‘The wrath of God was satisfied’

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Within churches across the western world, many of us will be singing this line today- from the modern hymn by Stuart Townend, ‘In Christ alone’. The whole verse goes something like this;

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fulness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

It is a great hymn, deeply emotional and soaring in its melody. However I increasingly find the one dimensional nature of it’s theology really difficult. It is this one line about the wrath of God. It conjures up the idea of some kind of unstoppable force of holy hate and destruction in the universe that was narrowly averted only by the torture and death of Jesus.

This is another one of those underpinning assumptions of Evangelicalism that most of us accepted as unassailable truth- Jesus died the horrible death on the cross that was rightfully ours and because of this, God was able to undertake some kind of divine conjuring trick for some of us. This was the only way to overcome the natural forces of justice in the universe. It was the only way to deal with the wrath of God.

For non theologians like me, the fact that this kind of understanding of the atonement of the cross is not the ONLY way of understanding the central drama of the Christian faith might come as a surprise. Recently of course, a number of hugely controversial books have emerged taking a new look at the issue. The authors of these books (Rob Bell, Steve Chalke, Brian McLaren) have often been subjected to the outrage of the faithful.

So, on this Good Friday, I thought that it might be worth examining some of the other understandings of atonement- the other ways that followers of Jesus have attempted to come to terms with the enormity of a God who would come to earth to die such a death.

The name given to the theory of atonement outlined above is ‘Substitutionary atonement’ or sometimes ‘Penal Substitution’. However rather than talk more about I think it would be useful to take a journey through atonement in church history.

Firstly, there is a summary of some of the ideas in this clip by Tony Jones, along with some of his own hard hitting alternatives;

There are other theories of atonement, but here is a quick summary of the dominant ones again;

Moral influence

In this view the core of Christianity is positive moral change, and the purpose of everything Jesus did was to lead humans toward that moral change. He is understood to have accomplished this variously through his teachings, example, founding of the Church, and the inspiring power of his death and resurrection.

This was the atonement theory dominant in the early church in the second and third centuries and was taught by the Church Fathers. It was also popular into the middle ages and beyond.

Ransom theory

Jesus liberates mankind from slavery to Satan and thus death by giving his own life as a ransom. Victory over Satan consists of swapping the life of the perfect (Jesus), for the lives of the imperfect (mankind).

Christus victor

Here Jesus is not used as a ransom but rather defeated Satan in a spiritual battle and thus frees enslaved mankind by defeating the captor. This theory continued to influence Christian theology for a thousand years.

Satisfaction

This theory grew from the work of the 11th century theologian Anselm.  Mankind owes a debt not to Satan, but to sovereign God himself. A sovereign may well be able to forgive an insult or an injury in his private capacity, but because he is a sovereign he cannot if the state has been dishonoured. Anselm argued that the insult given to God is so great that only a perfect sacrifice could satisfy and Jesus, being both God and man, was this perfect sacrifice. Here we see the influence of earthly politics projected onto the heavens.

Penal substitution

The Protestant reformers developed Anselm’s theory.  Instead of considering sin as an affront to God’s honour,  rather sin is regarded as the breaking of God’s moral law. Placing a particular emphasis on Romans 6:23 (the wages of sin is death), penal substitution sees sinful man as being rightfully deserving God’s wrath with the essence of Jesus’ saving work being his substitution in the sinner’s place, bearing the curse in the place of man (Galatians 3:13).

A variation that also falls within this metaphor is Hugo Grotius’ “governmental theory“, which sees Jesus receiving a punishment as a public example of the lengths to which God will go to uphold the moral order.

Some would argue that all these theories contain part of the truth, and (in the absence of certainty) I think I would agree with this.

Apart from this thing that we call ‘the wrath of God’.

I would contend that our theological projections of God are always partial, always incomplete and always emerging from our cultural perspective. So it was natural for the children of the modern enlightenment to see God as embodying a force of logical, highly technical justice. It seemed like the elevation of mankind towards democratic freedom mediated by the purity of the law was a process ordained by God, and so this must also be the character of God himself.

