Reflection on the FSU Shooting

I study and teach at Florida State University and the shooting that occurred on Thursday morning has caused quite a reaction in my community.

Public tragedies are pictures of both the best and worst of human nature. At once, we have both terrifying acts of violence placed directly beside breathtaking displays of unity as communities band together for support. This unity is often awe-inspiring and hopeful as if we are standing up to a tyrant whose name is fear or sadness proclaiming we won’t be subjugated or defeated.

It is in these moments that the importance of community cannot properly be captured in words.

Yet, perhaps equally a part of human nature, it is in these times of tragedy that we seek explanation. We want reasons and answers to our questions. We want to know patterns so we can make sense of what seems absolutely random. And it is here that we have the potential to slip into an old pattern of explanation that might cause more damage than good.

We need to moderate our language about this shooting. And this is going to sound strange, but we need to release God from the responsibility for things he had nothing to do with. We need to accept our own agency and our own responsibility for the things that happen in this world, even if that means sometimes we are subject to seemingly random acts of violence or luck.

There is a story and pictures going around of a student who was targeted by the shooter but had the bullet stopped by the books he had just gotten at the library. Thank God he is alive and uninjured. But he said, “The truth is I was almost killed tonight and God intervened.”

This is a devastating claim to make. God stopped his bullet but not the others that injured three students and killed the shooter. Why do we think that? There are many problems here.

And this line of thinking goes further. God becomes responsible for all tragedies. Either she did or did not stop people from dying. God saves some and not others.

We are giving God responsibility for things he is not responsible. We, human beings, make decisions. We do things, either because of decisions or circumstances or whatever. But we do them. Not God.

Yet God is still present. God is present in all things and THIS is exactly where we should be finding her!

God was present in that library long before the shooter arrived. He was present in the doors that were being opened in the minds of those students as they discovered knowledge. God was present in the hard work and determination of kids burning midnight oil to finish their work. God was present in the laughter and joy that was broken by the gunfire. God was present as students worked together to ensure the safety of one another. God was present in the just application of force to keep the shooter from hurting anyone else. God is present in the tragedy of the loss of human life, watching over her creation as a loving Father does.

And God is most certainly present in the comfort and strength we give one another. God is here. Always. Forever.

But God is not, and was not, a puppet master, saving some and not others, pulling strings on some divine whim that we cannot understand or fathom. God resides not only in experiences on the edge of our lives, guiding a shooters hand towards some and not others. God resides at the center of our lives – in our happiness, our comfort, our joy, our pursuit of knowledge, our community.

Let us thank God we are alive and that this tragedy was not as bad as it could have been. Let us remind each other that our lives are temporary and we should take solace in our community. Let us pray God will comfort those most impacted by this tragedy. 

Why Defense of the Faith Destroys Faith

My bookshelf has five or six books about the “defense of the faith” in which the authors attempt to assuage the doubts of the readers and prove, once and for all, to the critics that Christianity is not only a reasonable faith to have, but the only reasonable choice to make!

These books disgust me.

I remember when I was an undergraduate, starting my career in religious studies, and feeling like my back was against the wall in the classroom. I had been warned when I was a young Christian in middle and high school that I would go to college and my professors would try and destroy my faith. So I read these books and practiced the defense in my head. At the instance that one of my professors cast doubt on the doctrine I had been taught in Sunday School, my hand would shoot into the air with an answer pre-packaged from my books tumbling out of my mouth. And I would leave class feeling gratified that I had stood stalwart in the face of those who mean to destroy Christianity.

But as I practiced these answers in my head, I found that I was actually battling my own doubt – a doubt that was based on my own experience and reason. I was attempting to shape my faith in God into something someone else told me it was supposed to be. It was exhausting. And I found myself being a person I didn't like. After all, I read the Bible on my own; I studied it. I kept a notebook full of questions and observations that I made. And these questions, often times, were the same questions that professors and scholars were asking.

I wasn't being honest with myself. And I wasn't being honest with what I thought the Truth of God might be.

Why did God endorse slavery? Why did God require genocide? Does that mean those things aren't intrinsically wrong? How do I reconcile dramatic changes throughout history and the way that we make moral decisions? Would God really eternally reward terrible people who believe in him and eternally punish beautiful good-hearted people who struggle with assenting to that belief? Does God really answer prayers to help American Christians find their car keys but not save thousands from a tsunami? What do I do when my experience and reason contradicts Christian dogma and the Bible? Is God’s truth bigger than Christianity? How do I deal with an evil Church (not just imperfect, but evil)? If certain parts of Christian history were proved inaccurate, does my faith in a living God go away?

The problem I had with these books and this entire area of Christian discipleship (labeled “apologetics”) is that it wants to say that there are answers to these questions and those answers are CERTAIN. Not only can we have faith in these answers, but there ARE NO OTHER ANSWERS. They believe, and teach, that good Christians can and will be certain about these answers. There is no room for dissent. Otherwise, it is an “attack on the faith.”

But there is no “the faith.”

There is my faith. And there is your faith. And there is our faith. But there is no one “The Faith” to which we all must attempt to wall ourselves into.

I was recently speaking with an undergrad in my class and she was relating similar feelings as I had of constantly being on guard and on the defensive against professors who want to destroy “the faith.” And I was part of a lovely book club that read a book by a prominent anti-religious intellectual where several of the Christian members said they had a knee-jerk reaction to defend Christianity against his attacks. My first reaction to both was, “Why?”

I've been there and it’s exhausting trying to adopt a faith that isn't my own. My faith must be built on my answers, my reasons, my experiences of the living God and the world she created, and my understanding of the holy texts.

Eventually, I realized those questions I had (see above) needed to be answered and they needed to be answered in light of the Truth. And if Truth existed, I needed to find it on my own and not take people’s word for it. I realized I had been defending this Truth (or what I thought it was) from these questions. To do that, I had my back turned to Truth and stood in between it and the questions, attempting to deflect those attacks. My eyes weren't on the Truth; my back was turned to it. So I stopped. I let the questions fly by and I lobbed some of my own.

If Truth exists, it can defend itself. It doesn't need me to defend it.

In this, I realized that the things I had been taught (as “truth” or “the faith”) was really just a bunch of stuff built onto Truth. (Or in place of it.)

But Truth, the Truth of God, is elusive. We can never be certain of it. That, after all, is the key to faith! “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” (John 20:29)

Embrace your doubt! When you hear someone casting doubt or aspersions on Christianity, don’t turn your back on the Truth. Let those questions become your own and let them break away the pieces of your faith that someone else built up onto it.

It isn't our job to defend God and Truth. But, as Christians, it is our job to seek him and his Truth.

