Comment by Forrest Curo on 8th mo. 12, 2013 at 10:00am

People were given differing views of 'atonement' all along -- because we've each been primed by our lives to see matters from differing views of God, self, world -- and could each benefit from whatever we could understand, not so much from what we couldn't. Increasingly, people simply can't accept some 'traditional' [not actually that old] models of this -- and fail to 'get it' altogether, alas.

Jesus, meanwhile, is who he is -- & not merely whatever happens to appeal to anyone. It seems clear that he was thinking in terms of accepting his fate in hopes of saving at least some of his people from the historical disaster he saw approaching. That put the idea of 'atonement' into the story, from whence it could be profitably misunderstood differently by different people in different times. But the version that has God wanting someone to suffer for sin -- "Somebody's gotta pay!" is a genuine libel against God, by everything Jesus said about what God is like and how people should behave to be "like" God, to be "children of" God.

'The only Jesus' "powerful enough" to do us lasting good, is the real guy himself, who modeled God-as-is well enough to serve as our introduction to God. Who turns out to be truly just, merciful, loving and benevolent to all -- but needing to express this differently to different people, as a surgeon with a scalpel may seem to be attacking a patient, even seriously wounding him, even though his object is something quite different.

'Attunement' is certainly a better metaphor for Jesus' actual role, despite the fact that the pun is English rather than Aramaic. (Why shouldn't a hidden meaning, to be discovered later, be written into a text in a language 'not-yet-invented'? Who is it that develops these languages, ultimately? & aren't there many more people these days speaking our language than his?)

Comment by Clem Gerdelmann on 8th mo. 12, 2013 at 12:20pm

Profound insight, Forrest, of which I mean no disparagement as I recall the jest stemming from "celibate" as more truly translated "celebrate" - which is what the Good News(not someone's poor, depraved version of it) is meant to have us do.

Comment by Lee Nichols on 8th mo. 13, 2013 at 10:53am

Hi Steve,

Since you are an educated man, I am sure you have considered the pernicious effect of bias on every decision we make from financial to leisure.  If I guessed at your position based on biases expressed, I would begin with the position that you associated with a highly educated elite and away from the position associated with people with addictions and mental illness.

I know I have problems functioning from time to time caused not least by 5 years in graduate studies, but like you I will bravely risk revealing my own bias and mention a couple of reasons why I favor the conclusions useful to the addicted and mentally ill.

First I do not see a picture of Jesus that would warrant a movement based on his ethical standard which can be documented to be a variety of quotes from the Old Testament put together in impromptu speeches and parabolic stories.

It seems to me Jesus was set apart from all the other rabbis and gurus that developed a following by his resurrection from the dead.  This resurrection was the transformation into His new spiritual nature completing the creation planned by God. It was accomplished by Jesus because it was unreachable for any other human being. Once creation was finished in Christ, it became available to all who welcomed and joined into the collective spiritual life of Jesus.

Because I admittedly am not part of the highly educated elite, I do not assume scripture needs to be rewritten whenever I don’t understand what a part of it may mean. For instance, if I don’t understand how the blood of Jesus was shed so my sins could be forgiven, I still believe the statement is important in understanding the creative and redemptive work of God.

While I believe scripture has the most effective statement of the work of Jesus, I continue to need to put it into my own intellectual framework as best I can. Here is my understanding at this time. The Old Testament identifies blood as representing the life of human beings and animals, so this is Jesus’s faithful life being offered up. Sin is a failure that disrupts the relationship between humankind and God. This causes humankind to be unable to exist in the presence of God ie Adam and Eve hiding from God. This sin disables humankind so that no one reaches that spiritual reality of oneness with God, so Jesus was obedient to God in all things, and God continued His creative work by forming the collective body in the Spirit of Jesus. This makes sense to me and can be expressed as the blood of Christ was shed for the forgiveness of my sins. While I continue to have unanswered questions, I have no more questions about the new creation in Christ than I have about the old creation of which I am a part.