God the judge- stern, inflexible, bound by the fine detail of the law, but able to save a narrow few through a technicality.

But today we remember the death of a man Jesus.

The scandal of the cross.

The unreasonableness of the cross.

The injustice of the the cross.

The laying down of all power and majesty, the ultimate vulnerability of the cross.

The end of all our hopes on the cross.

The defeat of the cross.

The humanity of the cross.

And the mystery unfolds within us.

First firing of our Kiln…

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Regular readers will know that about a year ago, I took a road trip down to Derbyshire to collect two kilns and a load of pottery equipment that we intended to install in our cellar. It turned out to be a lot harder than we thought as the big Kiln, weighing in at over half a ton, had to be extracted from an outbuilding at the end of a garden, carried in over and around rockeries, garden ponds and bushes and then lifted into the back of a hired van. Without a couple of Michaela’s uncles (both ex miners and used to moving big things) we simply would never have moved it.

When we got it all up here, the first challenge was getting it out of the van- stop forward some more friends, and we somehow got it on the ground without killing anyone. However, getting it down the cellar stairs was a whole different challenge.

I was discussing this problem when out for a curry with a group of blokes- one of whom, Dave, is in charge of the men who work on the hillsides keeping our electricity lines safe and functional. Dave sent round a couple of his workers, along with a winch, a ground anchor and a special sledge they use to move generators and the like into inaccessible places. They had the Kiln in the cellar in no time.

Then we discovered that the cost of wiring in the Kiln was not as simple as we had hoped, costing roughly 4 times what we had paid for the kilns and equipment! However Michaela and Pauline managed to get a grant towards this, and invested the earnings that they had already made through their craft workshops.

Meanwhile, I installed worktops, shelves, lighting, and we painted the whole cellar white to make it all a bit less murky.

After all this hard work, and kindness from friends, you will understand how exciting it was to fill the kiln with Pauline’s pots, and fire it up.

Pauline and Michaela will be running workshops soon- so if you are up for a combination of a break in Scotland and some pottery- let me know!

Visit Cowal gives us a plug…

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The lovely Visit Cowal website has given our Wilderness Retreats a plug on their news section. Very charitable of them considering the retreats will not actually be held in Cowal, beautiful as this part of the world really is.

If you do not believe me- check out the site.

Incidentally, if you are considering a trip up north, then please consider our holiday accommodation. It can be booked through a whole host of online agencies- including the Guardian website, country cottages etc. It is also worth dropping me a line as we have a few owner bookings that we can use (particularly for loyal blog readers!)

We are moving towards our mixed-economy kind of way of making a living. Last night we had the first firing of the pottery kiln in our cellar. The house did not burn down! It is always a little bit scary to see the temperature gauge reach 1000 degrees centigrade inside something close to the floor of your house. We are still waiting for the contents to cool down to see what the firing will be like- watch this space!

Spiritual maturity and the pursuit of significance…

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We humans are so contradictory. Sometimes we are driven to destroy anyone or anything in our pursuit of personal gain. At other times we are capable of such incredible self sacrifice in pure service of the other. Always we hope that life is more than mere bio mechanics- it has to mean something.

For men in particular, this contradiction often creates some kind of deep void that we spend a lifetime’s journey trying to fill. We believe that the only good life is a life a success. And ultimately success has to be measurable against the failure of others- against the poverty of others, the lack of creativity in others, the lack of godliness in others, even the lack of love in others.

The problem is that success is so fickle- life moves the goalposts constantly and so we feel constantly diminished.

The void remains.

I read this today;

It’s a gift to joyfully recognize and accept our own smallness and ordinariness. Then you are free with nothing to live up to, nothing to prove, and nothing to protect. Such freedom is my best description of Christian maturity, because once you know that your ‘I’ is great and one with God, you can ironically be quite content with a small and ordinary ‘I.’ No grandstanding is necessary. Any question of your own importance or dignity has already been resolved once and for all and forever.