If you do this, I think you will find it is freeing. You get to live your faith, not someone else’s.

Ferguson and the Constitution: Being a Second-Class Citizen.

This is an American citizen aiming his gun as protesters gather around the base camp for the Bureau of Land Management near Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Nevada in April of 2012.

This is an image of two American citizens participating in “open carry” in Texas in December 2013.

This is the police in Ferguson, MO, mobilizing against the citizens as peaceful protests involved riots and looting overnight during the first weekend after the killing of Michael Brown. 

When I see the reactions people are having to the protests in Ferguson, MO, I can’t help but think of the first two images, the armed protest against the Bureau of Land Management for Cliven Bundy and open carry. And I can’t help but think of all the reasons we have heard over the past two years about why the Second Amendment is so imperative for our democracy. And I can’t help but be appalled by the hypocrisy of it all.

An individual's right to arm and protect oneself is sacrosanct by many in this country. That right is often buttressed by its enumeration in our Constitution and the notion that it provides a limit to the executive powers of our government. In essence, our self-armament ensures the freedom to criticize the government, in particular its executive action - the law enforcement. As someone who disagrees with this right, I can only surmise that the protection to possessing lethal force as a counter-measure to an overbearing state ... well... necessitates the intent to use that lethal force when and if the time comes.

Cliven Bundy and the protesters that supported him provided a very ostentatious show of force. They brought their guns. They invited the press to take pictures of them with their guns. And those guns were aimed at the Bureau of Land Management, the executive branch – the law enforcement. And they were called patriots by many for doing this.

The people of Ferguson felt that the killing of Michael Brown was the final straw in a long string of violence against their community by the police. They feel an overbearing state that does not enforce a law designed to protect their rights. So they engaged in the most sacred right of our democratic nation, voicing grievances - in this case protest. They did not, however, take advantage of the second amendment to take up arms. They did not arm themselves. They did not show guns. They did not invite the press to take pictures of their arsenals. They did not wear legal assault rifles on their backs.

Some within their ranks broke laws, certainly, but it still isn't clear who, how, or what caused those instances. They did not attack law enforcement. They did not brandish guns. They did not do the very thing the Second Amendment was purportedly designed for. They did, however, take advantage of their First Amendment rights (the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances), which it seems to most – including the journalists present in Ferguson – was responded to with an extreme show and then use of force.

I guess my confusion and question is: when is it necessary to defend your rights against the state, even in a lethal way, and what about the Ferguson situation has not met that standard? What did Cliven Bundy do or have done to him that those in Ferguson did not?

I mean, can you imagine if the citizens of Ferguson armed themselves like the first two photos? Can you imagine if they used the language of “refreshing the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants?” Can you imagine?

This is what it means to be a second-class citizen. Do black people have Second Amendment rights? Do they even have First Amendment rights?

Reactions to the Hobby Lobby Case

On June 30^th, the Supreme Court ruled that the family-owned, multi-million dollar corporation Hobby Lobby does not have to provide contraceptive coverage as part of the healthcare package to their employees despite the Affordable Care Act. This decision was made under the legal reasoning that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) grants accommodation for those who are substantially burdened by law (so long as certain other requisites are met – see a previous blog explaining this).

This ruling was poorly made. It does a great injustice to common men and women of conscience, regardless of their official faith credo. Nevertheless, it is a great opportunity to discuss and correct the ways we consider legal justification for rights in this country.

I have given my own take on some of the problems with this case in a previous blog. Rather than rehash those same concerns, I thought I would take a different tack by instead focusing on the reasoning and rationalization that some folks sympathetic to Hobby Lobby have been using.

Here are some common reactions I have been hearing:

“Those drugs abort fetuses.”

Or, perhaps put less dramatically, “Hobby Lobby simply doesn’t want to pay for drugs that cause abortions.” Either way, this reaction offers a reasonable position on its face IF this were actually the case. In reality, the four drugs (Plan B, ella, and 2 IUDs) Hobby Lobby and Conestoga are “religiously opposed to” DO NOT produce abortions.

Dr. Ron Hammel, senior director of ethics for the Catholic Health Association in the US once said, “"One of the well known truisms in ethics is that good moral judgments depend in part on good facts." There has been a considerable amount of research that has gone into learning how contraceptives work, especially these four, and the newest research has been showing that they do not interrupt established pregnancies or inhibit implantation. There are articles – some by credible news sources, some by Christian publications – that discuss this research here, here, here, and here.

As Dennis Sullivan, director of Cedarville University's Center for Bioethics who has recently peer-reviewed much of the research for publication says, "Our claims of conscience should be based on scientific fact, and we should be willing to change our claims if facts change."

Nevertheless, I can imagine some people would still feel wary. I can appreciate that. I would warn those folks to abstain from using those forms of contraceptives if they feel this way. But to limit another person’s legal rights, the moral reasoning required must be stringent! Limiting another person from partaking in a universal entitlement due to our idiosyncratic or sectarian beliefs should be done only in the direst of circumstances. Having no scientific evidence to validate personal fears of material complicity hardly even comes close to meeting those requirements.

“No one is being denied access to those four drugs.”

This is a straw-man argument. No one is proposing that Hobby Lobby is taking away their employees’ legal right to purchase and use those drugs. This misrepresents the problem and misdirects our attention from what should actually be considered.

The ACA, like it or not, created healthcare coverage as part of a compensation package to be a universal entitlement. It was determined by the Supreme Court to be a legal and constitutional regulation. These four drugs were included in the compensation package as a free benefit at the urging of medical and public health professionals who concluded (with data) that by removing costs as a barrier, more women and families would be able to make different contraceptive and family planning decisions that align with their medical needs and life situation, not financial constraints, the benefits of which are long-reaching and should be something we can all intuitively appreciate.

Therefore, Hobby Lobby’s request for religious accommodation is to remove these four drugs from the universal compensation package. These employees, then, are being denied a portion of their compensation and a universal entitlement because of the particular religious beliefs of their employer. This is a fairly simple scenario to analogize.

Using other compensation packages as universal entitlements:

Imagine your boss is Amish and doesn’t want to pay extra for overtime or holidays. Fair?

Imagine the boss of a construction company belongs to a religion that believes wind spirits will protect everyone so he doesn’t purchase hardhats or safety cables. However, he does allow the employees to make those purchases themselves if they like. Those costs run equal to one month’s salary. Fair? Good? Moral? Reasonable?

Then there are the analogies within this particular compensation package about medical procedures and medicines that are considered immoral to many other religions.

