A Quaker Theology of Atonement, How Fun
John 1:29-30, 35-38a
Slide Show: Theories of Atonement as Disney Characters
What I’m attempting today requires a few more words than usual, so bear with me.
John 1:29-30, 35-38a (NRSV):
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’
35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?”
I want to talk today about “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” and more specifically, about atonement and various theories of atonement. Yay! This will be fun! Atonement theory is a really fun topic.
“Atonement” is not a word I use a lot, not a topic that keeps me up at night. But I do think that the way people have made sense of what atonement is and does, tells us something about us, about how we see ourselves and each other.
So I have two goals today: to give you a very nerdy historical overview of atonement theories in the Christian tradition: and to also to offer the beginnings, a rough draft, of a distinctly Quaker view of atonement, based on my experience as a Quaker.
What do I mean by “atonement”? In common usage, it tends to mean making repairs for harms done. Theologically, it can involve repair but is more fundamentally about the bringing together of human and Divine, usually with the help of something Christ did or does. Not to be too cutesy, but if you break the word up, you could read it as “at-one-ment.” The experience or process of becoming one. Now I usually end my messages with queries, but I think it would be helpful to begin with them today…
How do you become one with God?
How do you become one with Christ?
How do you become one with Love?
How do you become one with others?
How do you become one with the oppressed?
How do you become one with the Earth?
How do you become one with yourself?
I don’t mean for you to attend to all of these queries, today, but to pick one, at most two, to hold onto–whichever ones feel most pertinent to you, today.
Atonement theories are fundamentally about becoming one, and usually with God. This implies some degree of distance or separation. But I don’t think anything can truly separate us from God, who is always profoundly near. So maybe a better way to put it than distance or separation is being out of alignment or out of harmony with the Divine. There are things that cause disconnection between us and our God, and atonement is about reconnection. Realignment. Harmony.
Consider this scripture, a sort of complement to last week’s text about Jesus’ baptism. John the Baptist says: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This naming of Jesus evokes images of a lamb being sacrificed in the ancient Jewish practice of atonement meant to, as John says, remove sin, the fundamental barrier between humans and their God.
Now Christianity has often focused on the sacrificial part of atonement, but the point of the sacrifice, if there is sacrifice at all, is to unite humans and the Divine. Whether a sacrifice is actually needed is another question. After two of John’s disciples hear John say this about Jesus, twice, they tell John “bye” and follow Jesus. If this is the person who is going to do this at-one-ment work in the world, that’s who they want to follow.
“What are you looking for?” Jesus asks. I think that’s a great query for them, and for us. In regard to atonement, and since, for me, God is Love, what I’m looking for is a world and self in alignment with Love. What makes us one with Love? And what, according to the Christian tradition, does Jesus have to do with at-one-ment?
“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” I’m all for that! Someone taking away the sins of the world? No more greed, no more bigotry, no more violence? Hell yeah, we don’t need that stuff! But how? How does Jesus, as Lamb of God, take it away? Actually, all that stuff is still here, so…did he fail?
I’ll give you a rundown on the major theories of atonement. I’m leaving out some variations on these, and overlooking some of the nuances of each, for brevity’s sake, but I’ll tell you the gist of each. And they’re all inadequate, which is part of why I’ll offer my take on atonement, as a Quaker. But I’ll do my best to say something nice about each one. And just for fun, and maybe for retention, I’m going to tell you which Disney character I think most encapsulates each atonement theory.
Recapituation. This is one of the earliest theories, associated with St. Irenaeus from the 2nd century. “Recapitulation” suggests a restatement or an updated version of something. In this theory, Jesus is like a new Adam, and gets things right where Adam got it wrong. Whereas Adam was disobedient and broke God’s rules, and thus his/our relationship with God, Jesus becomes the first truly obedient human, obeying God at every step, which has some kind of mystical, cosmic impact, changing everything.
If this theory were captured in a Disney character, it would be Pinocchio, because he was a naughty little liar–even if we sympathize with why he lied–but then he told the truth and got things right, and transformation happened. Recapitulated Pinocchio.
Now I’m not sure I really understand how Jesus’s choices, then, make me one with Divine Love now, which is a concern I have about several atonement theories. And I also don’t love “obedience” as a way of framing our relationship with God. It's too authoritarian-sounding, and seems to demonize disobedience, which can actually be a very good thing, in some cases. This theory may very well be a product of the social world of its time, but it’s a high-control word, for me. I think Jesus did much more in his life, with his life, than obey commands given to him. I think we are much more than subservient beings who are at our best when we’re doing what we’re told.