Richard Rohr

It seemed to me that there was a deep spiritual significance in this. What is this thing that we are becoming as we seek to live deeper, more meaningful, more loving lives? Is it really to be bigger, or is it more about recognising that we are small?

Small that is, like a beloved child, whose achievements might be indeed be celebrated, but in no way make us any more (or any less) beloved.

If only it was so simple.

But then again, I am still immature. I have a lot of growing to do yet.

Preparing for a new season…

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What a lovely weekend. The sun mostly shone and the days were long.

Everything seems to be breaking down at our house though- the (new) car, the mower (so the grass will grow a little higher) and the bikes- but we spent a long time mending them, and so at least we have one form of transport.

This morning we spent a few hours down at Castle Toward, working on the cricket pitches, scraping out the moss and lichen and deciding which strips might be the best ones to use this year.

I think this sport-as-analogy-for-life is way overused but still this feeling of preparation seems right as Lent draws closer to Easter. Everything is possible again.

For William it may well be. He has been picked to play cricket for a regional under 13’s side. I took him to practice at a posh private school in Helensburgh the other day and watched proudly as he spun his leg spinners into the stumps of his team mates and then crashed the ball around when he came to bat. The boy has real potential.

As for me, this new season is more uncertain. A career ending to be replaced by uncertainties. It is hard to plan or to make choices.

All I can do is to prepare the pitch.

Nature deficit disorder?

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Even the National Trust are doing it now- inventing classifications of mental illness.

In fact it was a US based writer Richard Louv who first began to use the words ‘nature deficit disorder’ to describe a growing dislocation between children and nature.

The NT are quoting findings from a Natural Childhood Report by naturalist and author Steven Moss, who suggests that a steady stream of surveys have highlighted how a generation of children are losing touch with the natural world.  The NT are planning to launch a consultation into what we all think about this.

The trust argues that the growing dissociation of children from the natural world and the growth of what it calls the “cotton wool culture” of indoor parental guidance impairs the capacity of children to learn through experience.

It cites evidence showing that:

  • children learn more and behave better when lessons are conducted outdoors
  • symptoms of children diagnosed with ADHD improve when they are exposed to nature
  • children say their happiness depends more on having things to do outdoors more than owning technology.

Yet British parents feel more pressure to provide gadgets for their children than in other European countries. This from here;

The statistics reveal that things have changed dramatically in just one generation:

  • Fewer than ten per cent of kids play in wild places; down from 50 per cent a generation ago
  • The roaming radius for kids has declined by 90 per cent in one generation (thirty years)
  • Three times as many children are taken to hospital each year after falling out of bed, as from falling out of trees
  • A 2008 study showed that half of all kids had been stopped from climbing trees, 20 per cent had been banned from playing conkers or games of tag

Authority figures and layers of bureaucracy have combined with a climate of ‘don’t do that’ to create an environment where fewer and fewer children play in the outdoors. This has led to a situation where kids having fun in the outdoors are painted as showing signs of anti social behaviour.

The research shows that capturing children before they enter the teenage years is crucial with the research clearly showing if you get kids hooked before they reach twelve years old, you’ll create a lifelong passion for the environment.

It has to be said that there are sceptics. Some see the NT study as nothing more than a slightly sensationalist money raising campaign, aimed at adding another layer of guilt/concern on to middle class parenting.  Others have questioned the science- writing in the Guardian, Aleks Krotosk had this to say;

…public discourse needs to be balanced and critical. Using emotive language such as “electronic addictions” and “the extinction of experience”, as this report does, undermines the so-called “science” that the National Trust is presenting in this document. Scientific claims are backed up by evidence. Preferably primary sources – not press releases.

