Thoughts on Atonement

I never write posts because I have this desire for my blog to be organized, orderly, logical. I have thought about it for a year now and barely added anything because it seems so random to write about the ethics of Batman and then different atonement theories. But alas, I think I need to write, so I will throw those cares into the wind so that I can write... so that I can think.

I have mostly come to a truce with Christianity. In college, I knew that the Christianity of my youth contained certain doctrines that I could not accept if I wanted to remain intellectually honest. So, I have learned how to reject those doctrines while remaining orthodox (at some level) because of my Christian experience. So, I have rejected the wrathful and anthropological God who appears frequently in the Old Testament and occasionally in the New by saying that the Biblical descriptions of God are not univocal but are metaphorical. I have rejected the inerrantist's view of Scripture with all of their ridiculous epistemological claims, but have decided that Scripture is essential as the shared inter-generational, multinational text of Christianity and is inspired when the Spirit chooses to use it to speak to people. And I have rejected heaven and hell as places of reward and punishment, but accept them as the natural consequences of our sinful or godly nature when unrestricted by need and mortality. I have come to love God, admire Christ, pray for the Spirit, submit to the church, and make peace with my mind and the basic tenets of my faith. But there has been one major casuality: the atonement.

The atonement is a theological term that describes the "saving power" of Christ's death on the cross. I do not have any historical qualms with Christ dying on the cross or rising from the dead: I have a hard time explaining or understanding how the cross saves us. The basic Christian answers to this question are all rooted in the philosophical understanding of God and justice I have come to reject. And, having failed to find another way to make sense of the atonement in my philosophical understanding of God and justice, I don't know how to preach or teach about Christ or what Christianity is really all about. This is a problem for a pastor.

Ok, let's put this in the form of a dialogue between a Christian and not a skeptic, but a naive and insightful "seeker."

Christian: Do you know that Jesus died on the cross to save you from your sins?
Seeker: What do you mean "to save me"? I didn't realize I was in danger.
Christian: Well, the Bible teaches that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and that the wages of sin are death.
Seeker: So you mean that Christ died to save me from the effects of my sins.
Christian: Well... I suppose. And to help you stop sinning.
Seeker: Ok, sure. But first I want to think about this idea of Christ saving me from the effects of my sin. Your "wages of sin are death" seems to indicate that I would be immortal if I never sinned. Is that what that means?
Christian: Well, sort-of. I think "death" is really just a nice way of saying "hell." I think the Bible is saying that if you sin, you are headed to hell unless Christ saves you.
Seeker: Why am I heading to hell?
Christian: I already explained that: because you sinned.
Seeker: Yes, I know, I know. But why do sinners have to go to hell?
Christian: That's just how it is. God is a holy God, and He cannot tolerate sin or evil.
Seeker: But He can instantly forgive and cleanse people?
Christian: Yes.
Seeker: So why does He need Jesus to die on the cross to do that? Couldn't God just forgive people whenever He wants to?
Christian: No. You see, if one person sins, they have to be punished unless a perfect sacrifice takes their place.
Seeker: Says who?
Christian: Excuse me?
Seeker: That seems pretty arbitrary. Who decided that one person has to be punished unless a totally unrelated yet perfect other person takes his or her place?
Christian: That's just how it is.
Seeker: How do you know?
Christian: Faith.
Seeker: Ugh. Ok, well, let's think through this intuitively. If one person rapes an innocent little girl, then that person is morally guilty for it, right?
Christian: Definitely
Seeker: So if the rapist's mother had lived a perfect life, and she saw her son was about to be thrown in jail, she could kill herself for his sake and then he would no longer be morally responsible for his behavior?
Christian: Well, no human could ever be perfect.
Seeker: Perhaps that's true, but that's not the point. If she was perfect, would that work?
Christian: I don't know. I think maybe she has to be God, too.
Seeker: I'm just saying that I don't understand why God requires punishment in the first place. Why does He have to just "send" people somewhere? Why can't He just forgive them instantly? Why is He so intolerant of sin? What could possibly bother him so much that He couldn't associate with it? Doesn't that show weakness instead of strength?

(More on this later... perhaps).