A Refrigerator's Existential Crisis and the Best things You'll Read All Week

Reads of the Week

1) Deciphering Missions by Jamie Wright
"While I was virtually paralyzed by depression and anxiety, I used Missionary Code to turn every innocuous coffee date with a friend into 'discipleship time'. Hours spent circling Facebook were important to 'support development', and everyday interactions with grocery store clerks and bank tellers suddenly became meaningful when referred to as 'intentional relationships'."

2) Everybody's a Little Bit Racist: Why Being Called Racist is Not the Issue by Dianna Anderson
"This understanding of one's own privilege is the baseline for communicating about race, sexuality, gender, and everything surrounding marginalization. Your privilege will give you blind spots. And you don’t get to determine the lengths of that privilege."

3) A Letter to Abercrombie by Micah Murray
"For the sake of everyone that has ever felt marginalized, excluded, or uncool, I wish I could make you eat your words. I wish I could denounce you with righteous indignation. For being so insensitive, so discriminatory, so crassly materialistic. But I can’t. Because if I’m willing to look in the mirror you’re holding up, I’m forced to admit to myself that I’m not as different from you as I’d like to think."

4) Psalm 55 - Betrayed by Registered Runaway
"But a part of us dies too. A part of us remembers that even in the arms of our brothers and sisters in Christ we are not guaranteed goodness. We are not guaranteed love. Protection. Comfort. Christ doesn’t always speak from the pulpit."

5) Is God's Presence Limited to Scripture by Rachel Held Evans
"When we become more committed to the testimony than to the Person to whom it testifies, we are likely to miss the presence of Jesus even when it’s right in front of us. Probably because it took some form we weren’t expecting. Probably because it showed up outside of our boundaries."

Honorable Mention

"We Have A Better Version of the Gospel" [Diversity Repellent] by Christena Cleveland

You Don't Have to Be Good by Addie Zierman

The Problem of Evil is Hanging in Your Closet by Zack Hunt

Line of the Week

"Maybe Mark Driscoll was playing a game of truth or dare ten years ago, and he chose "dare." And, boy, was it a good one." - Jason Boyett (@jasonboyett)

On Pop Theology Week in Review

On Missing the Point: Gatsby, Zero Dark Thirty and Obsession by Ben Howard
"These lessons, the ones that are most difficult to hear, the ones that rock us to our core, are the most important."

Screaming Obscenities: How Derek Fisher is Like Substitutionary Atonement by Ben Howard
"I spent most of last evening screaming obscenities at a middle-aged man for doing an unimportant thing poorly."

Derek Fisher and Atonement Theory: Part Deux by Ben Howard
"It's not that the theory isn't useful, it's that it's being asked to do too much."

Anselm Gets in the Game: Atonement Theory, Part Three by John Thornton Jr.
"We would do well, however, to continually question the games we play, and how we seek to wrangle Christ into them, as well as what rules we use Jesus to validate and what plays we draw up."

Let's All Talk About What We're Tired Of (A Response to Tony Jones) by Lyndsey Graves
"My race, gender, socioeconomic class, regional background, and religion are all aspects of my identity others have used to dismiss me – to disempower me."

Song of the Week

"Comes and Goes (In Waves)" by Greg Laswell

Peace,
Ben 

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Let's All Talk About What We're Tired Of (A Response to Tony Jones)

by Lyndsey Graves

Let’s all talk about what we’re tired of.

I’m tired of being called a racist, too. 

In the nine months I’ve worked at a church food pantry/Sunday breakfast, I’ve been called a racist on at least three occasions, all three times because someone I’d never met asked for something I was holding in my hand and I didn’t give it to them. It was a slap in the face. I felt powerless.

Another thing I’m tired of being called is White Bitch, which is usually my name when I ignore the catcallers on the street in my neighborhood.

I also don’t like being catcalled generally.

I’m tired of waiting in line for food at the food pantry, waiting for the bus, waiting in line at the DSS, waiting for the food stamp line at the farmer’s market, the dirty looks I get when I pull out my food stamp card, and I don’t even feel the half of it because I choose my thrift store clothes so I don’t look poor.

I’m tired of hearing a Southern accent being used as shorthand to imitate a moron.

I’m tired of letting “Pentecostal” slip and having others laugh nervously, or assume that I and the scholars I learned under at a Pentecostal institution are not “in dialog with the older, more developed theologies of the West”. Are there plenty of Pentecostals with a narrow theological vocabulary or whose practice does not span the global history of Christianity? Sure, that’s true of any Christian tradition. But writing off an entire denomination as being “out of touch” is reckless and irresponsible.

