Category: Biblical theology

Reflecting on Jesus’ Cross

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 11 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—April 6, 2012

I was part of a panel during Holy Week at Eastern Mennonite University on “Heaven, Hell, and the Cross of Christ.” Each of the five speakers was given five minutes. That’s right, five minutes….

A challenging assignment indeed. The point was to stimulate discussion for the audience, largely made up of college students who, by their attendance, were signaling an interest in theological reflection. It was a worthwhile evening. The five speakers, perhaps a bit surprisingly, mostly reinforced each other’s perspectives and the discussion was lively but respectful. And, for me personally, certainly the discipline of trying to say something meaningful and coherent in five minutes was useful to submit to.

However, we left one rather significant issue on the table that didn’t get addressed. The audience constructed a list of questions for further discussion following the opening presentations and some small group processing. We worked through most of the questions, but ran out of time before we could to get to them all.

The question left unaddressed had actually been addressed to me and one of the other panelists by name. When I saw the question, I began working on a response in my head. So I was a bit sorry that we didn’t get to it. The nice about having a blog, though, is that I can address the question here. Continue reading “Reflecting on Jesus’ Cross” →

Is God violent? Naming the questions

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 Ted Grimsrud—February 29, 2012

This question (“Is God Violent?”) seems to me to be one of those great questions that challenges us to wide-ranging theological reflection. And it triggers a bunch of further questions that are worth thinking about in order to get at our main one. I will raise nine here. I owe a debt of gratitude to Brian McLaren’s short but thoughtful and provocative article in the January 2011 issues of Sojourners (also titled “Is God Violent?”).

What are our options?

McLaren offers a helpful fourfold typology of the different options for how Christians might answer our question: (1) God is violent and human violence is okay, sometimes even good. (2) God is violent and only in limited cases might human violence be morally acceptable. (3) God is not violent, so human violence is always a violation of our being created in God’s image—hence it is always tragic and regrettable; it is never justified. (4) God is not violent, so human violence in any form is always absolutely forbidden.

I had to read this list several times before I could figure out what the difference between #3 and #4 is. There must be a difference, since McLaren says, regretfully, that he holds #3 and not #4—though he aspires to #4. Finally I figured out that he had left out an additional sentence in his description of the third view that would have made him more clear: “Sometimes violence happens in ways that are the lesser evil; it’s not morally good but it may be the most realistic and least bad possibility.” To this clarification, McLaren might also have wanted to add a thought borrowed from Reinhold Niebuhr that in such cases we rely on God’s pardon; we don’t claim we are doing something that is not sinful.

Unfortunately, McLaren leaves out another option that probably is the most common option for Mennonite pacifists who have thought about these issues. At least it’s a very common option among Mennonite intellectuals. This would be the belief that God is violent but that human beings are called not to be. On the one hand, it is “God’s prerogative to exercise God’s sovereign power however God sees the need to;” on the other hand, God forbids human beings to take this expression of governance into their own hands. They interpret “vengeance is mine, says the Lord” (Romans 12:21) as a call to leave the violence to God. Willard Swartley, Miroslav Volf, Mary Schertz, and Millard Lind  all have published various versions of this view—as did John Howard Yoder (see John Nugent’s account of Yoder’s Old Testament interpretation, The Politics of Yahweh). Continue reading “Is God violent? Naming the questions” →

Christian Salvation: More and More Questions (Part 3)

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Ted Grimsrud—February 10, 2012

In what sense should we think of Jesus as our savior? My cyber-friend Al Steiner has raised a series of challenging questions (scroll down for Al’s comments) of my account of salvation based on his careful reading of the Bible. Reflecting further on the questions Al raises will help me continue to think though what I want to say about salvation.

How is Jesus “instrumental” for salvation?

(1) Al concludes from John’s Gospel and the first letter of John that Jesus “is instrumental in the grace of God, purifying us, taking away our sin.” Key verses include John the Baptist’s declaration when he first sees Jesus that he is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) and these words: “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

On the face of it, at least, I don’t really see these assertions about Jesus’ role in salvation being in tension with what I am trying to say. So much depends on definitions—both of the problem Jesus is trying to resolve and the meanings of such key works as “takes away,” “sin(s),” “blood,” and “cleanses.”

First of all, I see no hint in these verses and their wider contexts that John is portraying Jesus’ saving work as in any way related to providing a necessary sacrifice that, in a way only it can, makes it possible for a wrathful/just/holy/honorable God to offer forgiveness that prior to that sacrifice was not possible. That is, whatever “take away” and “cleanse” have to do with, it is not satisfying something in God.