The problem is not that the women are being denied access to those four drugs, it is the question of why an employer’s religion is a significant enough reason to deny particular employees a universal benefit? It, effectively, imposes a pay cut or cost on the employee according to their employer’s religion, which is particularly significant if that cost endangers their employee’s life and well-being, which contraception absolutely does.

“The owners of Hobby Lobby should not have to pay for something they find morally objectionable.”

This is by far the most legitimate reasoning. I am sympathetic to this kind of dilemma. I don’t think many people would straight-up object to this rationalization as irrelevant to moral concerns, but this concern is not absolute over all other moral concerns. And that is the key issue, here!

For example, I find lethal military intervention morally objectionable, but I am still required to pay taxes which support them. The public welfare, humanitarian intervention, and government efficiency are often moral concerns which override my individual moral and religious objections to the use of lethal force. And I have to accept that. Religious liberty buys me no accommodation.

Or think of the common examples of a business owner who doesn’t agree with life-saving organ transplants. Or blood transfusions. Or psychiatric medications. Or vaccinations. These are the kinds of life-changing procedures or medicines that were deemed worthy of being indiscriminately offered to all for a reason. The moral concerns were significant!! Reverting back to making them subject to the self-reported moral objections of employers goes against the moral calculus that was deemed constitutional just two years earlier.

In many ways, this goes back to the previous answer in that they are not “paying for the contraceptives” but are “offering a compensation package” which includes free access to those things. That seems like a semantic difference but it is at least as important as the distinction between handing an employee money which they use to buy an IUD vs. offering them a healthcare package which includes the free use of an IUD.

Hobby Lobby is saying they bear moral complicity only when it serves them legally. This is inconsistent and myopic. It fails the rigorous sort of ethical analysis required if those in power wish to deny their workers a benefit universally granted to every other worker in the US. That should be a high threshold to meet and this reasoning has consistently been deemed subordinate to the moral concerns of the general health and welfare of all, equality in the workplace, and rule of law.

“Hobby Lobby provides coverage for 16 of the 20 contraceptives.”

This is the strangest rationalization I have heard so far. It rings to the tune of “You should be happy with the freedom we gave you!”

This analogy is imperfect but here goes: Imagine if every store in the Southeastern United States decided they will not sell handguns to women. Their defense: “We would be happy to sell women any other gun, just not the handguns.” The response would probably be confusion. And some kind of 2^nd Amendment firestorm.

This is a horrible rationalization. Please stop using it. If a woman and her doctor decide the best treatment for her is one of the four contraceptives Hobby Lobby isn’t covering, the other 16 are hardly a consolation.

“A businessman should be able to run his business as he pleases.”

This is perhaps one of the more dangerous rationalizations I hear because it is both true and very untrue. Yes, businessmen are given a lot of leeway on how they run their companies. This is why people move jobs and love or hate their bosses. But we have universal regulations (as well as regulations per sector) that all employers are obligated to abide by which are imposed by the government as our collective agent. And these regulations are largely in place for the safety and welfare of the public. They are also widely lauded and protected.

For instance, a businessman can’t fire a woman for being pregnant. A businessman can’t hire children. A businessman must pay workers a minimum wage and additional compensation for working on holidays and over 40 hours per week. A businessman must provide break periods and food intervals. A businessman must abide by basic safety regulations. A businessman must pay both personal taxes on his income and taxes on the income of his business.

A for-profit businessman has the legal protection from liability of incorporation. This is what sets businesses apart from their owners as individuals as well as from non-profits and churches. Blurring this line in some naive attempt to “let a businessman run his business” is a dangerous step away from those distinctions and their incumbent protections.

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The Supreme Court rules on existing law and we live in a democracy. Our voice is not lost on this issue. RFRA was a law passed because the public was outraged by the Supreme Court’s decision in Employment Division v. Smith.

It is our responsibility as men and women of conscience to consider the implications of a corporation having rights of faith requiring accommodation from law and petition our government to remedy the grave error that has been done through this ruling.

Gay vs. Greed - Taking the Bible Seriously

Here is a quote from a conservative Christian radio host regarding the hot-button issue of LGBT inclusion:

“Without a doubt, this issue will become a great dividing line in the Church, and I for one welcome it, since it points to a much deeper divide in our approach to God, His Word, and the people He wants to redeem. Ultimately, it will separate those who put God first and ask, "How can I fulfill His desires?" from those who put themselves first and ask, "How can He fulfill my desires?" (Although some will take extreme offense to this statement, if you analyze the major "gay Christian" arguments, they often boil down to this perspective.)”

I have highlighted several different areas we will return to.

But first a story.

The setting: A balcony at night. A dear friend and I are smoking Black and Milds. I had just returned from the Peace Corps and he was visiting from Central America, where he lives and does humanitarian work. He is taller than I am (so you can accurately picture the scene). We are talking about being back in the States. He is leaving the next day to go back home. Both him and I came from pretty conservative Christian backgrounds. We both have a deep and abiding concern for the poor. And we both want very badly to live a life that shows that concern and makes a real impact on that front; we want to fight the losing battle.

He looks at me and says, “Tonight, at the bar, I spent the same amount of money on drinks that could feed a family for a week back home.” I don't remember hearing any particular emotion in his delivery. He said it just like a fact. It was a fact.

Another fact: There are 31,102 verses in the Bible. And only six or seven mention homosexuality. Well… actually… not really. “Homosexuality” is an English word and the Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek. Also when we say or read “homosexuality,” the idea of what that means to us is much different than what same-sex relations looked like in the first century or before.

I don't want to get too esoteric but there is a hidden charge (although increasingly explicit as per the quote above) that those of us who are for LGBT inclusion don’t take the Bible seriously. This is false. This is very false. I believe in LGBT inclusion precisely BECAUSE of the Bible, not despite it. I have read hundreds of pages of scholastic work on the issue from all different sides and have studied the issue. My opinion on this is well-informed and not taken lightly. Those who simply read the word “homosexuality” and think that means the same thing back when it was written as it does now are the ones not taking the Bible seriously. So, let’s talk about what the Bible says about “homosexuality.” (Prepare yourself; it’s about to get a little technical.)

Scripture on Gay

Here are two verses in the New Testament that are quoted ad nauseum in order to “prove” that being gay (or engaging in the gay lifestyle) is a sin.

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Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. – 1 Corinthians 6:9 (I included verse 10 although it is often omitted.)

This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me. – 1 Timothy 1:9-11 

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I have highlighted two English words, one in orange and one in blue. The New Testament transcripts were written in Greek, therefore, must be translated into English. In translating the words, it is helpful for us as laypeople (neither linguistics nor Biblical scholars) to see both how this word was translated throughout history as well as how it was used in other extant sources from that time. So let’s do that.