And, was Adam, was humankind, really a failure? Or was he, maybe like Pinocchio, like all of us, just immature and trying to figure things out? Does obedience make us one with Love? Obedience implies relational distance to me, and so I find it to be an inadequate path or bridge to God. Though if obedience is more about obeying our conscience than obeying a superior giving orders, I suppose that kind of obedience could bring at-one-ment with Love.
Christus Victor. In this atonement theory, also one of the earliest, humans are in bondage–to sickness, sin, death, and the devil. But Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection, liberates us from what keeps us in this bondage, whether oppressive systems or our own self-destructive habits. Those destructive powers lose, Jesus wins, and we are set free. Now Jesus doesn’t “fight” with military might or violent thunderbolts from the heavens, but through a pattern of steady, nonviolent, persistent Love. Christ is fierce, but not violent. Some early Friends seemed to like this one, probably because its nonviolent and liberating qualities meant more to Friends than the more legal and punitive theories of their time, which I’ll get to.
If this theory were a Disney character, it would be Mulan, who fought, incognito, against evil forces, and won, not just with a sword but through courage, persistence, and care for others, ensuring her nation’s freedom.
I like Christus Victor–for an atonement theory. My main concern is whether we treat this as aspirational or descriptive. If you just look around, are we really liberated from sin and death? We know people still get sick, die, we know that “sin” is real, because, among other things, an ICE agent murdered a woman in Minneapolis the week before last, and that's just the tip of the iceberg of what is happening in our country that led to this tragedy. Are we really free? Is it that we are liberated from sin and death and the devil, or that we could be, if we truly wanted to be?
Christus Victor is fine, if it doesn’t lead to Christian supremacy, to justifying violence, or to pretending like things are fine when they’re not. But I do think that being liberated from what keeps us from cultivating Love, can make us one with that Love.
Ransom. The most whimsical of the atonement theories? Essentially, the devil has kidnapped humankind and now kind of owns us. So to rescue us, God has to pay a ransom, and buy us back from the devil. So God uses the most valuable chip they have–themselves, or Jesus, depending how you think about it. The devil thinks this is a great idea, because, if the devil owns or kills God, the Devil gets to run the show!
But it’s a trick! God tricks the devil, because instead of Jesus dying–as was the plan!–Jesus is risen!
So God gets everything–God’s Son, humans–and the devil gets nothing. Sucker! This seems to be the theory underlying the plot of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis. Humans are set free, not just through God’s Love, but because I guess God’s smarter than the devil? Trickin’ the trickster!
If this theory were a Disney character, it would be Ariel, kidnapped by Ursula to use as bait to convince King Triton to give up his crown so that she can rule. And then of course, Prince Eric stabs Ursula with his ship, and they live happily ever after.
The ransom theory seems to imply that people aren’t really fundamentally bad, but bound by forces greater than themselves. Which might be worth remembering, when faced with people who are truly awful to others. Are those people stubbornly unchangeable? Or can they be set free from the destructive habits they’ve developed and the hatred they’ve learned? Can they be bought back, with Love?
So is finding at-one-ment with Divine Love out of our hands, we who are pawns in a cosmic battle of good vs evil? I’d say we have more agency than that, and that we have a part to play in creating at-one-ment with Love.
Satisfaction. This is the first of a few related theories that, as Western Christianity emerges, shifts away from classic theories of liberation, transformation, punching the devil…and which focus on the death of Jesus, more than the whole picture of who he was. St. Anselm popularized the satisfaction theory, in his 11th century medieval, feudal context, where honor and shame were key parts of the social fabric. Anselm argued that God has been dishonored, by our human wretchedness. God’s offended, basically. God loves us, but God’s God-ness demands proper respect and honor, and humans aren’t pulling their weight. We owe something to God that God’s not getting. So God sends Christ, who, through doing everything right, including sacrificing his life, God’s honor is maintained. Where we failed, Christ succeeds, and God is satisfied.
If this theory were a Disney character, it would be the Queen of hearts, from Alice in Wonderland, quick to order a beheading at the slightest offense.