Researchers have spent more than two decades untangling the web’s effects on our lives, and have discovered where it disrupts our existing social practices, and where it doesn’t. This is indeed an important issue for public scrutiny, but the method of wrapping up a half-truth in a lab coat and presenting it as an evidence-based review of the literature is as insidious as a PR company commissioning an academic researcher to find a predetermined outcome.

Evidence-based argument is the hallmark of the lively and informed debates we as a population have engaged in since the reformation, and is the cornerstone of an engaged and critical society. The 27-page press release published by the National Trust that describes a made-up disorder is only intended to inspire a reaction and fuel uncertainty. Rather than open up debate, this kind of thing serves to close it down. And that is just not scientific.

She has a point. People said listening to the wireless would make us deaf and watching TV would turn our brains to jelly, and all the changes brought about by the internet on the way we humans interact may indeed considerable but are also irreversible.  We are on the brink of one of those paradigm shifts and it is difficult to know where it will all lead, but there is no going back.

However, many of will read the words of the NT’s National Childhood Report and feel that it is saying something important. It may be rather difficult to scientifically quantify, but we instinctively feel that our disconnection with wild places might yet be a huge mistake.

It might be a huge mistake because in losing our place in the natural order of things, we lose something of ourselves.

It might also be a huge mistake because in losing our connection with the natural order of things, we might also be part of the destruction of everything.

When I was small, my mother took me camping. I found a dead squirrel and it was so lovely that I sneaked it into my tent, along with a lot of still alive fleas. I swam in a river for hours and ended up with stomach ache from something I swallowed. I climbed trees and had to be rescued.

We also joined a rambling club. I still remember those long trudges through Derbyshire, almost too tired to speak.

These experiences, good and bad, never left me. They became the platform for my own adventures as an adult. I hope for the same for my own children. And theirs.

I believe these are reasons for optimism.

Leadership in small missional communities…

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It is an old theme- I was just re reading this old post here about Todd Bentley and all the madness around his leadership. There appears to be a similar storm gathering around Mark Discoll’s leadership of Mars Hill. Leadership, power, control- these are things that seem to be perpetual struggles for we humans as we seek to work out collective faith.

Last weekend we were speaking to a group of people about developing small missional communities, and of course we had to say something about leadership. Our small community (Aoradh) still has no ‘leader’. This is in part because we have simply deferred resolution of the issue, and also because we have sort of fallen into a different kind of process of decision making.

I read something the other day that seemed to describe what we do (or what we try to do) really well. Mark Stavlund, who is part of a community called ‘The common table‘ was describing a kind of process that he called ‘negative space’, that he described as follows;

individuals see a need for something, and say so.  As these voices start to harmonize, the leadership team– whose main purpose is to be attentive to the church and to protect its heart– will take notice and begin to clarify the need.  They will work to define it; to understand its parameters.  There might be a need for a different format for organizing the Sunday workflow, or a new way of doing service projects, or a financial concern, or an entirely new program of ministry.  But instead of leading some kind of charge, the leadership team will pull back a bit and simply organize the conversation that is brewing about the new thing or the reform that is needed…

It is a lot of work, and a lot of mess.  But it also generates a lot of creativity and ownership.  Supplying solutions in this way organically integrates the best people in the right places.  The people who step up are almost invariably the right ones for the jobs, and the solutions they find are amazingly exciting and durable. The hardest lesson for those of us with worrying tendencies or those who feel some sense of responsibility for all organizational systems to work flawlessly is that we need to sit with our discomfort and simply wait.  We’re learning that in church, sometimes the best thing to do when faced with an important need is to do nothing.

This is not necessarily about the absence of leadership, but is certainly about the laying down of power and control. There seems to me to be something of Jesus about this.

Making missional community…

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We have been away for a couple of days in England, visiting our old church, Calvary Christian Fellowship, near Preston. It has been a glorious spring weekend, full of sunshine, hazy blue skies and green shoots everywhere.

