Yesterday was the Feast of St. Andrew. No, neither of the young men in the drawing is named Andrew or Andy...though one of them is probably Randy. Sorry. Couldn't help myself.
The chaplain at work is an Episcopal priest and he and some of my regular congregation often get together and celebrate at the hospital in the chapel. A friend, of course, invited me to join them yesterday at the end of the day.
Fortunately, I was able to zip downstairs in time for the service. Leon, a friend, her husband, and myself made up the gathering.
Leon presided, and as is his custom, he was prepared to preach extemporaneously. However, there was a decided pause into which I jumped. I have been reading (among many other things) Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross. I had some questions about atonement theology and asked the group if a local priest's objection to "Atonement Theology" was unique or more universal in today's Episcopal Church.
And so we were off on a lively discussion of atonement theology and related topics. Three of us in the room were raised Roman Catholic and one was raised a Methodist.
What I am learning is that in response to the narrow focus of many churches today on one form of atonement theology - namely Penal Substitution - more liberal or progressive members of the church have thrown the baby out with the "bloody" bath water. Too many contemporary Christians have taken Anselm's theology to the extreme belief of an angry, wrathful God who demanded a blood sacrifice of his Son to remove the Sin of mankind.
Many of our contemporary denominations either continue to emphasize or a tradition that emphasized the sinful, worthlessness of humanity. In the Episcopal tradition this is evident when one compares Rite I liturgy with Rite II liturgy. In addition to the more formal thee/thou language is a decided emphasis on groveling and pleading for forgiveness in Rite I.
This belief in the inherent "badness" of mankind fits hand in glove with the Penal Substitution theology - God demanding the blood sacrifice to cure us of our sinfulness in order to make God right with us.
More often now, you will hear this referred to as Penal Satisfaction theology - the punishment that Christ takes on to satisfy an angry God. This is because there are other forms of atonement theory that our substitutionary in nature - think Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Aslan (the Christ figure) substitutes himself for Edmund in order to satisfy the White Witch (the Satan figure) and allows himself to be sacrificed. Aslan has no issue with Edmund (man) but rather with the Witch.
Well, by now you will have either forgotten how I got your attention or you are completely baffled by my choice of title and picture.
I received a phone call just as I was sitting down to try and write SOMETHING for the blog as I hadn't posted in almost three weeks. It was my friend . She had a confession to make.
Now in hind site I realize that she had remained rather quiet during our discussion that went on for at least twenty minutes or more. She called and explained that from the moment that I introduced the concept of Penal Substitution - what she heard was Penile Substitution and proceeded to sit there quietly dumbfounded as to what in the heck we men were discussing.
In the midst of my laughter I realized how much more her confusion must have increased at the point that Leon introduced the newer terminology of "Penile Satisfaction!" We all have had a good laugh about this and I hope you now will have had a good chuckle while thinking about Atonement as we begin yet another church year tomorrow with the First Sunday of Advent. Peace.
PS - I also advised her to take a page from my book and never be afraid to stop a conversation and say, "Excuse me? What? Please explain, I don't understand." It's good advice.
1 comment:
Great Post!
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