Author: Ted Grimsrud

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Does Jesus’ Death Have Meaning?

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Ted Grimsrud—December 11, 2011

I recently read and discussed with my Contemporary Theology class three books on atonement theology. Each answers the question of the meaning (or lack thereof) in Jesus’ death.

Hans Boersma’s Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition, sees the most meaning in the crucifixion of Jesus in his defense of traditional atonement models (his is not simply a straightforward defense of traditional satisfaction and substitutionary views, though).

J. Denny Weaver’s The Nonviolent Atonement challenges the view that Jesus’ death is necessary for salvation, but as he does still work with the language of atonement, there is some ambiguity in his treatment of Jesus’ death. The death was strictly an act of evil, not something God in any sense willed. But Jesus’ death is part of the story of salvation that in some sense is dependent upon Jesus’ resurrection. The resurrection is the saving act, but—though Weaver does not state it like this—there had to be a crucifixion for there to be a resurrection. So Jesus’ death has meaning in relation to his resurrection.

Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker, in their book Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us, utterly reject any kind of positive role for the story of Jesus’ death. They believe that Christian theology that valorizes Jesus’ death, especially that sees his death as necessary for salvation, is actually advocating a kind of “divine child abuse” where the “father” requires the violent death of the “son.”

As it turns out, Boersma’s view is pretty complicated. He tries to hold together all three of the tradition models: satisfaction, moral influence, and Christus Victor. There are other arguments for the satisfaction model and its substitutionary atonement variant that are stricter. One recent example is this book by British theologians Steve Jeffrey, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach: Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution. The subtitle makes the stance of the authors clear.

The two approaches: Satisfaction or mercy “all the way down”

One way to approach this topic is to note that, at bottom, there are basically two ways to think about Christian salvation: the satisfaction view and the “mercy all the way down” view. Continue reading “Does Jesus’ Death Have Meaning?” →

How Does Pacifism (Properly Understood) Work as a Core Christian Conviction?

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Ted Grimsrud—December 4, 2011

[What follows is an essay intended as a kind of thought experiment. It arises from many discussions and much thought in relation to how we best understand theological role of Christian pacifism. It is especially aimed at other Christian pacifists—though hopefully many other people would find it interesting as well. I don’t mean it as a dogmatic statement but as a invitation to on-going conversation and discernment.]

“Pacifism”—A recent and complicated term

The term “pacifism” has a rich if brief history. It was first widely used in English just a bit more than 100 years ago, based on the newly coined French word, pacifisme, that was used of “making peace.” The initial use in English focused on opposition to war, and one of the major ways the term has been used has been to refer to a principled opposition to all war, and more broadly, all uses of violence.

Interestingly, in Mennonite circles, during the short career of the term “pacifism,” its usage has evolved quite dramatically. Perhaps the first significant use of “pacifism” in widely read Mennonite writings came in Guy F. Hershberger’s classic text, War, Peace, and Nonresistance, first published in 1944 to provide American Mennonites with authoritative guidance for negotiating the life of faith amidst a warring society. While forcefully and comprehensively developing a theological rationale for opposition to war, Hershberger differentiated “biblical nonresistance” (the path he advocated) from “pacifism.” Hershberger associated “pacifism” with the non-Christian social change advocate Mohandas Gandhi and with liberal American Protestants who unwisely sought to effect wide-ranging social change. Both Gandhi and the liberal Protestant pacifists departed significantly from the biblical model of Jesus-centered nonresistance that turned the other cheek and refused to use coercion to seek justice for oneself.

Hershberger himself evolved in his views, by the early 1960s actually endorsing the Gandhian social activism of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the American Civil Rights Movement. By this time, due to other factors as well, “pacifism” had begun to gain currency in Mennonite circles as a useful term that connoted a combination of nonresistance’s refusal to take up arms with a new openness toward political engagement heightened by opposition to the U.S war in Vietnam. The term “pacifism” was seen as a more inclusive term than “nonresistance,” carrying the connotation of a broader application of the anti-violence message of Jesus. Increasingly, Mennonites engaged broader peace concerns than simply assuring their own community’s non-participation in war—and “pacifism” seemed like a good term to capture this broadening of the peace position.

