The discussion between Graham and Peter about the centrality or otherwise of the cross starting here was running out of space, so I will make this contribution a separate post. Peter’s view is that the cross must be central to our theology; Graham’s response is that in practice this leads to a downplaying of discipleship and ethics. It seems to me that this rather highlights the problem that we typically define ourselves with reference to some part of the New Testament material and with too little regard for the narrative whole and its connection with history.
My argument would be, of course, that the cross is narratively central for the biblical story because it anticipates i) the judgment on God’s people because of rebellion that was finally realized in the destruction of Jerusalem and the slaughter of a million Jews, and ii) the way of suffering that the new community would have to follow (‘if anyone would follow me he must take up his cross’) in order to survive the birthpangs of the new age.
But the cross is meaningless within this narrative, even as an atonement for Israel’s sins, without i) the prior formation of a community that would have the inner spiritual resources to make the transition (this is the significance of Jesus’ life), ii) the resurrection, which represents the new creation life of the community, and iii) the vindication of both Christ and those who took up their own crosses at the ‘coming of the Son of man’ to receive the kingdom from God.
It seems to me that Peter, along with much contemporary evangelicalism, tends (and only tends) to reduce the cross to a personal mystical experience. But there is also a disturbing tendency in much emerging theology either to see the cross merely as the morally and politically heroic consequence of the clash with imperialism or to stop short of it altogether by reducing discipleship to an imitation of the life of Jesus. It is only when we tell the whole story that we really make sense of the various episodes from which it is constructed. And it is only when we tell the whole story that we can really make sense of our own existence as a people who have been blessed because of the faithfulness of Jesus and the community in him that took upon itself the prophetic narrative of judgment, restoration and vindication.
Three strikes and you're out!
Andrew - thank you for stepping in as the honest broker seeking to provide the via media between mutually conflicting and erroneous interpretations of the cross of Jesus! So far I haven’t heard Graham’s view of the cross, and would be keen to find out what it is.
It is very disturbing that when I will have completed this comment, there will be three of my comments in a row in the ‘latest comments’ box, added to one at the top of ‘Other recent posts’. This is a sure sign of the obsessiveness which I so deplore in other contributors, and strongly suggestive that I should take a break - for quite a long time. Famous last words.
Anyway, I just wanted to respond to your threefold breakdown of prior requisites to the understanding of the cross.
The reason why the cross must be central to our view of Jesus reaches into the purposes of the new covenant itself, and the means whereby that covenant was to take effect. That the cross was the means of the new covenant is clear from Jesus’s reinterpretation of the Passover to provide its fulfiment in himself, which was to be accomplished in his shortly forthcoming death.
The new covenant addressed the failures of the old, but the old was in itself only part of a much broader scheme to address the failure of creation. There was therefore really only one covenant, of which the old and the new were different but progressive aspects, which was God’s determination to address sin and at the same time be faithful to his creation. This he did through the cross. Hence its centrality.
i) the formation of a new community was of course the focus of Jesus’s efforts with the disciples. Just as in the Torah there is the divine initiative in rescuing Israel from Egypt and bringing them into the promised land, followed by the requirements which were to be their grateful response to that initiative, so the new Moses sets out the requirements for his followers which were to be their willing response to his corresponding act which took place on the cross - hence Matthew 28:19-20.
ii) the resurrection more than represented the new creation life of the community - it was that new creation life, which became available to the community insofar as they participated in Christ himself by faith.
iii) Jesus was vindicated through his resurrection and ascension - not in some conjectured subsequent eschatological event. Jesus’s prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem and its temple was vindicated in AD 70 - but that’s all.
Actually, there is no must about the centrality of the cross. Anyone is free to interpret things however they want, provided there is some reasonable ground for that interpretation. I am as interested in where interpretations take us as what the interpretations are. The significance attached to a fully realised parousia has, to my mind, all kinds of (posssibly unintended) consequences - which become ever more evident the more I ponder the proposal.
But there we are. Maybe I should stick to playing the Larry Norman L.P.s for a while, as a kind of displacement therapy.
Re: The story of Jesus and the place of the cross
Andrew, I’m not sure that it’s sensible to speak of a narrative’s centre. Climax, perhaps - but the Cross is obviously not the climax of the narrative. Different threads, maybe, with some more "central" to the plot. However, try as I might, I can’t come up with one usage of "centre" that I wouldn’t want to insist belongs to Christ himself, not simply his death on a cross.
Peter, I don’t know that I really have a coherent view of the cross nowadays. I wrote a popular-level piece a couple of years ago, that I would still go along with some of: The Day God Turned His Cheek (or here).
If the cross is, as you argue, the means to the new covenant, this makes it subservient to that covenant. So, on that understanding, the covenant is more ‘central’.
Like you, I am interested in where interpretations take us. This is precisely why I am concerned with statements like ‘born to die’.
Re: The story of Jesus and the place of the cross
I was quite interested that my use of the phrase ‘born to die’ made your ‘blood boil’, Graham (previous post). Sounds quite a violent reaction to me! (Sorry - that was a totally gratuitous provocative remark).
Your outline of a non-violent interpretation of the atonement is along the lines of Gustaf Aulen’s Christus Victor interpretation - in which Aulen claimed to be rediscovering the view of the early church fathers (rather than the ransom theory - incorrectly understood).