The original Greek word that we see translated (NRSV) as “male prostitutes” is malakos. It is translated in other versions of the Bible as: effeminate, sexually immoral, homosexuals, homosexual offenders, homosexual perversions, those who practice homosexuality, men who lie with males, and corrupt.

This word is actually used three times in the New Testament and many other places outside of the Bible. It means “soft” – as it is used the other two times in the New Testament to refer to clothing. In other non-biblical locations it is used to describe delicate food or the lightness of a breeze. In moral contexts, it was often understood as “soft,” such as “laziness, degeneracy, decadence, lack of courage, or, to sum up all these vices in one ancient category, the feminine.” (source : Martin)

This is where the history of the translation of that word gets a bit hairy. For centuries (from at least the 15^th century, perhaps before, until the 1960s), this word malakos was translated as “effeminate.” Then, without reason or explicit logic, the English translation took a turn to start describing the word as “homosexual” or some variant of other sexual immorality.

This concept, “effeminate,” is often boiled down to the act of being penetrated, which is a gross over-simplification. As I said, the word was used quite often in historical literature and it is much more indicative of the horrifying misogyny of the time period. Femininity was something to be avoided in a general sense, not just sexually. While women were “penetrable,” the word was more often used to describe someone as lazy, worthless, weak, or as a coward. In fact, it was used to describe men who loved women TOO much (what we might describe today as “whipped”), even when compared to those who had homosexual relations (because to be “whipped” by another man is less emasculating than to that of a woman).

The second word I have highlighted – translated (NRSV) as “sodomites” – is arsenokoitos. Other translations have it: sexual perverts, boy prostitutes, catamites, male prostitutes, homosexual prostitutes, lechers against kind, use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it.

This word is far more complex and difficult than the last word. Malakos was used quite often and was even used elsewhere in the Bible. However, these two instances, in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, are some of the only remaining documents that use arsenokoitos from that time period, making its translation even that much more imprecise. However there are a few documents that use this term, albeit a bit later, that help us surmise some kind of context in which this word was used within an ancient context.

Judging from the context of these later documents, arsenokoitos did have some kind of meaning in the Greco-Roman world that is more specific than simply “homosexual penetration.” It is found in several “vice lists” (a common rhetorical tool of the time) but it is in the section of economic and exploitive vices/sins, not the overtly sexual lists. Philological and biblical scholars will admit that no one can know exactly what the word meant, but based on the contexts in which it is found, it refers to some kind of economic exploitation by means of sex (perhaps including homosexual sex but not limited to that). This could include: “rape or sex by economic coercion, prostitution, pimping, or something of the sort.” As Biblical scholar Dale Martin of Yale University wonders: “Why some scholars are certain [arsenokoitos] refers to simple male-male sex in the face of evidence to the contrary” shows that “ideology has been more important than philology.” (source : Martin)

There is also a broader problem that EVEN IF we could absolutely determine that translating these words to mean “homosexuality” is justified, the meaning of that word in the 1^st century or before is undeniably different than the meaning of that word today. The Oxford Classical Dictionary tries to unravel this problem in the opening of its section on homosexuality:

“No Greek or Latin word corresponds to the modern term ‘homosexuality,’ and ancient Mediterranean society did not in practice treat homosexuality as a socially operating category of personal or public life. Sexual relations between persons of the same sex certainly did occur (they are widely attested in ancient sources), but they were not systematically distinguished or conceptualized as such, much less were they thought to represent a single, homogeneous phenomenon in contradistinction to sexual relations between persons of different sexes. … The application of ‘homosexuality’ (and ‘heterosexuality’) in a substantive or normative sense to sexual expression in classical antiquity is not advised.”

Further complicating our translation problems, both of the word itself and the concept as a whole, are the moral differences between homosexual activity in each historical context. Homosexuality in our modern period has taken a comparable form to heterosexuality – love, intimacy, marriage, and raising a family. While in the past, homosexuality might have prominently included behavior like pederasty, cults, temple prostitution, orgies, rape, etc. While there is evidence of committed homosexual love in the ancient period, it most certainly was not the norm. In the end, the significant differences to our understanding of personal identity, sexual expression, and the norms of intimate relationships are so dramatic that to make complete analogical comparisons without disclaimer would be disingenuous and populism of the worst kind.

Scripture on Greed

In keeping with the theme from my last blog, I believe modern Christians have forgotten the prominence “greed” plays in the Bible and have relaxed our moral consciences from the sacrificial lifestyle Jesus calls us to.

Performing some kind of word study on “greed” in the Bible is an entirely different animal. For one, the instances that the word “greed” comes up are much too frequent to go through. Secondly, greed in the Bible is encased in a much larger theme than simply a sinful action or motive. The Bible is very explicit throughout its entire canon that the responsibilities and duties we have towards ensuring a dignified existence for our neighbors, especially the poorest, is paramount. The Bible includes examples, and even edicts, of the world’s most radical social policy in scheduled debt forgiveness, manumission of debt-slaves, open food policy, and “common purse” communities.

Nevertheless, I do want to touch on a few of the important points that our spiritual ancestors made through the Bible regarding greed and our duties to the poor.

The Greek word used most often in the Christian canon for “greed” is pleonexia, which literally can be broken down to mean “have more.” This doesn’t necessarily imply its exact meaning but it is clear (through usage) that the meaning did connote some kind of covetousness – therefore some kind of wrongful desire.

The problem that most people get hung up on is how desire is determined as wrongful? What constitutes greed or covetousness? Is it simply wanting more than you have? Wanting more than you need? Wanting an extravagant amount more than needed? Coveting what others have? Coveting more in order to be like others? Does it incorporate neglect of the needs of others? Where does need end and greed begin? These are difficult questions and there is plenty of room for every individual to struggle deep within their own conscience.

Greed is not just about one’s possessions – as if there is some threshold that one crosses. “Once I own X cars, I become greedy.” Or “My watch only cost $X, so I am not greedy.” Or “I only make $X per year, which is modest. I make enough to be comfortable and that is fine. God has blessed me.”

None of us exist outside of a context. As much as we don’t like the sound of it, the morality of our actions is often times (nearly always I would suggest) relative to the circumstances around us and the intent carried in those actions. This is how a poor widow can be praised for tithing a penny while a rich preacher can be castigated despite giving largely.

We have white-washed the very difficult teachings Jesus gives regarding possessions, wealth, and riches. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” (Luke 6:24). “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. … Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matt. 19:20-24). “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. … No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Matt. 6:19, 21, 24). Yet, even those words seem light compared to the teachings on the importance (even the ETERNAL importance) of helping the poor.