In time, though, the term “nonviolence” came to have increased attraction. “Pacifism,” ironically, came to be linked with the more withdrawn stance earlier connoted by “nonresistance.” Perhaps, in part, the word “pacifism” sounded too much like “passive-ism.” Also ironically, “nonviolence,” though negative in construction, came to be seen as a more positive, activist term than “pacifism.

Why “pacifism” remains a useful term

However, the term “pacifism” retains important virtues. Unlike “nonresistance,” “nonviolence,” and “non-retaliation” (a term that has never actually caught on, though it has been suggested by some as a more accurate description of Jesus’ meaning in the Sermon on the Mount), “pacifism” is positive in construction. It could literally read “love of peace.” Continue reading “How Does Pacifism (Properly Understood) Work as a Core Christian Conviction?” →

What about abortion?

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Ted Grimsrud—October 30, 2011

I have to admit that I have never been especially exercised by the abortion issue.

On the one hand, I have never found the strict anti-abortion position attractive. While self-labeled as “pro-life,” it has often struck me as rigid, legalistic, ideological, and too easily co-opted by political forces that in other respects are pretty anti-life. Yet I also have a hard time thinking of abortions as positive or even morally neutral acts. I also am uncomfortable with arguments that present abortion is strictly a matter of the pregnant woman’s personal choice.

And it is not an issue I have ever had close personal experience with. So it has been easy to focus on other issues—as I still do.

However, in the introductory ethics course I teach to mostly first-year college students, I use abortion as one of several case studies we briefly consider. So I do find myself getting more interested.

The success of “pro-life” rhetoric

I am struck more and more with how successful the anti-abortion advocates seem have been in setting the terms of the discussion. Most students seem to take it as a given that human life (in the sense of deserving of full human rights, let’s call this “personhood”) begins when the egg is fertilized. So, abortion at a very early stage is understood to be the taking of a human life, morally equivalent to murder. When pushed to consider it, many of these students would see that even “birth control” methods that prevent fertilized eggs from being implanted on the uterine wall (e.g., the “morning after pill”) are abortion.

This seems to paint people into a corner. We have heard several true-life stories from guest speakers about cases where the strict pro-life belief led to actions that many in the class recognize as seemingly problematic. Continue reading “What about abortion?” →

Käthe Kollwitz: Making Peace with Art

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Ted Grimsrud—October 9, 2011

In the late 1800s, an emerging young graphic artist moved into inner city Berlin with her physician husband—he to serve Germany’s poorest people, she—it seemed—to forfeit her promising career in order to accompany the doctor as he followed his calling.

As it turned out, though, the artist, Käthe Kollwitz, became internationally renowned as one the greatest creators of peaceable art in the twentieth-century. Kollwiz discovered her focus in those hard years in the big city. Like few others, she captured the pain, struggles, and beauty of history’s forgotten people.

With black and white drawings, woodcuts, and sculpture—and with an amazing reservoir of respect and compassion—Kollwitz gave to the ages unforgettable images of dignity amidst poverty and despair, resolve in the face of crushing injustice, and the occasional joy of human celebrations and solidarity.

In spite of her social location, Kollwitz did gain renown as an extraordinary artist. Then came another turn in her choice of subject matter. Beginning in 1914, Germany entered into a terrible dark age. Total war followed by overwhelming famine. Kollwitz had for many years been a political radical—but with the war and its consequences, she became a pacifist and devoted her art to a profoundly moving series of works that capture the trauma, senselessness, and, ultimately, evils of war.

However, though it is protest art, resistance work that can touch and inspire, Kollwitz’s anti-war pieces share the deep, deep compassion and empathy of her earlier portraits of poverty and struggle.

Continue reading “Käthe Kollwitz: Making Peace with Art” →

War and the Old Testament: A Proposal

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Ted Grimsrud—October 3, 2011

It seems to come up all the time in discussions about pacifism. What about all the violence in the Old Testament? I’m not sure why the OT is considered to be a problem especially for pacifists—the violence there should be a problem for any moral person, I think.