It is increasingly popular today, because, as you say, it seems to be more directly related to issues of social injustice and domination structures in society. It also seems to provide great continuity with Jesus’s teaching - as you have said.
It does depend on the idea that violence is the primary manifestation of the human disorder, the primary manifestation of sin. I think this is questionable, and that Jesus came to address, ultimately, issues which were more profound in the human condition, of which violence was just one manifestation.
Also, it depends on a somewhat superficial understanding of the penal substitution theory of the atonement - that justice is satisfied by violence inflicted on one party by the other. Hence violence is ‘institutionalised’ in the Christian system, and we are encouraged to respond to violence by passive suffering -so that it is never adequately addressed.
I don’t agree that the latter follows from the former - or that the atonement, in its penal substitutionary presentation, is actually suggesting that justice is done by violent retribution. However, I have to agree that this is often how it is presented - but I think there is something which radically modifies the simplistic interpretation - even for those who would accept the notion of the need for a satisfaction of justice.
The drastic modification of a simplistic view of penal substitution arises when we consider that Christ changed our view of God to include himself (from almost any way of looking at it - including the narrative/historical perspective). So instead of the atonement encouraging us to think of the moral necessity of retributive punishment and passive suffering, it actually encourages us to look at God taking into himself all the injustice and evil which had been perpretrated by sinful humanity.
I think this is where Christus Victor and Penal Substitution tend to converge - in that Jesus was indeed living out his teaching (in the way you have described), but was doing something rather more profound than giving us an example of how to respond in the face of evil. Also that he was doing something rather more profound than exposing the bankruptcy of evil (interpreted as violent oppression) - though he certainly did that as well.
One has to ask, if the Christus Victor interpretation is taken to be the sole understanding of the cross, in what sense have the ‘powers’ (meaning earthly structures of oppression and violence) been exposed as bankrupt? Presumably by Jesus rising from the dead. So we in turn can face violent oppression with the same hope? But this isn’t doing anything more to undermine the powers on earth than any other atonement theory.
On the other hand, penal substitution offers a more profound understanding of the cross, in recognising that a new order of humanity needed to come into being, by the conclusive end of the ‘old creation’ humanity whose heart was as universally sick as Israel’s. This was realised in the renewed people of God.
My suggestion is that we need to take the best from all the atonement theories, and I think Christus Victor, as interpreted by yourself, is powerful. But I continue to think that penal substitution (as here interpreted) offers a profounder level of understanding, in which sin is not simply viewed in relation to societal injustice, but to a range of disorders arising from the very nature of humanity which we all have in common - oppressors and oppressed alike. I don’t take the view that this way of seeing penal substitution conducts us into an abstract spiritual realm any more than Christus Victor does. It is quite valid to see Jesus’s death both as substitutionary and as an example with which to face injustice and violence.
You will deduce from this that I tend to take the anabaptist position on peace and justice.
In one sense then the cross was a means to an end - the inauguration of the new covenant. But I argue that the cross was and remains the pivotal event, revealing astonishingly and more profoundly than anything else the true nature of God - not as a retributive monster, but as the most self-denying being in the universe, thereby offering the profoundest challenge to human structures and psychology which are based on the promotion of self-interest, to the detriment and damage of the entire creation. The power which was unleashed was more than an example and illustration, however, but was actual and real in the lives of the people of God who took Jesus as Lord.
Re: The story of Jesus and the place of the cross
A good book hitting on all the theoretical points made in this post is The Nonviolent Atonement (Erdmans, 2001) by J. Denny Weaver. He writes from a Mennonite faith tradition. Weaver argues for a Narrative Christus Victor approach to the death of Jesus. I caution that Weaver is not mainstream, according to sources of mine who know both Weaver and are within the Mennonite tradition. The nice thing about the book is that along the way he surveys most if not all of the significant theories on the meaning of the death of Jesus and pulls in Liberation, Black, Feminist and Womanist theologies.
Re: The story of Jesus and the place of the cross
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Peter. I’ll try to keep my boiling to a nonviolent level!
I’m happy to see my position described as similar to Aulen’s CV. However, I would also want to incorporate elements of Girard. I would also tend to ‘politicise’ aspects that Aulen might ‘spiritualise’.
I’m not sure that it would be accurate to speak of [i]Christus Victor[/i] as depending upon a superficial understanding of penal substitution. Popular understandings are rarely as nuanced as academic ones, particularly those of recent years. In fact, I would say that since Forsyth and Barth, what academics refer to as PS nowadays has seen some fairly significant developments.
Your own position would seem to include elements that I think place it on the fringe of PS, at least. To speak of the cross as the self-denying act of God is certainly a more helpful idea than the retributive monster you speak of. However, do we not then move beyond PS into a more Girardian position.
I also wonder what it is that God submits to in this self-denying. Is it an impersonal ‘wrath’ or ‘law’? Or is it an out of control cycle of violence?
Thanks again for your comment. It looks like it’s time for me to go back and read my own article. That’s the danger of putting your thoughts down on paper, isn’t it? Four years later they can seem as embarrassing as looking at family photos from the 80s!