In Matthew 25, Jesus paints a picture of the eternal judgment of all people. The fundamental criteria that is used to determine eternal punishment or eternal reward is entirely based on their treatment of the poor and marginalized. Jesus even goes so far as to say that our treatment of those people equates our treatment of God!

In Luke 12, Jesus describes a rich young fool whose crops have a banner year. The man says to himself, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” Seems reasonable. God responds by calling him a fool and taking his life from him that night! Jesus warns, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

Jesus isn't alone. His apostles carried the tradition of strong teaching on our duties to the poor. In James 2, the author explains the importance of love and mercy in being a disciple of Christ and concludes: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” The author asks rhetorically if faith is sufficient for salvation? That hope is dead if we lack the compassion and will to help those in need.

In 1 John, the author makes a similarly bold statement when discussing the importance of love. “We know love by this, that [Jesus] laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” Jesus’ sacrifice is how we know we are supposed to make sure people don't die of starvation, exposure, or curable diseases. It would seem that if we refuse this, the love of God does not exist in us.

Strong words. Really strong. Especially considering the extremely rich state of Christians in the world and the vast amount of poverty-related death and suffering that still exists. We have over-spiritualized the good news of the Kingdom of God. We have forgotten the answer to the question, “Can faith save you?” Or the reason why the King in Jesus’ parable tells the goats “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

For centuries, maybe even millennia, Christians have practiced very clever hermeneutic dancing to avoid conviction on these very difficult teachings. And to be fair, some of that might have merit – some of these teachings need thoughtful exegesis especially in our globalized modern context (much like homosexuality). My point in all this is not to imply that everyone must mimic Mother Teresa in order to be a Christian (although I think if even a few of us had the strength to do so, the world would be better for it).

My point is to show that the problem of greed and neglecting the poor is very important to the writers of the Bible. They spend a substantial portion of text on the subject and they use very demanding and extreme language to convey its significance – much of which we brush away. And to top it all off, some of the more conservative of my faith have redirected our attention from the very ubiquitous and life-endangering problems of greed and poverty to a very dubious, contextual, and briefly touched on subject that barely affects anyone’s life: homosexuality.

This kind of misdirection is not only disingenuous to the Bible and the forbearers of the faith, it has potentially redirected positive energy and work that would have helped ease human suffering and prevent premature death into exclusivity and negativity that maligns individuals as unholy and eternally damned.

Beyond the Scripture

That quote from above, here it is again with my highlights: “Without a doubt, this issue will become a great dividing line in the Church, and I for one welcome it, since it points to a much deeper divide in our approach to God, His Word, and the people He wants to redeem. Ultimately, it will separate those who put God first and ask, "How can I fulfill His desires?" from those who put themselves first and ask, "How can He fulfill my desires?" (Although some will take extreme offense to this statement, if you analyze the major "gay Christian" arguments, they often boil down to this perspective.)”

I agree that there is a pretty stark divide amongst modern Christians. And I agree it does involve our approach to God, the Bible, and “the people he wants to redeem.” But I don't think it has anything to do with putting God first or “my desires” vs. “his desires.” It mostly has to do with self-awareness, thoughtful insight into the human condition, and an inclusive vs. exclusive viewpoint.

Return to the story about my friend above. He and I are both committed to the cause of affirming the basic humanity of the poor and alleviating their suffering. He and I have read the teachings of Jesus and his apostles concerning greed and wealth and have made life-altering decisions because of them. Yet we still find ourselves smoking on the porch after a night of drinking with friends, realizing how much money we spent. We get swallowed by the world around us. What is a luxury to most of the world is difficult for us to imagine living without. Despite being committed, we still fail to live up to the expectations set before us. We miss the mark. We are sinners, even at our best.

I worry that those who focus on homosexuality instead of the weightier issues of greed and poverty do so because they lack this fundamental insight. To be forced to come face-to-face with our own greed – our own sin – is much more difficult than pointing out that of other people. Telling other people to repent of their homosexuality is much easier than sacrificing our material wealth, comfort, and security.

Ultimately, I think God wants to redeem everyone. I think some people resist that redemption, Christians included (maybe more than others). Our desires are for our own comfort and ease. We tell our soul, “relax, eat, drink, be merry.” Our desires are for security, both spiritual and material. Our desires are to feel morally superior to those different than us, and to feel morally justified when confronted by something that makes us feel icky. We don't want to include those who are different than us. We don't want to be uncomfortable.

But Jesus’ desires seem different. He tells us to invite the beggar to dinner; to give the place of honor to the poor; to be a servant to all; to give mercy and love as freely as he did and does.

Because God wants to redeem everyone, that includes me, chief among sinners.

Until we can all say that phrase with equal conviction and humility, we will always be stalled from seeing the vision of the Kingdom that Jesus painted. We need to get past the six historically complicated verses about “homosexuality” and see that they are inconsequential compared to the threat poverty and human suffering pose to the human soul. We need to come to terms with the idea that EVEN IF modern homosexuality is sinful, it is no more sinful than our own greed and neglect of the poor. We need to get over our “ick factor” and really reflect on whether or not our discrimination and rejection of those different than us comes anywhere close to the sacrifices Jesus calls us to.

Christian ethics is not about perfect history or philology. Christian ethics is about determining the meaning of love. It is about continuing the ministry of Jesus and, by the grace of God alone, being a part of the Kingdom of God.

Gay vs. Greed - An Exposition

Three stories:

Imagine you have some friends. And those friends have a 17-year-old teenage child. Your friends are good people and great parents. You would trust them with your own children without reservation. But, alas, teenagers will be teenagers. And recently you have learned some things about the behavior of their teenage son. So one evening, you confide in them the dark secrets of their child’s behavior. You tell them he has on more than one occasion been known to drink and drive. On top of that, one of his friends raped another student and their son has been helping his friend cover it up.

Serious stuff. Dangerous stuff. Deadly stuff.

They are good parents, so they are devastated.

Next week, you are having dinner with them and they confess to you that the behavior problems are even worse! You gasp! How could it get worse? In hushed tones, they tell you that they found out their child also… cusses.

What? This is worse?

As the weeks go on and on, you find that your friends mention the drunk driving and rape cover-up less and less. But they cannot stop talking about the cussing. Anytime you bring up the more serious allegations, they admit those are problems and they are also talking to their son about those things, but his language is the real burning issue.

In the end, after months and months, you see that your friends are really only pursuing getting their kid to stop cussing. But their son’s habit of drunk driving and involvement in the rape cover-up goes largely unaddressed.

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I visited Haiti during the summers of my early adulthood. Those trips changed everything for me. They taught me more than any book could ever have done; more than any blog or news piece ever has. There is this one image that forever sticks with me.