My race, gender, socioeconomic class, regional background, and religion are all aspects of my identity others have used to dismiss me – to disempower me.

But usually, unless I am in physical danger (which I don’t think Mr. Jones is), I try to see these incidents, while upsetting, as opportunities. They’re opportunities for dialog (not diatribes) with people who make such hurtful insults or assumptions – and opportunities to live my life in a way that proves their assumptions wrong.

I think legitimate complaints about being called a racist exist; I think I have legitimate reasons to be hurt and defensive against the accusations of racism I’ve experienced. Even in less clear-cut cases, cases in which the accusation of being racist might be true even if I don’t see the ways in which it is, I find long discussions and accusations and nitpicking complaints about privilege can very quickly become tiresome and counterproductive.

But the point is not whether or not Tony Jones’ grievances are legitimate. What his article makes most abundantly clear to me is that he’s not very used to being tired of anything. The overblown tirade of a blog post and the snarly lashing-out against quite reasonable commenters seem like the almost farcical ravings of a man trying to avoid even a moment of self-reflection.

It’s the difference between:

So this is what it feels like to be misrepresented, disempowered, shut down, and talked over.

And:

I’m a victim of your over-sensitive vocabulary-policing progressive privilege!

Hmm.

Incidentally, I do think such privilege exists. I don’t think Jones is actually a victim of it. I think both people he refers to made very good, non-hysterical points that warranted a more humble, self-reflective response than “get off my back”.

But, come on, everybody – if that’s how he feels, that’s how he feels.

 
Welcome to the club, Tony. We’d all love to hear about how you feel marginalized, just as soon as you extend the same consideration to others.

Lyndsey lives and works in Syracuse, NY. She majored in theology at Lee University, which is like eating cake or listening to thunderstorms - too enjoyable to be called work. Also, no one will pay you to do it. You can follow her on Twitter @lyndseygraves and you can find more of her writing at her blog To Be Honest.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.
 
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Anselm Gets in the Game: Atonement Theory, Part Three

This post is the third part of our impromptu series on atonement theory. Check out parts one and two.

by John Thornton Jr.

If I'm reading Ben correctly, what he's saying is this: 

Atonement theology will always be embedded within certain social formations similar to players on a basketball team. Each one will play a role and help the team accomplish what it hopes to accomplish.

I assume that when Ben writes "substitutionary atonement" what he means is "penal substitutionary atonement." I understand the assumption, but I just wanted to clarify because I believe that so long as any understanding of the atonement takes the incarnation seriously, it will always be substitutionary to some extent. Christ acts for us on our behalf and as us in the incarnation, forming a type of substitution in our relation to God.

However, the nature of that relation is the question atonement theory seeks to answer.

A standard penal substitutionary atonement is rooted in the belief that God created humanity to obey certain orders or laws within creation. In sinning, humanity disobeys God, violates those laws, and because God is just, God must punish us as sinners. Christ recognizes this and, as God, takes the punishment that humanity deserved from God. Thus, our accounts are sort of evened out in a way, based on a satisfactory punishment being given out. God's justice has been maintained in giving Christ the punishment that we deserved. 

The resurrection is a bit of an after thought here and Jesus' actual life matters very little. What really matters is that we sinned, broke the law, had to be punished by God, so Christ took our punishment and now we're even.

This theology routinely gets attributed to Anselm of Canterbury; however, it's a bit of a misreading of his work Cur Deos Homo. According to Anselm, God created us for perfect obedience. God gave each creature a "station in life" which it is logical and reasonable for that creature to remain in. Doing so maintains a sort of beautifully ordered, functioning universe. In maintaining the order of the universe by obedience within a station, each creature gives honor to God. God's honor or glory is what holds the universe together. When we as creatures step out of our station in disobedience, we steal honor from God and incur a debt so great that we cannot repay it, but of a nature that God cannot simply forgive it and remain honorable.

Enter Christ.

Christ comes into our world, in our place, as a substitution and offers to God the perfect obedience we could not. When confronted with the God-Man, we could not accept his claims to perfect obedience and his lack of conformity with our understanding of God. As such, the God-man was put to death. By offering his perfect obedience even to the point of death, Christ offers the full obedience humanity owes to God. God's honor is restored and, because every good gift deserves another, God gives Jesus the gift of eternal life. Because Christ is God, he passes that eternal life onto us. Thus we become initiated into a type of gift giving relationship with Jesus and God, through the Holy Spirit.