To me, this God sounds like they have a pretty fragile ego. And even if we think God deserves our devotion or moral goodness, is this really Divine Love, that gives but demands something in return? With apologies to much contemporary Christian music, does a God who is Love really need to be told how great they are, over and over…and over and over again? Do we find at-one-ment with Love through appeasing an angry, entitled God? Nah.
Penal Substitution. This is a variation on the satisfaction theory that, like the satisfaction theory, says that the problem is not that the devil, or evil forces, but us. It’s you, you’re the problem. This is the view of atonement most connected with contemporary evangelicalism, so it’s probably more familiar. You might have, at some point, just called it “how God saves us” but this atonement theory didn’t really exist until the Reformation. Here, the problem with you is not that you’re not giving God honor, but that you’re just bad, bad enough to deserve a very severe punishment. God’s justice–a punitive justice, in this theory–demands it. But God loves us. But God’s gotta punish someone! So God punishes Godself, or God’s Son. Jesus’s crucifixion was not a consequence of his radical Love, but an expression of God’s Love.
If this theory were captured in a Disney character, it would be Judge Claude Frollo, from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, who believes in punitive justice and that his cruelty and violence toward people he sees as depraved are justified, even God’s will.
Plenty has been said about penal substitutionary atonement. Many preachers have presented this as gospel truth, where the expected response is “wow, God loves me so much that God would sacrifice their own son, for me? Just for me?” But do we really want to base our theology on a God who kills their child? Sounds like a monster, to me! In this theology, violence saves. The death of Jesus becomes a mechanism, not a tragedy but something good and necessary. This theology downplays the life and ministry of Jesus. It assumes you’re a wretch. It puts Love and justice into conflict in a way that I think diminishes real love, and limits justice to one thing–punishment, rather than say, restoration, re-creation, equity, liberation, and so on. There are so many problems with basing your faith on this. In short, does punishment make us one with Love? Does violence redeem us? I don’t think so.
Moral Inspiration. This theory of atonement is difficult to date. It has become more popular since the Enlightenment, probably because it has less mythology and more practicality. Some would say it was the first theory but it’s also attributed to Peter Abelard, a French theologian, in the 12th century, sort of a counterpoint to Anselm’s satisfaction theory. Here, Jesus’s life and death provide for humans a profound moral example, and by showing us how to love, to the point of getting killed for it, we are saved, by the moral excellence of Jesus and by following the pattern he set for us.
If this theory were a Disney character, it would be Belle, because is there anyone else so committed to seeing beauty in others and protecting those she cares about?
Honestly, I don’t have a lot of concerns here, because the shift from satisfying God’s honor or bewildering sense of justice to celebrating God’s Love by practicing that Love, aligns with my spirituality in many ways. It’s obviously a very liberal view of the atonement. I guess one question it raises for me, as a Quaker, is…where is Christ, now? Is Christ just an ideal or a historical example, or is Christ what Quakers call a “present teacher,” a living reality within us, even if we don’t all call it “Christ”?
In short, does being good bring us at-one-ment with Love? I think so, as long as we don’t separate morality from Love. If I am committed to heroic self-sacrifice, but neglect my family or my health, then I’ve probably lost the plot. If I become a moral perfectionist or become self-righteous, I’ve lost my way. If I publicly perform courage and compassion but don’t have any real interest in helping people in the way they say they need help, I’m missing something. Morality and Love should be linked.
Scapegoat. This is the last, and most recent, theory to highlight. It’s a little complex but also maybe the most relevant to what’s happening in our world? Rene Girard, a 20th century French thinker, is credited with this theory that is based on the reality of human rivalry and violence. He argues that humans learn how and what to desire by observing and imitating each other; but we’ve also, historically, operated in a mindset of scarcity and then violently fought each other, each group trying to get the thing they desire.
But if we fight like this, we’ll destroy each other. So people look for a scapegoat, an innocent victim to make the target of their violence and blame, as a way of releasing some of the pressure from group conflict. Animal sacrifice is one example of this. But it also means we blame and hurt people who aren’t really the problem.
If this theory were a Disney character, it would be Bruno, blamed for all his family’s problems and doomed to live in the walls, not spoken of. But he’s not the problem.
You have seen the scapegoat mechanism at work; like when our elected officials try to tell us that the real problem is…fill-in-blank…and if we can all agree that “they” are the true baddies, then we are the good guys, and are justified in eliminating them. Of course, this scapegoating is often most championed by those actually causing harm among us, who stand to benefit from directing your attention elsewhere.