Our team was visiting a school for boys. We drove into the compound and into a closed-in yard used for recreation. On the field were about a dozen or so young boys, around ages 8-12, playing soccer.

Completely naked. All of them.

Why? To attend the school, they had to wear a uniform and the uniform was expensive, so they removed it before playing soccer to ensure they didn't ruin it. No uniform meant they couldn't go to school. So they played naked so as not to jeopardize their education.

I remember the fog of indignity. Having to decide between having fun or remaining clothed. Having to experience puberty in public. And then those boys being paraded to the white rich Americans.

I mostly remember the shame. And the anger.

I still carry that fog with me. And the shame. And the anger.

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Over the last few months, three controversies have pulled the rug out from under the idealistic hope that our society could simply “move past” the intolerance (purposeful or not) exhibited to homosexuals. First began World Vision’s hiring policy change, allowing gay Christians to serve the poor (which was quickly retracted). Next, a member of Jars of Clay, a Christian musical group, openly questioned (via social media) whether Christians are required to deny equal marriage rights to homosexual citizens of the U.S. Third, Michael Sam was drafted to the St. Louis Rams and kissed his boyfriend on live television.

Conservative Christian leaders around the U.S. all collectively blew up. Blogs decried each controversy as one more instance of our society’s slow descent into hell. Radio talk shows named moderate or liberal Christians as apostates to the faith and/or heretics to be purged from the ranks. And the hearts and minds of our conservative population once again turned their attention (had they ever turned their attention away?) to the growing “problem” of homosexual inclusion as the single greatest enemy to a moral society.

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It shouldn't be too hard to connect these stories. You probably already have.

I sat in that white Range Rover with five or six other rich, white, Americans. We all saw the same group of naked kids. We saw the same poverty. We saw the same world that we have helped create and the startling contrast between what it means to have been born in Florida vs. having been born in Haiti. We all heard the same stories of premature deaths, human suffering, and the dangers and struggles of the most benign activities that we easily take for granted as Americans.

We all saw the same things. We saw the same human faces. We all walked into that fog of indignity together.

And here I am hearing those voices say that the single greatest threat to society is letting a gay man get married. Or letting a lesbian doctor vaccinate the poor children across the globe. Or the fact that you watched one man kiss his committed partner that just so happens to be another man.

What? People are dying. Or suffering. And you are worried about whether or not we give equal tax benefits to people who don't share your intractable, archaic moral stance?

Without a doubt, homosexuality in our modern American society has become a central hot-button issue for our time. But it shouldn't be. We need to move past it. There are much more important matters at hand. Or at least tone it down and focus on issues that are more important.

How can I say that? Who am I to make the judgment on what is important vs. what is not?

I am simply looking at possible consequences of our action (or inaction) and triaging based on severity.

How many people die of homosexuality each day? Zero.

How many people die of starvation each day? Thousands.

How many people suffer as a result of two men marrying each other? None.

How many people suffer as a result of poverty? Millions.

Given the choice between your child dying of cholera or being attracted to the same sex, it is an easy choice. People are suffering and dying of things that we can change and instead we think the whole of Christianity is summed up in opposing same-sex couples. There are actual policies we can debate and change that will have a lasting impact to reduce the suffering and enhance the well-being of our fellow human beings on this earth and instead we think the greatest moral evil is when two men are allowed to show affection to one another on television.

What drives me even more crazy is that this fairly simple triage, one that any reasonable person could create regardless of religious beliefs, is ACTUALLY buttressed by the moral teaching of the Bible. The Bible is FULL of excoriating passages about the social, personal, and spiritual dangers of greed – a moral concept that transcends the cultural and historical distance between ancient biblical times and our modern context. The duties of man to help the poor as explained in the Mosaic law as well as the teachings of Jesus and his early church weigh heavily on our modern soul even still.

Yet those passages and commands are given minimal lip service and largely forgotten. Instead, the conservative Christian community has opted to focus on the very specific, yet non-lethal, problem of the sanctity of marriage (*but only the homosexual intrusion, not divorce).

Those who focus on the lives and well-being of the poor instead of gay marriage are told we don't want to follow God. We are told we don't believe in the authority of Scripture. We are told we are selfish and only trying to fulfill our own desires, not those of God. We are called heretics, heterodox, and apostates. We are considered false teachers, lovers of sin (or deniers of sin), and leading people to the gates of hell.

When in reality, we only have the vantage point of seeing that drunk driving is more serious than cussing. We have read the Bible for its whole message, not the few verses that substantiate our disgust over watching men kiss.

Why is being gay more serious than being greedy? (Alternately, why will the gay go to hell but not the greedy?) Why is it properly Christian to oppose same sex relationships instead of opposing human suffering? Why isn't human flourishing our goal instead of sexual superiority?

I am not nearly finished with this. More to come.

Palin's Insult Against Us All

I actively avoid headlines regarding the half-term Governor Sarah Palin, but this most recent grab at attention drew me in.

In a speech given to the NRA (National Rifle Association) over the weekend, Former Gov. Palin explained how she would handle national security threats:

“Well, if I were in charge …. They would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

I probably shouldn't have been, but I was shocked. And what is even more shocking and what drove me to write is the reaction from the crowd. I hope it was mostly a force of personality they responded to and that if pressed, they would admit that her statement was reprehensible. But I am not sure my hope (or naivety) reaches that far at the moment which makes me feel the need to iterate why exactly her statements require outright condemnation from all fronts.

1. Baptism is an act of grace and a holy sacrament. It symbolizes the rebirth of the person into a new life, one characterized by a commitment to following the example of love and mercy shown by Jesus’ life and ministry as he proclaimed the Kingdom of God. I am not overly pious, especially in protecting symbols, but her use of it here is the heart of the problem with institutional religion. She used the symbol as a way of inciting identity-based malice towards those different than us. What does that mean, exactly?

She is not using the symbol or act of baptism as a way of communicating the comprehensive, willful altering of one’s life to trust God. She is, instead, using it as a type of Shibboleth. Christians undergo baptism, not the terrorist (of course the assumption is a non-Christian terrorist – most likely Muslim). How do we defeat the Other, especially those seen as enemies of our culture? We impose our cultural identity on them. And what’s better, we do it in a way that is violent and inflicts suffering and communicates that we still hold them in utter disdain. Baptism then becomes just one more way of identifying “us” vs. “them.” And even more, it becomes a weapon on that front. It loses its religious significance. It loses its meaning as a symbol of life and rebirth.

I cannot hammer this point home enough: This is everything that is wrong with organized religion and makes me question the virtue of Christianity as a whole.