I remember my Old Testament teacher, Millard Lind (of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary), speaking at the University of Oregon and making the point that the violence in the Old Testament creates problems for all Christians. We all say that the OT is revelatory, and it portrays God ordering or performing some horrendous and indiscriminate acts of violence. The OT is not about “just wars” in the sense that the western moral tradition has used that term. It positively portrays acts of indiscriminate murder, acts that are condemned by just about all moral systems.

I had a student a number of years ago who signed up for one of my Bible classes with the intent of refuting the pacifism I taught. To get ready for the class he began to read through the OT, making note of all the materials that went against pacifism. He did not get far into this project before he faced a major crisis in his faith. He realized it was actually too easy to prove his point; his own non-pacifist moral framework was also under assault by the Bible’s stories. Ultimately, he resolved the problem by giving up on the Bible and Christian faith.

So, it could be (1) that those who evoke the OT as evidence against pacifism are being disingenuous in acting as if the OT does not equally provide evidence against the just war theory or any other view that places moral limits on lethal violence used against civilian populations. Thus, it could also be (2) that non-pacifist Christians should be just as concerned about this dilemma as pacifist Christians. That they don’t seem to be is itself an indictment against the lack of moral rigor in the easy Christian acceptance of warfare. Continue reading “War and the Old Testament: A Proposal” →

Gordon Kaufman and theological “orthodoxy”

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Ted Grimsrud—September 18, 2011

Gordon Kaufman’s death has provided occasion for me to reflect on how his constructive theology has shaped my own. I was a pastor when I first started reading Kaufman seriously. I found his thought helpful for me in that setting. He challenged me to recognize the need to present my own theology in my sermons, Bible studies, classes, and conversations as something fallible and finite. Since all theology is human work, it is all to be held lightly. Kaufman helped strengthen my already present anti-authoritarian tendencies. [See my two earlier posts that discuss Kaufman: “Gordon Kaufman, R.I.P.” and “Mennonite Theology and War: Kaufman and Yoder”.]

I had the sense from when I first seriously read Kaufman that what was most important for my purposes was his understanding of theological method. To recognize that every bit of our theology is a human construction would not be to reject out of hand traditional theological “orthodoxy”—rather, it would be to demand that the received beliefs be subject to the same scrutiny as all other human statements. The received beliefs, in light of Kaufman’s theological method, did not have a privileged status that rendered them impervious to criticism, impervious to rational evaluation in light of evidence, or impervious to experiential confirmation (or dis-confirmation). But if they could stand up to scrutiny, they could still be affirmed as true. According to his method, at least, Kaufman had no basis simply to reject a belief because he didn’t like it. His approach called for a quest for genuine objectivity (recognizing that this is never fully achievable) wherein one’s theological conclusions would be based on what is discerned to be true—not based on either an uncritically accepted “orthodoxy” or a knee-jerk anti-orthodoxy. Continue reading “Gordon Kaufman and theological “orthodoxy”” →

Theology as if Jesus Matters—A review and some reflections

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Ted Grimsrud—August 7, 2011

My book Theology as if Jesus Matters: An Introduction to Christianity’s Main Convictions was published by Cascadia Publishing House in November 2009. It received a mostly appreciative review in the July 2011 issue of Mennonite Quarterly Review (pages 528-30). The reviewer, Andy Brubacher Kaethler, raised a few questions that I would like to reflect on a bit.

Here is the review. And here are the sermons that make up the core of the book.

Happily, Kaethler reads the book as I would want it read, affirming that for him at least the book largely succeeds with its intentions. He writes that the book is “an accessible and persuasive articulation of why theology must always begin with and keep returning to the life of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Gospels.” And he notes that “a central argument in the book is that formal doctrines tend to induce theological amnesia regarding the life and lived values of Jesus. A corollary argument is that Christians have tended to allow doctrines to function as ‘ends’ rather than as ‘aids.'”