This scapegoating tendency happens throughout history. But Jesus becomes the ultimate scapegoat who exposes our violence. It wasn’t God or the devil who killed Jesus, an innocent victim; it was human fear and violence. Jesus’ death saves us by making painfully obvious to us our violence, especially our mob-like and systemic violence, so that we can unlearn this violence and rivalry, and choose instead to collaborate. To protect, not punish, the victim. The cross is not a romanticized image, it is, in Black theologian James Cone’s words, a first-century lynching. A state-sanctioned execution. Jesus didn’t come to die, Jesus lived and loved, and the powers-that-be, scapegoated and lynched him, so that the business of being Empire could continue.
So does recognizing our violence and scapegoating, bring us toward at-one-ment? I think it helps, and I think this theory might be useful to Quakers, because of its call for nonviolence and concern for victims, even if I think there’s more to atonement.
A Quaker theory of atonement. This is not the Quaker theory of atonement, which doesn’t and probably shouldn’t exist, it’s just my Quaker theory of atonement, alongside other Quakers, like Phil Smith or the late Vail Palmer, here in the Pacific Northwest, whose methods and conclusions are a bit different than my own.
I think a truly Quaker theory of atonement would emphasize a few key things:
God is not out there, but in here. We seek to be one with something already within us, but in another sense, we’ve never not had at-one-ment with God.
God is fundamentally Love, not Love and wrath, so there’s no deity to appease.
No violence, against any beloved creature, is needed to make us One with God.
Our oneness is with God in all things. God in the whole Earthly community. Atonement makes us one with the whole ecosystem of Life, which brings peace.
God, Love, is like a Seed within us, to use a classic Quaker metaphor, something within you that grows and needs tending. Our relationship with God, with Love, is not so much broken as underdeveloped. I don’t believe in original sin, where somewhere in the past things were great until we messed it up, and if we just get back to where we were! It’s a nostalgic theology, and for many reasons, I think we need a better story, one that doesn’t take us backward but calls us forward.
A Quaker atonement theory should emphasize your agency in atonement: we become one by listening to Divine Love; by nurturing it; by discerning where and how to direct it; and by expressing it in and with community in practical ways.
Jesus plays an atoning role–not a sacrificial role, really, but a harmonizing, aligning, connecting role by being one who had a profound relationship with the Divine Light and Love within himself, that is also in you; by listening to that Love and permitting it to be his energizing Center and then living that Love in ways that helped others; and by nurturing that Seed of Love in others, while also exposing and opposing the powers in the world that would otherwise stifle those Seeds of Love. Jesus atones by helping us live in harmony with that Love.
Martin Luther King. Jr., in his letter from Birmingham jail, writes: “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.*” MLK is speaking, indirectly, about atonement. About how we become one, which includes recognizing that we are already, in a sense, one. Part of the work is to live in alignment with that truth, that we are in this together.
* https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Can finding at-one-ment with Love take away the sin of the world? This verse can’t be read too literally, because sin, all those harmful things we do to ourselves, others, and the Earth, is very much here and wreaking havoc. It could be read as “sin no longer prevents you going to heaven when you die because of what Jesus did…if you also accept him as your personal lord and savior”...but I don’t think that really speaks to our condition. Or it can be read as an invitation: the Love that Jesus taught and lived, when you embody it, when we embody it, does start to take away the sin of the world. Greed, violence, bigotry…gone, slowly replaced by Love.
“What are you looking for?” asks Jesus. Maybe the disciples, with the heaviest of sighs, would say “for something, anything, to be done, about this mess we’re all in.”
So how’s this for a Quaker theory of atonement. When we listen to and nurture the Divine Love within; when we discern and respond in Love to the needs around us; when we work with the Earth and all its forms of Life to create a more just world; when we nonviolently oppose the forces that destroy those in whom this dynamic Love dwells; and when we follow those guides, like Jesus, who show us the way to find, nurture, and practice this Love that can transform our world…then we experience atonement, becoming one with the Divine, with each other, and with ourselves, finding that alignment with our Center that brings true peace.
And if my rough draft of a Quaker theory of atonement were a Disney character…I’m going to go with Wall-E! A curious, Earth-conscious robot who learns how to Love and who restores people’s relationship with the Earth, helping them not just survive but guiding them toward flourishing, toward at-one-ment. Wall-E is SO Quaker.