I think that the problem, basically, is that our trusting in idols has separated us from life-giving relationships with God and fellow humans. What needs to happen is that the power of sin (idolatry) over us needs to be broken. To have sin taken away or to have sin cleansed, it seems to me, is about breaking this power of sin over us and freeing us to accept and live in light of the persistent and ever-present mercy of God. Continue reading “Christian Salvation: More and More Questions (Part 3)” →

Christian Salvation: More and More Questions (Part 2)

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Ted Grimsrud—February 8, 2012

Our understanding of salvation seems an important enough issue to warrant continuing reflection  and conversation. I appreciate comments that have been written in response to some of the thinking I have been doing on this topic.I want to respond to some further thoughts from Philip Bender in this post and will return again shortly with thoughts in response to Al Steiner’s comments.

My earlier pieces since December 2011 have been: “Does Jesus’ Death Have Meaning?”, “Jesus’ Death and My Salvation,” “Does Paul Agree with Jesus About Salvation?”, “Christian Salvation: Do the Questions Never End?”, “Are All Sins the Same Before God?”, and “Christian Salvation: More and More Questions.” I write these current reflections as a preliminary effort to revise and complete a book on salvation, the first draft of which was called Mercy Not Sacrifice: The Bible’s Salvation Story.

Philip Bender, in his latest in a series of thoughtful responses to my posts, raises several important questions.

How are theological and political beliefs related?

His first question is about the connection between our beliefs about God and our political/social philosophy. “Does one’s view of God lead to one’s world view in other realms of life?” or is it more that “one’s social and political ideology…shapes one’s view of God?” Specifically, what do we make of the apparent correlation between “a strong satisfaction atonement theology and [belief] in a quite vengeful God” and “very conservative and reactionary social, political, and economic views”? Continue reading “Christian Salvation: More and More Questions (Part 2)” →

Christian Salvation: More and More Questions

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Ted Grimsrud—February 5, 2012

It is now over a month since I wrote my last set of reflections on the theme of salvation. That post received several quite helpful and challenging responses that I can only now get back to. It won’t be until this summer that I will have the time to concentrate directly on my writing on salvation, but I want to try to keep the conversation going with some responses now.

I will start with a general comment. Like all other theological themes, I think the most important issue in relation to thinking about salvation is that of how can this thinking help us better to love God and neighbor. That is, I am interested in the theology of salvation not mainly because I want to figure out a way to summarize what the Bible or history of Christian doctrine says about it. It is certainly the case that the Bible (and the tradition) presents us with many different views. But I don’t think all those views are equally helpful in helping us to practice love—some in fact are unhelpful.

I don’t think we need to insist that there is just one true view, but I do think we do operate in practice in light of particular ideas that we do value above others. In practice, we don’t operate with a bunch of different views that we keep in mind as various options that reflect the diversity of biblical theologies. We do prioritize. I’m simply saying, then, that we should recognize our need to prioritize and be self-conscious about it. And I then present the case for a perspective that makes theological priorities based on the call to love God and neighbor—in part because Jesus clearly does this and calls his followers to do likewise (I believe).

I greatly appreciated the challenging reflections shared by three people in particular. I find thinking of how best to respond to the comments of John Miller, Philip Bender, and Al Steiner has helped me tremendously in thinking things through. I am deeply grateful to each of these friends for pushing the conversation forward. Here are some thoughts in response. In this post I will only be able to respond to John’s comments. I hope to take up Philip’s and Al’s soon. Continue reading “Christian Salvation: More and More Questions” →

Christian salvation: Do the questions never end?

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 4 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—January 1, 2012

I keep thinking about salvation and related issues—aided considerably by various thoughtful questions and comments. My post this week will be kind of a grab bag of responses to various recent comments that relate to my three-part discussion of Jesus’ death and salvation (“Does Jesus’ death have meaning?” “Jesus’ death and my salvation,” and “Does Paul agree with Jesus about salvation?”).

Life after death

My old friend David Myers in Washington, DC, asked about (I think) salvation in relation to life after death. He wrote: I’m stuck on the word ‘saved’—its forthright, non-theological meaning, especially related to the resurrection. I get that loving God and neighbor saves us into a richer, more meaningful life than we would have if we worshiped the idols, etc. Yet that very life of salvation may well lead to getting killed. So, now we’re dead as a rock, which is a condition I’d like to be saved from. Why then doesn’t the resurrection save us, in the simple, non-theological meaning of the word?