Christianity brought us the Crusades and the Inquisition and failed to prevent the Holocaust and American chattel slavery. How? Exactly like this. It was used as a marker of cultural and national identity instead of a teaching of love, mercy, and peace - ideas that transcend identity. I am not saying we, as Christians, should be apolitical (I believe the opposite). What I am saying is that we shouldn't allow people, especially those who claim to be one of us, to co-opt our teaching, symbols, and identity for purposes wholly irrelevant to our affirmation of the Kingdom of God – ESPECIALLY PURPOSES ANATHEMA TO ITS REASON FOR EXISTENCE!

2. Which brings me to my second point: Waterboarding is torture.

At the very least, it isn't loving our enemies or turning the other cheek. It isn't how we would like ourselves or our children treated. It doesn't reflect the kind of mercy we feel flows from the heart of God.

We can (and should!) have rousing debates on the realism of this kind of an ethic in a modern world with religious zealots capable of inflicting massive human suffering and destruction. But we should all agree that WE CAN'T BECOME THOSE ZEALOTS.

I am not suggesting we hug potential terrorists, smile, and let them go with forgiveness and our blessing. But we should at least follow the law.

3. And so my last point, it’s a war crime to torture a prisoner.

She is not only re-appropriating Christian symbols to torture another human being, but she is appropriating that Christian identity as one that subverts and undermines the law, both international and domestic.

And that crowd applauded it, a crowd who ostensibly gathered to celebrate the U.S. Constitution.

As Christians, as Americans, or even generally as humans who believe in freedom and the rule of law, her statements should be condemned and she should be denied further platforms to spew insidious and destructive speech meant to incite further hate and violence against others, even if those others might hate us. She is celebrating a platform that doesn’t first hold the freedom of man and the rule of law as inviolable, but a program that envisions certain visions of justice as paramount no matter the costs.

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As I have written , Christianity should be on the fore-front of affirming human dignity. Waterboarding, and torture in general, is an affront to that dignity and therefore to the very image of God imbued in us at the Creation. Our identity, whether cultural or religious, is not a weapon to be used against suspected enemies. And the rule of law is sacrosanct, something hopefully we would all agree is at the heart of the United States Constitution and the democratic process.

Gov. Palin spoke a grave insult to all of these things this weekend. 

Why did God torture and kill Jesus?

When I lived in Kyrgyzstan for the Peace Corps, I was invited by my host family to help them slaughter two sheep for an upcoming wedding feast. I have seen many dead animals, killed some myself, and have helped field dress large game. I have no ethical problem with killing animals for food. So I accepted the offer to help slaughter the sheep and even volunteered my sharp hunting knife after seeing the dull knives they had on hand.

My host-brother said a small prayer and slit the sheep’s throats. I will spare you the gory details. But there was suffering and pain and death. And even for a farm animal whose destiny was such, that isn't benign. Sacrifices aren't benign, even as we steel ourselves from their violence.

Yet it’s this exact violence that holds the center of the Christian religion. Walk into churches across the world and you will find the cross or crucifix on the walls – an instrument of torture and violence, albeit re-appropriated as a symbol of hope. But where does this hope come from?

(Prepare yourself – here comes some mind-numbing history about theology for a paragraph.)

Modern soteriology (big fancy word for the study of salvation) has largely focused on the notion of “penal substitutionary atonement,” a theology brought about by the Protestant Reformers in the 16^th century that really builds on the Renaissance’s ideals of law and justice. According to this theory, God’s divine law requires a penalty for mankind’s infinite sin – a requirement that is unable to be breached even by the mercy of God. However, according to God’s mercy, in this soteriology, an innocent Jesus is offered as the ultimate surrogate, taking the penalty for all of human sin. It’s the standard idea most anyone has been told if they have ever heard anyone talk about Jesus and salvation.

Crazy thing is, though, it is relatively new. Other soteriologies, all of which are based on the Bible (including the one currently in vogue), have been around for much longer and were simply supplanted by Calvin’s substitutionary idea. (For the curious, some others include ransom, moral, and satisfaction atonement.) They were replaced because they had problems and newer, better ideas came forward that made sense within the framework of that particular period of time they were needed. They might have grains of truth to them, but they aren't universal, timeless truths. They arose from a context and as our modern context has become incredibly different from Calvin’s, we see problems the creators of such theories might not have foreseen. So we search for new ways to make sense of the story of Jesus.

But why do we need new ways to make sense of Jesus? Is the violence of the crucifixion problematic? Well, yes. I wouldn't be writing otherwise. But it’s not necessarily because of its violence (you can’t really whitewash a crucifixion, after all).

It’s because we make it necessary. And because we admire it. And we glorify it.

There is a better path. Let’s take a look.

PROBLEMS

1.      God killed Jesus.
I often hear laypeople and conservative clergy voice this idea that God planned the crucifixion and resurrection since the beginning of time to redeem us, his sinful creation. In effect, God has one of his children tortured and killed to show love. If any of us, as parents planned something similar for our children, we would rightly be deemed unfit parents, at the very least – perhaps even going so far as to be morally evil.

Secondly, the Bible alludes to the innocence of Jesus thus making his trial, torture, and death even more an injustice and scandal. But then we must also conclude that this injustice was actually the will and predestined plan of God? So not only did God ordain the torture and death of his son, but he ordained it be done through unjust circumstances – essentially making the vehicle for his will being done to be unjust and immoral. (Can we even go so far as to say sinful?; Isn't it sinful to kill an innocent man without a fair trial?)

How does that work? It doesn't. In my opinion, and many other theologians, there is a better way to understand the torture and death of Jesus that doesn't position God as the architect of his death, yet maintains God as the merciful redeemer reconciling humanity back to him through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

2.      Sacrifice is legitimate.
If Jesus had not been killed, would we still be sacrificing farm animals and bushels of grain? Do we really think God requires some kind of blood sacrifice in order to forgive us? How is an all-powerful God bound to this constructed requirement (ironically one that is found consistently throughout MANY world religions)? If Jesus hadn't upped the ante to be the final sacrifice for all, would we still be asking God’s forgiveness with burnt animals?

Virtually every modern Christian thinks of himself/herself as being “above” the primitive religions of history that made sacrifices to secure safe travels or good crops or health or fertility. We somehow see ourselves as intellectually evolved and as having progressed past that primitive idea of fickle gods that delight in seeing us burn living things in their honor. But as a good friend of mine recently pointed out to me, if we accept that God needed a blood sacrifice from Jesus, aren't we implicitly endorsing that very system – that sacrificing to mollify the anger and wrath of God is actually real and we agree with it? It certainly seems that way to me.