I am glad Kaethler presents the book’s argument in this way. I am not rejecting doctrines (as the book itself is about each of the traditional Christian doctrines) but challenging Christians to see the doctrines as servants to faithful living, not as ends in themselves (which means, for example, not using doctrines as boundary markers or not absolutizing humanly constructed doctrines themselves as revelation). Continue reading “Theology as if Jesus Matters—A review and some reflections” →

Mennonite Theology and War: Kaufman and Yoder

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Ted Grimsrud—July 31, 2011

With Gordon Kaufman’s passing, an era in the Mennonite world is nearing an end. Kaufman, like his contemporaries, was decisively shaped by his personal experience with World War II and its immediate aftermath. (The era isn’t quite over given the still-productive pen of the remarkable Norman Kraus, an exact contemporary of Kaufman’s and John Howard Yoder’s—here’s Norman’s most recent book.)

In an interview given near the end of his life, Kaufman talked briefly about how as a young adult he was planning to pursue a career in mathematics. Then he was drafted in the midst of World War II and chose to be a conscientious objector. He served for several years in Civilian Public Service in lieu of entering the military. By war’s end, he had redirected his aspirations.

John Howard Yoder, the other Mennonite theological giant of the 20th century, also had his life’s aspirations redirected by World War II-based service. Yoder, who was a couple years younger than Kaufman and thus not liable to the draft during the war, went to war-devastated Western Europe on a service assignment shortly after the end of the war, an assignment that determined his educational and vocational pursuits.

With all their differences, Kaufman and Yoder shared something quite profound. They both obviously were brilliant and ambitious young men who had multiple options for career paths. Both also were deeply committed Mennonites. Contrary to the stereotype of Mennonites as withdrawn, “sectarian,” and purity-focused, both of these two extraordinarily gifted people decided to devote their lives to grappling with the world’s most complicated and relevant issue: how to live humanely in a war-devastated environment still in thrall to the myth of redemptive violence. Continue reading “Mennonite Theology and War: Kaufman and Yoder” →

Gordon Kaufman, R.I.P.

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Ted Grimsrud—July 24, 2011

Gordon Kaufman, a giant among 20th century Christian theologians, died at his home in Cambridge, MA, this past Friday. Kaufman, an emeritus professor at Harvard Divinity School, was 86.

Kaufman was well known in theology circles as a theological liberal (he’s featured prominently in Gary Dorrien’s authoritative history of liberal theology in the U.S.). Not so well known, he was also a Mennonite. His father, E.G. Kaufman (also a theologian) was long-time president of Bethel College, a Mennonite school in Kansas.

Gordon was a conscientious objector during World War II, serving in Civilian Public Service. After graduating from Bethel, he went on to graduate studies at the University of Chicago and Yale Divinity School. One of his main teachers was H.Richard Niebuhr. After completing his doctorate, he taught at Pomona College in southern California for a few years. At that time he was ordained for the ministry in the General Conference Mennonite Church, an ordination he kept current the rest of his life. He moved on to Vanderbilt Divinity School and in 1963 joined the faculty at Harvard Divinity School, where he remained for the rest of his career.

Beginning in 1960, Gordon published a series of important theology books, most notably his In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (Harvard University Press, 1993) which won an American Academy of Religion award of excellence in 1995. He kept writing well into his retirement years. His last book was Jesus And Creativity"" (Fortress Press, 2006). Continue reading “Gordon Kaufman, R.I.P.” →

Mercy All the Way Down?

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Ted Grimsrud—July 18, 2011

One of my favorite books, Walter Wink’s Engaging the Powers, begins with a most challenging question: “How can we oppose evil without creating new evils and being made evil ourselves?”

I wonder often about the role of vengeance in our society and in our personal lives. (I have posted a longer essay on this topic, “Beyond Vengeance”, on my website.) So much violence (think of our criminal justice system and of so many embittered former spouses and friends) accelerates the spiral of revenge/retaliation following violation.

The simple answer, of course, is to replace revenge with forgiveness. Stop the spiral of violence in its tracks. Well, yes….But, if we are honest, we know things are not that simple.

When we are violated, we experience damage that creates needs. To jump straight to forgiveness short-circuits those needs. For this reason, often people who “forgive” too soon end up repressing their pain, over time leading to many more problems. Continue reading “Mercy All the Way Down?” →