Self interest is a powerful force in deciding how we think. Many people believe that most of our logic is really justifications of actions that benefit our self interest. The Biblical view of the good life is one that is a cross to our nature and encourages humility which places the corporate body of Christ ahead of our own interests. This humility is not natural and is credited in scripture as a reason for people to be unable to accept the scriptural view of the new creation in Christ.

Steve, I do wonder if even the educated elite could not make sense of the Gospels as written if they were inclined to do so.   Lee Nichols

Comment by Randy Oftedahl on 8th mo. 13, 2013 at 1:26pm

Friend Stephen;

Your post raises some interesting questions, and so do the responses, but I’m wondering if it raises another question which I did not find addressed here.

I agree that we should be open to learning about concepts and beliefs that we as of yet may not understand or be willing or able to accept. I certainly agree that we should not reject someone else’s experience because it is not our own. But should we as individuals personally accept doctrines or theories that are outside of our inward experience? I can see how different people may experience the Atonement as Christ’s sacrifice for our sins; I can see how others might experience Christ’s presence as an "At-one-ment" with God, or an "Atunement" with the Divine...and probably many other ways of interpreting that experience. But wasn’t it a basic Quaker insight that doctrines and beliefs which we can not find expression in our experience of God can become mere "notions", intellectual theorizing that asks us to accept somebody else’s experience of the Holy, instead of seeking to find and understand how the Inward Christ speaks to our heart? If we can not say "this I know experientially," are we merely speculating? Are we then simply grabbing this or that "belief" based on whether it sounds good to us, or reasonable to us, or seems a rational explanation, or because we want to believe it?

When we find Truth - say, when Scripture is opened to us - isn’t it because it speaks deeply to our condition and we are convinced of it inwardly, and not through "rational argument" or wishful thinking or blind acceptance? For example; I would really like to believe in some kind of Heaven - a celestial state of being with the Divine after this life. Now I would like to believe this, and it may be true - but I have no experience of it. However, I KNOW the redemptive power of God’s love through Christ - I’ve experienced that - it is as real as breath to me. Beyond this, I raise the question that if doctrines, creedal statements, religious beliefs...regardless of how real they are in other people’s experiences...have not been as of yet revealed to us inwardly, may they not be, for the time being anyway, for us outwardly?

Comment by Stephen W. Angell on 8th mo. 13, 2013 at 8:17pm

Thanks, Forrest, Lee, Randy, for these very thought-provoking posts. I found myself nodding my head while reading each of your posts. My plea in my post was for a generous orthodoxy. That is, my inward leading is to be thankful for the wonderful insights that each of you, and others have raised about this difficult theological topic. In that way, I am not experiencing the ways each of you make sense of the Christ story -- and the ways that the Friends I heard at Indiana and Ohio Valley Yearly Meetings do the same -- as outward. Rather, I am hearing all of us connecting to a great mystery -- how other could Friends' view of God in Christ Jesus in us be regarded -- and trying to testify to that great mystery in the best way each of us knows how. What I'm not feeling led to do is to criticize your views of the atonement, nor those of other Friends I've heard these recent weekends. So I'm trying to make sense, not only of each Friend's (singular) view of the atonement, but of our collective views. Is there a way that Friends can find unity on something so deeply personal and meaningful to us as our views of the atonement? I'm suggesting that there is such a way -- first, sharing deeply and meaningfully from our own perspectives, as each of you has done, but then, listening equally deeply to other Friends, and accentuating the positive in our responses to the listening.

Comment by William F Rushby on 8th mo. 14, 2013 at 2:42pm

To place Stephen Angell's comments in context, I recommend listening to Ron Selleck's talks at Indiana Yearly Meeting.  http://ronselleck.com/wp/?page_id=378

When I first knew Ron Selleck, he was a young Christian unprogrammed Friend from Texas.  By the way, George Selleck, Ron's uncle, was for many years the "meeting secretary" of the Friends Meeting of Cambridge in the Boston MA area.

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