Substitutional Atonement back to haunt me

Well I thought after my second last post I'd put the substitutional atonement thing behind me. So, you can imagine my sup rise when I rocked up to a church meeting to find out that we were going to be watching Bill Hybells speak on "the power of clarity". Seemed ok until he came to about one third of the way through the talk where he was about to summarise the entire Xn message in just two words. I was wondering what could that be... "Love God and Love others" perhaps? (the summary that Jesus used) You might be able to squeeze that into three words but not two. Then Bill did his big reveal to show the two words he had written on a big piece of paper "Substitutional Atonement". Needless to say I had some issues with what Bill had to say and whilst many people watching thought it was all great I voiced some concern and have written a quick out line of what my concerns are here for my own peace of mind.

The first difficulty was the issue of clarity and his idea that “Leaders owe people clarity”. I’m not sure that this is true. I’d like to ask clarity about what exactly? Having clarity about absolutely everything is fundamentalism at it’s worst, on the other hand having clarity about nothing is liberalism at it’s worst. Two extremes I’m sure we’re keen to avoid. If parishioners “cry out for clarity” (as Hybels suggests) is it the leaders roles to say “do this” or is it the leaders role to give the skills for the parishioners work it out for themselves?

Hybel’s seemed to be suggesting adopting a business model to church and there is certainly a lot that church can learn from the business model way of doing things. But, since business are not always the most ethical things in and of themselves there maybe things worth avoiding as well. So, my question is what parts of the business model do we adapt to church? Does the average business model give room for the spirit to speak through least qualified person and least likely person?

My quick thought is that we need to have a clarity of values and culture as a church but need to be fluid about our strategies and programs as they need to respond to the needs of the church and community.

The second brief difficulty I had was when Hybels described society as “pluralistic and confused”. I’m not sure if these two things necessarily go together. A divergent set of opinions about spirituality amongst a group of people may in fact indicate that people may have an increasing clarity about what they believe rather than a confusion.

The third difficulty is that “Substitutionary Atonement” (SA) is the key Xn message. Certainly SA is one key thread that runs through the biblical story but it isn’t all there is to Xy. SA is far more narrow than the new testament idea of grace or the Hebrew idea of hesed. By focusing on the SA thread I think we are in danger of missing out on the rich tapestry of the story of God interacting with humanity.

Furthermore, I wonder if in a similar way we reduce sin to just personal immorality. I fear that when we do this any evangelism needs to begin with convincing someone that they are sinner who deserves to die before moving onto the love of God bit.

That SA is only one thread in the overall Biblical story is illustrated in Hybel’s idea that the one question people will be asked when they die is “who will atone for your sin?” This does not sit at all well with the sheep and goats story that Jesus tells in Matthew 25.

I think an over emphasis on SA is one reason why as a church we are missing people under 30. Certainly Jesus disciples did not follow Jesus based on an understanding about SA. Since so many people seem to like Jesus but not church I wonder if we need to build on communicating Jesus rather than communicating the church doctrine of SA no matter how well it encapsulates much of what we believe.

Another problem with the “what will happen to you when you die?” approach to evangelism is that for some it can reduce Xy to an insurance policy against an angry God. All of us would still be Xns now even if we had a way of becoming a Xn 10 minutes before we die. What makes us choose to do this, I think, is far more appealing many to non-Xns than the “what will you say to God when you die?” approach.

Let me reiterate that I do not think we should get rid of SA and that I think it is an important thread in the Biblical story. However it is not the only thread in the Biblical tapestry.

My Fourth and final difficulty was that as a church “we are message centric”. We certainly have a message but are we message centric? If we are then why do we run a play group or give bread to people in need? Is it merely as a carrot to get people in to hear the message or does it have an intrinsic value of it’s own. Again to quote Matthew 25 the people who are in with God in this passage are not in because of the message but because of how they loved or served others. I’d say that as Xns we are love centric which means we serve out of love and it also means that we tell our message out of love.

Ok, that’s it. Maybe there's some deeper psychological reason why my brain seems to be obbsessed with this at the moment.

Social Dysfunction

Tonight was a big work dinner full of sports people and business people eating food I could never afford and generously bidding on auction items I could never afford. I've realised that I'm actually getting worse at social situations. I find small talk so hard. Talking about TV, sport (world cup excluded), work, and hobbies or interests we don't share is all very polite but terribly unrewarding. I'm sure that I can see a glazed disinterest in the eyes of people I talk to when I talk about these things and I certainly feel that myself, as I try with all my strength to hide it. I can feel the slow turn into a grumpy old man fourty years early. It's not that I don't like people in fact quite the opposite. I love them and I am desperate to connect with them in some meaningful way. But small talk is all they offer me and more relevantly all I offer them. It's like there is some social barrier designed to protect me that is actually killing me.