What I find helpful about this understanding is that it moves us away from a God who punishes Christ instead of us as the only way in which the atonement works or accomplishes our salvation. To be sure, God does punish humanity, but in this model, it is not because of a breaking of laws, but a stealing of honor which may sound a bit weird to us, but has more of a relational dynamic than simply breaking the law. However, what Christ offers on our behalf is not the acceptance of punishment, but full obedience.

Christ does substitute for us in this understanding, but does so by way of offering obedience in a rationally ordered station of life. Christ becomes the obedient slave that we never could be.

All of this sounds really nice in theory and, in a way, it kind of is.

But, to use Ben's basketball analogy, what does it look like "in the game"? What sort of player or life does this view of the world make, and how does Christ function in it? What kind of people does this understanding make us into?

[This is not to say that we are the judge by which atonement functions or falls. Anselm's theology could be absolutely correct in his understanding of creation, nevertheless, it is important to think through what it looks like to carry this theology to its logical end.]

By my reading, there are two small, but very important pieces at work in Anselm that give a glimpse into what this looks like "on the ground."

At one point, Anselm answers an objection as to how humans can be told to forgive when God is the only one capable of forgiveness. His answer is that sometimes God punishes sinners in this world and is good and right and just when doing so. But (and this is key) sometimes that punishment is handed over to entities/powers in the world to carry it out justly. This makes sense in light of some of what Paul writes in Romans. However, thinking through Anselm's own station in life, and the church's position in the world at the time, it takes a bit of a darker turn. The church is standing on the cusp of the crusades. So you're reading this with a missionary/military effort just about to come online, and thinking "Oh right, sometimes God hands authority over to earthly powers to punish people for their sin. And who could do that more justly than the church?"

And remember who it is who deserve punishment - those who have stepped out of their "proper station in life." Those who are disobedient to the proper order of the universe. Muslims, Jews, disobedient slaves within a kingdom. These are the ones who God punishes, and sometimes hands that punishment over to be meted out by those in the world whom he chooses.

Two pages later, Anselm says that when God punishes, he sometimes does so by seizing both people and their property. He makes no mention that this is done by people in the world acting on God's behalf, but that's still hanging around, fresh in the reader’s mind.

What does any of this have to do with Christ?

A good deal actually. This system requires hierarchy. Honor cannot function amongst equals. There has to be some inequality at some point or in some way for something to seem more or less honorable. And what better way to know who to give honor to than by consulting one's prescribed station in life? Slaves, then, must give honor to their master through their obedience and if they disobey, they have to give up their property or personhood to the master.

Jesus Christ, then, in Anselm’s model, does nothing to upend this system of hierarchy. Jesus is a perfectly obedient role player on this team. Jesus Christ says nothing to the slave other than that when they disobey, they dishonor God. To the masters, he reifies their position of hierarchy and sanctifies the whole stratified system by being obedient even to the point of death.

To think about it in terminology a little bit more familiar, Jesus became the perfectly obedient employee, showing up for work every day right on time, and when his co-workers couldn't accept the value he added to the company, they got him fired. This Jesus does nothing to upset a system that might abuse employees. Christ, in this reading, does not confront hierarchies that kill and destroy, or indict them as being anti-Christ or anti-God, but only sanctifies them by his perfect obedience to them.

We obviously will not ever arrive at a stable conclusion of our understanding of the atonement. Christ’s love and life are too expansive and excessive for us to comprehend. We would do well, however, to continually question the games we play, and how we seek to wrangle Christ into them, as well as what rules we use Jesus to validate and what plays we draw up.

I couldn't leave him out entirely.

I was recently at a wedding and during the Lord’s Prayer, the minister said “forgive us our debts, while we forgive our debtors.” She was Presbyterian and apparently that’s how they do it. Meanwhile, the rest of us prayed the word “trespasses” instead of “debts.” After the service, I talked with a few friends about the difference (this is what you do when you and a majority of your friends went to a large Baptist school in Texas and studied religion or philosophy). I made the case for the reading of “debts” for three reasons. 

First, I don’t really know what the hell a “trespass” is. Is God really that concerned with loitering and private property? Second, Jesus talks a lot more about money and lenders and collectors than property owners and trespassers. Third, forgiving debts is a hell of a lot harder for me to do. I believe that Christ’s divinity is a radical challenge to everything I presume to be “normal” about being human. For instance, what would happen to our economy if every person had a credit card with no limit and for which no one would ever expect a return? People would stop showing up to work. People would lose their jobs. Our economy would come to an immediate halt. People would no longer have incentive to work and grow or sell food or water or any of the other things we might need simply to survive. This is the risk involved in forgiving debts and is much more challenging to my everyday existence than whatever “trespasses” might imply.