Using the language of “sacrifice” was convenient for the ancients. It was a cultural relic that the people understood and made sense for them to understand what had happened to the legendary Messiah who was supposed to liberate them but instead was killed by the Romans. Because they used that language to help other understand his death in a positive light doesn't mean that there was necessarily some cosmic, transcendental balance sheet that had just been reconciled. The Bible is rife with examples of people using language familiar with the people listening to explain deep mysteries of God. This is merely one more example of that.

3.      Ordained suffering
Jesus is presented as the perfect exemplar of God’s morality. Does that mean that it is our Christian duty to persist in suffering sometimes because it might be in God’s will, just as the crucifixion was God’s will for the Jesus and the world? Do we, like Jesus in Gethsemane, see the path of less suffering but instead acquiesce to the injustices of the world on the off-chance it is God’s will? Should the wife who is beaten emulate Jesus and stick it out? Does God will slaves in foreign countries to be meek in their position of indignity? If they rose up and demanded justice, are they saying that Jesus’ way is wrong, unrealistic, or unworthy of their mirroring? Is it wrong of outsiders to acknowledge human suffering and work towards its relief, as it might very well take away the opportunity for that person to follow Jesus’ example?

For me, this is the most problematic question that arises as it is the most practical. It is also the most obvious. There are multiple examples throughout history of Jesus’ suffering on the cross being used to keep suffering humans in bondage instead of offering them the liberation from suffering they deserve. Given the teaching and ministry of Jesus – his life instead of his death – this seems furthest from how the good news should look.

You see, the problems with the penal substitutionary theory provide both a picture of God (and her relationship with Jesus) that is difficult for modern moral sensibilities to reconcile as good, but it also provides positive examples that aid the proliferation of human suffering and death. These problems might not have been present or clear during the time when the theory was discovered, but as the world changes and the story of God and Christ finds itself in new contexts, it is our responsibility to unravel the mysteries of the divine in a way that make sense and helps modern individuals understand the journey and their experience of faith. This is exactly the imperative of Christian theology.

SOLUTION (POSSIBLY)

Firstly, I want to say I don’t think there is only one way to re-think the problems listed above. I have read a dozen essays by theologians wrestling with new paradigms or reworking old ones in ways that take the problematic areas of penal substitution seriously.

Believing there is truth, wisdom, and beauty in the story of Jesus doesn't mean you have to understand that story the same way theologians did 500 years ago.

In fact, I believe there is an imperative TO UPDATE the way we understand the story of Jesus as our context changes. Therefore this “solution” is not necessarily the final landing spot for understanding salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ. It is just where we are landing right now. And I expect the future generations to dissect it, deconstruct it, try it on, and if it doesn't fit or carries too many problems to discard it for a better way of understanding that truth, wisdom, and beauty that I found in my context.

So, onto the solution. (I am drawing this idea from an article by J. Denny Weaver titled “Violence in Christian Theology.”)

Like Penal Substitutionary Atonement, this new paradigm comes with a name: Narrative Christus Victor – building off the ancient soteriology Christus Victor. In this, there remains a cosmic battle between the forces of good (God) and the forces of evil (empire, anti-Christ, human selfishness, etc.) but the historical situation plays pre-eminent importance in symbolizing that battle (for example, the Revelation of John portrays this well – different emperors’ reigns are seals broken by heavenly forces).

Unlike the cosmic legal/financial transaction whereby Jesus is passively offered as a payment for human sinfulness, Jesus is instead seen as an agent in his own right. He was a prophet/teacher promoting the Kingdom of God – otherwise understood as the reign of God. His death, therefore, was not a result of the will of God pre-ordained from the creation of time, but was born from the agency of the “powers and principalities” – the forces of evil – as they opposed the liberation taught and enacted by Jesus as he proclaimed the reign of God.

I will let Dr. Weaver explain:

“Jesus was an activist whose mission was to make the rule of God visible. And his acts demonstrated what the reign of God looked like – defending poor people, raising the status of women, raising the status of Samaritans, performing healings and exorcisms, preaching the reign of God, and more. His mission was to make the reign of God present in the world in his person and in his teaching, and to invite people to experience the liberation it presented.
And when Jesus made the reign of God visible and present in that way, it was so threatening that the assembled array of evil forces killed him… Jesus carries out a mission to make the rule of God present and visible, a mission to bring and to give life. When this mission threatens the forces of evil, they retaliate with violence, killing Jesus. This suffering is not something willed by nor needed by God, and it is not directed Godward. To the contrary, the killing of Jesus is the ultimate contrast between the nonviolent reign of God and the rule of evil.”

The sacrifice of Jesus was never something that God needed to satisfy his anger and wrath. Likewise Jesus’ death was neither willed nor pre-ordained by God. Jesus’ torture and murder was an act of rebellion and opposition to the very rule of God enacted through Jesus’ ministry and teaching! This provides even more significance to the resurrection, as God’s ultimate defeat of the powers that oppose his reign on earth. It also removes passivity from Jesus and God. Jesus was an agent who actively promoted the liberation of the Kingdom of God despite the risks. When the powerful responded with violence, God – also not passive – nonviolently defeated that opposition through the ultimate act of life-giving: the resurrection.

This new way to understand the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus addresses all three aforementioned problems and provides a new and vibrant way of understanding our mission in continuity to Jesus’. But what of the problems that originally created Calvin’s soteriology? What about eternal salvation/punishment and the redemption of human sinfulness?

This picture of Jesus offers a more holistic understanding of the effects of sin and salvation, providing liberation not only of our souls but that of our entire persons and even our social orders, both in this life and the next. Salvation is something that begins now as we liberate the poor, afflicted, and downtrodden from the effects of sin writ large. It also continues the teaching of the prophets that was reiterated throughout the Gospels: “God desires mercy, not sacrifice.”

Salvation springs from God’s mercy and her desire to be reconciled to her creation, not some formulaic sacrificial system satiated by the blood sacrifice of a deified, yet innocent, man. Jesus becomes the first to experience the resurrection, and it is through faith in this mercy and grace that we begin to experience the wellspring of the resurrection in this life and beyond.

CONCLUSION

I can’t help but think back at the violence, the suffering, and the death of those sheep. They were an incremental part of the wedding celebration. But the wedding would have been a wedding even without the death and suffering of the sheep. They didn't make the wedding a wedding. The love, commitment, and binding of lives together made it the wedding.

Likewise, the violence, the suffering, and the death of Jesus didn't make our salvation. It is an incremental part of our salvation because it happened. But God desires mercy, not sacrifice. Jesus death was, and is, how evil will always respond to God’s scandalous mercy and grace. But God’s response – the resurrection – is our hope and our assurance that the Kingdom of God, the rule and reign of God, has come.