99 Comments

Really appreciate this, Diana. Every week, as a UCC minister, I try to preach on the themes of love, forgiveness, justice and mercy. I think I’m deciding that the faith worth keeping and clinging to, is the faith of the Sermon on the Mount and the fruit of the spirit. In communion I stress that in Aramaic, blood is the same word for juice and essence. I hope it makes a difference. I sometimes feel I adhere to the world’s most misunderstood religion. God bless our nation and May peace prevail!!!

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I agree with your article. How can we discuss "atonement" with felow believers. I am so grounded in the idea that Christ came to earth to die for my sins that I don't know how to explain why he came here....

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Trump has been able to manipulate a huge section of the evangelical community. This has been coming for years when the church buys into the lie that we were a Christian nation from the beginning. Thank you Diana for pointing how dark this has become.

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Aug 22, 2022Liked by Diana Butler Bass

Spot on! Appreciation from a faithful reader of your work, former Evangelical and fellow California central coast Bible college grad and GCTS alum from '90.

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Diana, I am glad that you raised this discussion at such a time as this, because themes of theology (especially forms that are distorted and consequently have dangerous implications, then and now).

So, in looking at the 19th Century, the thing that I most hate to read about is the evil of slavery, which was such a impetus for the Civil War, and had at its heart, whether a person would be seen as a person, vice owned by someone else as though they were property. That is human dignity was at the core as I read the war.

I think that those who are talking about a Civil War now, are all to closely linked, with that foul entity that as Jefferson Davis said, 'died of a theory.'

In this regard, the Civil War as the Civil War historian Barbara Fields said at the end of Burns documentary series, "the civil war still is going on."

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I see the dawn of a new day in which we find that we no longer need the conceptual walls that separate us (race, culture, conditioning, political party, etc.). It is coming, and your work is contributing to its arrival. Without these arbitrary walls, we will see we are connected, similar in many more ways than different. This awareness will accompany a peace that surpasses all understanding, and a genuine love for each other, as for ourselves. By God’s grace we will seek this truth in the stillness of the Spirit.

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Diana, I have been nervous since Trump first entered the race for the presidency. That was a rude awakening for me that white Christian nationalism was on the move in our precious democracy. I thank you for your post that clarifies where we are today. I too believe that we must foster peace and genuine caring in our world - because there is no greater power than the power of Love.

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I'm speechless!

My fundamentalist roots were the bloody atonement theology.

Thank you for this incredible post. It had to be said!

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Aug 13, 2022Liked by Diana Butler Bass

You've touched on a subject dear to me because it is central to what the Gospel is about: Reconciliation with God. But virtually all the 'models' for explicating how this works fall short (in my view), thereby leading to utterly unconvincing explanations or, worse, the kind of anti-christian beliefs you describe.

I was moved into a moderately tough neighborhood when I was 4 years old. Already, gangs were formed by kids (boys) about my age. I'd not met any of them, until I was attacked by them. A couple years later I hit and made cry the leader of this group. My father was proud.

But since, I've imagined a different scenario: New kid on the block "clocked" and knocked to the pavement by this ringleader. What in the world's (at least my father's) estimation did he deserve in return? Of course. That's our instinctive human notion of 'justice'.

Suppose, instead, I get up and offer my hand in friendship despite what has been done to me. I think that this is what divine forgiveness does, and what revoltingly (from more than one perspective) is offered. It puts a much different spin on Christ "bearing our Sin".

In the Temptation Story, the actual temptation is to "be like God" (in the context of the author's intent, describing mythically what is wrong between humanity and its Creator, YHWH). In the next chapter, Cain will cry out that his "sin" is more than he can bear. What he means is what we would call "punishment". The Hebrew concept of punishment related to sin is having to bear that sin's consequences. And so, 'punishment' is always rendered using the root of whatever word for sin the writer is employing. This is what Cain found to be unbearable. And what is meant in the OT by someone's sin being "visited upon" them.

Now SIN, THE Sin against God from which all "sins" derive, is the rejection and usurpation of the Rule of God, ourselves in each case vetoing the Will of God with our own wills. The ultimate implication is our wanting God "out of the way" so we can be free to run our show in our own lights. This is endemically evident throughout human history and experience. It amounts to a different take on the "Death of God" concept. In the deepest, darkest corners of our souls we want God dead so we can be our own gods.