All of which felt very appropriate as we were asked to come to talk to CCF about our experience of the process of making small ‘missional’ communities. They are in the process of trying to change the structure and focus of their organisation towards a collection of such groups. It seems to me to be a very interesting and potentially difficult process- akin to turning around a large oil tanker on a lake, but if anyone can do it I think they can.

Michaela and I did a bit of a double act- I spoke a lot about the thinking behind some of the changes that we have been through, and she described the actual practical experiences. In between we showed photographs, did some activities, and we used a large double sided loom to weave together the names of our community- something that Aoradh first developed for Greenbelt Festival. It has since been used at a few different events up and down the country.

What is created is this lovely thing, messy and rough around the edges, interconnected and full of humanity. We think it is rather a good analogy for the making of community…

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It is 10 years since we moved away from CCF up to Scotland. For us this trip was a chance to take stock for ourselves as to the journey we have made. There have been challenges and times of real hardship, but also very great blessings.

This morning, Michaela and I have both taken a day off, which is fortunate as we are both exhausted. We came back to Dunoon on the last (midnight) ferry yesterday.

One of the things we tried to speak about with clarity is the question of what community (or church) is FOR.  It is easy for our groups and activities to become all about OUR needs, OUR spirituality, OUR comfort zones. God might then be adopted as some kind of benign mascot. I think the primary way we avoid this is to constantly make community a place of sending, as well as gathering. Hence, we used this poem;

There is a time for all things under heaven

A time for the sent  ones of God

To follow the rough roads

Into the barren broken places

To look for the marks left by Jesus

On the soft tissue and brittle bones

Of the Imago Dei

The stinking, wretched

Image bearers of the Living God

.

Time for the insurgency of God

To follow the mission

Into the hostile places

To seek out the secret stains left by the love

That was woven  into the very core

Of the Imago Christi

The failing, faithless

Manifest images of the Christ

.

Time for the dancers of the new Kingdom dance

To look for the music of Jesus

Amid the static and street noise

Tuning to the high fluting fragile sound

Vibrant and resonant;

To the gracenotes made there by Spiritus Sanctus

We, the discordant, cursing and gossiping

Vessels of the Spirit of the Living God

.

Time for the revolutionaries of God

To follow the long hard march

Unyoked and with easy burdens

Looking for the soft places where people are

Where freedom flickers, where hopes soar

To seek out the Participatio Christi

With weak but willing hands and sore feet

Learning to partake in the labours of love

For now is the time for holy huddles to scatter

On the winds of the Spirit

From ‘Listing’, available from Proost.

I love you will you marry me?

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Did anyone listen to this programme on Radio 4?

It was a modern day fairy-tale, with a twist of tragedy.

Across a concrete footbridge high up in a crumbling concrete wasteland someone had written the words-

Clare Middleton I love you will u marry me

The words were visible for miles, and speculation became rife as to the story behind them. Who wrote it? Did Clare Middleton say yes?

In Sheffield, the stories grew like patches of mildew on the wall- some said that she said no, and the man who wrote it jumped off the bridge. Others suggested that Clare was part of a love triangle and it all ended in violence and a burnt out flat.

The presenter managed to track down first Clare’s mother, then her friends, and eventually the writer of the message, and the story took on real flesh.

Clare was a live wire who loved to dance. She was an electric presence, who was drawn to dangerous men and drugs. She already had several kids when she fell in with the writer of the message- himself a survivor of institutional child care.  By then she was stick thin and toothless from amphatamine use, but he loved her.

She said yes by the way.

But three months later they were separated, at least in part because of social work’s concerns about the safety of her children.

And then she died of cancer.

However, the ‘I love you bridge’ has become a symbol of hope. Visible tenderness, humanity and romance in the middle of all those slabs of brown streaked concrete. So much so that some artist has picked out the shaky handwriting in neon lights.

Although not the name- still there, but faded. Which seems to me unbearably sad.

Clare Middleton- you were loved.