Again, this is not to say that we are the standard by which the gospel is judged, but it is to say that when we find ourselves on a “winning” team, when we find the things we know to be absolute realities (like prison, and debt, and capitalism, and jobs) to be sanctified and glorified by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we might do well to pause and question what team we are on, what game we are playing, and what it means to proclaim Jesus as Lord. If my life (and the debt and prisons and the armies and the death it takes to sustain it) are not challenged by God’s entering into humanity, then I should certainly pause to reconsider whether or not I am worshiping the right Jesus, the Jesus of Scripture and the church.

God's entering into humanity is an affirmation of love and life through and through in a way that does not necessitate punishment of those who step outside of their station, but rather calls into question our desire to establish those stations, our need to administer punishment in the first place.

John Thornton Jr. is a first year Divinity student at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. You can find more of his writings at Clear Words, Full Thoughts. Also, you can follow him on Twitter @johnthorntonjr.

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Derek Fisher and Atonement Theory: Part Deux

by Ben Howard

Yesterday, I wrote a post about Derek Fisher and substitutionary atonement. To be honest, the real impetus for the post came from the feelings of latent hostility that I hold towards Derek Fisher for his role in the Oklahoma City Thunder's loss the night before. Since I also have latent hostility towards substitutionary atonement (nerd hate!), I thought the two would be a nice pairing.

However, in the comments yesterday my brilliant friend Lane Severson pointed out that while my post had done away with this particular brand of atonement theory, I had left nothing in it's place.

As I pondered the implications of that comment, and tried to articulate my own views on atonement theory (I assume this is what all the cool kids do, right?), a new analogy came to mind with a familiar character at the center.

That's right! It's time for Derek Fisher and Atonement Theory Part 2! When you get the chance to simultaneously discuss a relatively obscure basketball player and nerd out on some theoretical theology, you just can't let that opportunity pass you by.

It seems that replacing substitutionary atonement is almost as difficult as it is to replace Derek Fisher. Come with me as a tell you the story of a magical land called Los Angeles in the mid-2000's.

Derek Fisher was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1996. Over the next eight years, Fisher would be the starting point guard of a team that would win three NBA championships. Fisher wasn't the best player, in fact he wasn't anywhere close to the best player. He was a role player who did his job adequately and quietly.

In 2004, Fisher became a free agent and Los Angeles decided that they no longer needed Fisher and his adequate, but not outstanding play. He left to go play for another team and the Lakers replaced him with...well, they didn't really replace him at all. Over the next three years, the Lakers started the likes of Chucky Atkins, Sasha Vujacic, Jordan Farmar and Smush Parker as their point guard. It's unlikely you've heard of them, and if you have, I'm so very sorry.

Eventually the Lakers discovered that the best replacement for Derek Fisher was Derek Fisher and they resigned him for the 2007 season. The Lakers won two more titles with Derek Fisher being his adequate self on the court every night. And then the Lakers decided to move on and they replaced him with...Steve Blake and the Artist Formerly Known As Steve Nash. That hasn't gone particularly well either.

My point is that while Fisher wasn't a star, and by many accounts wasn't even that good during much of his time as the Lakers point guard, he was the right player for that role. He filled the role effectively and helped his team to function properly. Each time the Lakers decided to move on they found that Fisher was surprisingly difficult to replace.

In A Community Called Atonement, Scot McKnight points out that all of the different atonement theories are useful when they are placed in the correct context. Like Fisher, atonement theory, whether substitutionary atonement, Christus Victor, or any other, is a role player that helps to make the team better.

Perhaps I was too quick to dismiss substitutionary atonement yesterday because it doesn't fill that role for me or for my community. However, just because it isn't the right role player for my team doesn't mean that it can't play a role on someone else's.

There is no Kobe Bryant of atonement theory. There is no superstar atonement theory which answers every question succinctly and drives the theological thinking of everything surrounding it. Maybe that's where my hostility towards substitutionary atonement really comes from. It's not that the theory isn't useful, it's that it's being asked to do too much.

It would be like asking Derek Fisher to be Kobe Bryant. It's impossible and will ultimately wilt under the pressure of being asked for more than it can give.

I may not have a succinct answer to how God saves us, or what precisely the crucifixion or resurrection mean, because that answer can shift on a daily basis. Today it may mean that Jesus died for my sins, and tomorrow it may mean that he was resurrected for my future. Next week it may mean neither, or maybe it will mean both.

We'll just have to find a theory to fit the role. Like Derek Fisher.

Peace,
Ben

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87. 

 

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.

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