In John 8: 31 - 59 we have the evangelist getting at this very idea with the words of Jesus. And it is significant that Jesus alludes to the Temptation Story. But WAIT! Can we really kill God? Rather, is not 'Justice' the forfeiture of our own lives to God the Giver of Life?

Yes, we would kill God if we could lay our hands on God. Because at some point for all of us God's Will pushes us too far. And the unthinkable, outrageous and offensible is that this is what God allows to happen in the Incarnation, in the person of Jesus.

In Leviticus 17 we are told that the "life" of a creature "is in the blood". That belongs to God and is not to be consumed. This goes back to the 'P' version in Genesis 9 following the Flood. In the Levitical sacrificial system, the life (i.e. the blood) of the animal slaughtered makes atonement, rendering the "food offered to God" acceptable. In effect, table fellowship with God is made possible because the price for sin is made in a substutional manner.

This is not what happens in the crucifiction of Jesus. He is God offering up his life, offering forgiveness and reconciliation with God by "bearing" the Sin of humankind. Jesus' death by human hands, represented by Roman law considered to be the epitome for its time, the religious leadership of the "one true religion", and those closest to Jesus who'd sworn that they would die for him, displayed humanity at its supposed "best". Instead of "the wages of Sin" God offers Life with God. All that is needed is the acceptance of this Gift making reconciliation with God possible - on God's (New) terms.

For the sake of time and space, I'll leave the matter here. Much more can be said to fill in the argument. But one thing can be said. The atoning Blood of Jesus is NOT about God getting a pound of flesh out of someone, but God accepting victimhood as the way to true forgiveness and reconciliation for humankind. I believe this addresses all the relevant concerns of Scripture and the inadequate models historically offered to explain what took place with Jesus' crucifixtion and why such a death was necessary. But I would welcome any challenges, taking into account gaps in need of filling to make a more thorough explication, and the questions which thereby arise.

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I have only a few words: " You, go girl!"

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When I read your post, I thought, "We don't need more if this, as we had enough of it under Trump." However, fed up with it as I am, we need as a nation to be aware of what we are becoming.

There is nothing new about any of this; The Republican Party is no longer the Party of Abraham Lincoln nor does it go forth with the ideals that Party once had but no longer has. It is now primarily the Party of those who are members of Mitch McConnell's Grand Ole Party.

I am a follower of Jesus. "Christian" and "Evangelical" are no longer words I care to use to describe myself.

As a registered Independent, I am not particularly fond of any of the political Partys as I think they divide more than they unite. And we DO need as much awareness of what our choices are when we go to cast our votes.

As a follower of Jesus, thank you, Diana, for shining much needed LIGHT in a dark place.

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I was re-reading this today in light of learning of the attack on Salman Rushdie at Chautauqua Institution this morning. When will it ever end?

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Have read many of the posts that spoke to your very good work and especially on this post. Excellent and truth telling piece from my perspective. On a quieter note than all of the stuff going on I have noticed many people are rethinking and moving back "home" area, or moving closer to family. Deconstruction is not a scary term to me any more. We are in the process of going through all our stuff as we prepare to move closer to family. It is Deconstruction is but like cells in our body we are simultaneously reconstructing in every way. It is healing process as we redo things so I suggest deconstruction ie looking at church's theology of atonement and present to the world and our group that is denomination is important to how we present to the world local and beyond.!

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Thanks, Diane!! The key, for me is the use of the phrase, "civil war". This is a naked homage to the truth that their aims, objectives and underlying values are secular and temporal, not eternal and spiritual. They reject the weaponry and strategy of God (see Ephesians 6 and Galatians 5-6) in favor of self-aggrandizement and idolatrous focus on themselves and not on God's priorities and His Word. They ignore the strategy Yeshua clearly employed in His confrontation with Satan himself, as recounted in Matthew 4 and Luke 4. HYPOCRITES, they are!

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Aug 12, 2022Liked by Diana Butler Bass

Your post today gives me hope that there are clear-headed Christians who see Jesus calling us to action ~ not to a civil war, but to recognizing that we all come from the same Source and need to work for the good of each other. Our country is in a terrible state and I think we need to keep the conversation going as to how we can do our part to make positive changes. We all need some hope about now. Your post provides a glimmer of that; thank you.

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