well, love is not denial or deflection, it isnt a spiritual slight of hand, it is transformation. Thank you for your wise words.
I’ve never really considered this before. It seems to me that I recall three of Jesus disciples with him during his ordeal. There was his mother, the disciple whom he loved, (John), and Mary Magdalene. If she stayed all night, that might explain why Jesus first appears to her in the garden.
The good news gospel is not that Jesus was able to obtain a pardon from the big judge. It is much simpler. It’s contained in what the angels sang to the shepherds the night Jesus was born. It’s the simple truth that God loves humans. His favor rests on us. He has given us dangerous freedom, but he has not abandoned us and is willing to join us in paying the costs of that freedom.
If my friend commits a heinous act, I may be able to diffuse some of what he has done by assisting the victim, but the real problem here is a lack of repentance, the need for forgiveness and then reconciliation. I may be able to make my friend see his error, but there’s nothing I can do to personally remove the sin. Likewise, I don’t see how what Jesus did can pay the father off. Jesus was forgiving sin before the cross. He showed us how not to retaliate with hatred and violence. He showed us how to trust his Father to make things right. The Father was “in the Son reconciling the world to himself “. I’ve heard it said that if you look at the Father‘s wrists, you can see the same scars.
Jesus was simply showing us who God really is. He came to show us that retribution and sacrifice are no longer needed because that’s not what pleases him. What really pleases him is when we forgive each other and love each other, the way he loves us.
Thanks for lifting up some good alternative perspectives. Going back to early viewpoints, sketchy as they are, it seems to me that early formulations, including "This is my body. . . " and the "Lamb of God," were a window into grace. Paul, surely the great formulator of grace theology, seems to have had an expansive view of grace, ("My grace is sufficient" and "He gives more grace," for example) which can be thought of as a flow of agape love, and an alternative to the empires of wrath. But fairly early his rendering in terms of a heavenly mechanism led to turning the whole matter into a kind of transactional and otherworldly accounting gimmick, as in the Epistle to the Hebrews with its clunky declaration that there remains no sacrifice for an apostate.
My other comment, following on, would be that junk food is still food. Many people have been led by gratitude over Atonement to lives of transformation (there seems no real alternative for Paul), and "he died for me/my sins" is still a window into grace. Even so, clergy and serious laypersons should be able to give a better account of the whole matter. I have not had any pastors preach Substitutiary Atonement since I started attending mainline Protestant churches instead of Evangelical.