Therefore I propose a secret handshake. The two squeeze hand shake. Rather than the traditional one squeeze and shake, you will squeeze and then squeeze again and shake. A little odd but not too odd that you can't write it off as a nervous twitch. Once one you have received the secret handshake the small talk barrier is down and its meaningful conversation for all.

Doing Alpha and don't think you're a horrible sinner?

The Alpha course I'm doing is having a two week break right now but in the last session I found myself writing notes to my wife, kind of like two naughty kids in high school. Although not particularly respectful it is just a video and the video does take up a huge chunk of time in the Alpha format and I was bored. While alpha is not my cup of tea many people in the group seem to love it. None the less I have recently heard of someone who struggled with the underlying "your a really horrible sinner who needs to ask for forgiveness" message that she got from the course. As much as I know that advocates of the course would say there is more than just that. I think this is still the basic starting point of the Alpha message.

My guess is that for many people who just don't feel like they are horrible sinners, it's not that they are arrogant and would not claim to be perfect. If they were to be put on a scale with Mother Teresa at one end and Hitler at the other even if they put themselves in the middle they would definitely want to be more like Mother Teressa than Hitler. Further more to the best of their ability they are trying to do that. Sometimes Xns have responded by saying things like perfection is like jumping off the Sydney harbor bridge to reach New Zealand no matter how hard you try your always going to fail. Leaving many people feeling like God makes us failures and then damns us for being so and expects us to come crawling back to him grovelling for forgiveness. And, they find it hard to square that with a loving God.

Perhaps it's time to start reframing things. I feel like I'm sounding like a broken record having posted about this a lot before (It's time to Substitute Substitution,A New Analogy for Atonement?, Why did Jesus die? Part 1, Why did Jesus die? Part 2, Relooking at Sin and God is just like the Gestapo?) I feel there is something about the way that Xns often communicate the brokenness of our world and our broken relationship with God that stops people from becoming Xns and it is far more than people's ability to realise their own imperfections and brokenness (sinfulness). Maybe it's as simple as we are asking people to consider themselves as "filthy rags" when they see themselves merely as "flawed creations of God".

The pod is back and so might some more posts

Well it's now been at least 14 days since my iPod went down and despite being told by Apple that it's probably stuffed I've managed to get it back with thanks to way too much stuffing around. Hooray for me. Work has also been ridiculously busy, I've done freelance music and my ISP cut off my internet connection without telling me. So that's why I've been quiet. Now that the music is done and the net is back hopefully I'll be able to get back to posting with my spare time.

Sending "Hell" (Old Testament) to Hell in a Hand Basket

The "to Hell in a hand basket" series continues. With Original Sin done and Satan half done I'm now going to look at Hell. Once again like with with Satan Post I'm ignoring the New Testament and just looking at the Old Testament.

Firstly the word "Hell" does not appear in the OT. If your Bible does have the word hell it is translating the Hebrew word Sheol. Sheol is not the fiery pit that we usually think hell to be instead Sheol is a place of the dead, what we might describe today as "the grave". It is certainly a horrible place and one to be avoided but it is not the lake of fire and demons torturing for eternity that we often think of.

In Genesis the result of leaving the garden was not the eternal torment of hell but rather plain death. I wonder if we have forgotten how bad it is simply to die. I can remember hearing an atheist being quoted as describing death as "a cold wind then nothing". As much as Dante's levels of hell sound terrible the simple "a cold wind then nothing" sounds even worse to me, at least hell is existence nothing to me would be more horrible than non existence.

iCrash7 error 1418

I have fallen victim to the dreaded Error 1418 on my iPod. So i now on a very expensive bit of metal and plastic usefull for play solitare on and that's about it. Apart from my obvious anger at having an expensive piece of equipment being rendered usesless by the software of the company that made the product, I am amazed at how often I use the thing, about 8 hrs a week mostly in the car, listening to podcasts, music and the bible. Tommorrow is my wife's Birthday and today I was going to buy her an iShuffle today, which I'm not going do now.

Grr Apple.

So do I (a) try and think of an alternative 30th Birthday present? Or (b) give my wife the whole apple stole your present but they might fix it up later story?

Darth Vader makes me cry

It's pretty rare that I laugh out loud at anything on the net. This was different. Having clicked on it at work where bursting out laughing is not very appropriate I started to cry instead and had to watch the rest at home. It is Darth Vadar as you have never seen him before. Visit www.akjak.com/vader-sessions or right click here here to download it.

More Blog Delays

Well looks like this blog might be a bit quiet for the next couple of weeks, having just got over the hump of doing a Talk on Suffering I've just been commissioned to write and record four songs for a play. So I'll be quietly buried in that for a while.