I don’t think my points about the relationship between resurrection and salvation were meant to speak to the issue of life after death one way or another. I believe there is strong continuity between life and in the present and whatever happens after we die. By the nature of the case, we cannot say anything definitive about life after death. And the Bible as a whole is much more circumspect in speaking about that theme than much of later theology. Whatever salvation means, though, I think it should be seen to apply to both life in the here and now and life after we’re “dead as a rock.”

That is, if we enter the “life of salvation” in this life (which is clearly the concern of the vast majority of biblical talk about salvation) there is no reason not to expect continuity in the afterlife. Whatever it is that saves us in the former state surely will save us in the latter state. The problem with much Christian talk of the afterlife is that it seems to assume some kind of discontinuity—we are “saved” for the afterlife by a kind of belief that does not necessarily lead to a “life of salvation” in the present. When Jesus responds to the question about “eternal life” with his call to love God and neighbor, he clearly has in mind life in its fullness in the present—we know we are living in such love when we imitate the Good Samaritan in his risky and costly compassion. But there is no reason not to think this “eternal life” does not extent to after we “get killed” for practicing such compassion. Continue reading “Christian salvation: Do the questions never end?” →

Does Paul agree with Jesus about salvation?

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Ted Grimsrud—December 23, 2011

Jesus’ approach to salvation was simple—he bypassed the sacrificial system and offered direct forgiveness. He answered a direct question about how to inherit eternal life by reiterating what he believed was the essence of the law and prophets: love God and neighbor. He told an amazing story about a terribly sinful son who is welcomed by his father back into the family simply by returning home.

In other words, if we take our cues from Jesus himself, we should not be investing his death with the kind of meaning that sees in his death the one necessary sacrifice that might satisfy God and enable God to bring salvation about. To the contrary, Jesus echoes the prophets by insisting that God operates according to the logic of mercy, not the logic of sacrifice, payback, reciprocity, and punishment. According to Jesus, God’s justice is restorative not retributive.

But what about Christianity’s greatest interpreter of Jesus’ message, Paul the Apostle? How compatible is Paul’s understanding of salvation with Jesus? Do we have to choose between the two? I think not. In this, my third post on salvation (the first was “Does Jesus’ death have meaning?” and the second was “Jesus’ death and my salvation”), I will make that case that Paul was faithful and accurate to Jesus’ main message (with the implication that later Christianity has actually misread Paul).

Like his Jesus and the prophets, Paul understands salvation in terms of God’s merciful intention to bring healing to a broken world.  Paul does not present salvation in terms of retributive justice or a mechanistic view of God’s holiness and honor.  Salvation, for Paul, is a gift of a relational God who seeks to free humanity from its self-destructive bondage to the powers of sin and death. Continue reading “Does Paul agree with Jesus about salvation?” →

Jesus’ Death and My Salvation

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 4 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—December 18, 2011

My earlier post on Jesus’ death (“Does Jesus’ Death Have Meaning?”) was rather heady and theological—grappling with this big question in the realm of ideas. This is appropriate, and I have been happy at the discussion that was stimulated by what I wrote.

One extended comment, from Philip Bender, challenged me to think about these issues a bit more personally and existentially. I understand the essence of Philip’s questions to be about how our beliefs about salvation, atonement, Jesus’ death, et al, actually speak to our lives, to our sense of assurance of our connection with God, to our on-the-ground appropriation of the Bible’s message of being reconciled with God.

These are some of the specific questions he raised:

• How do we appropriate Jesus atonement?

• How do personal, structural, and cosmic “at-one-ment” with God happen? How are these processes different and how are they unified?

• What does it mean to “trust in” the forgiving and transforming mercy of God?

• How do I know when I’ve trusted in it? Is it when I say that “Jesus (out of mercy) died for me”? When I endeavor to practice a life of mercy (“works”)?

Rather than respond to these questions head on, one-by-one, I will speak to the general thrust of what I perceive to be involved in these types of questions. Part of my concern in this discussion is that we let Jesus’ own teaching, and how he embodied his teaching, be our main guide. It seems to me that in discussions about atonement and salvation, this rarely happens. So let’s turn to two of Jesus’ most important accounts of how he understands salvation, two stories from the Gospel of Luke: the parable of the Good Samaritan (10:25-37) and the parable of the Prodigal Son (15:11-32).

The Good Samaritan story stands as one of the very few times that Jesus’ directly addresses the basic salvation question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The Prodigal Son story has so commonly been associated with Jesus’ message of salvation that it has come to be called “the gospel in miniature.” Continue reading “Jesus’ Death and My Salvation” →

War and the Old Testament: A Proposal

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 14 Comments

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” →

Convictions About Jesus 1996/2011 (1)

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[This is the third of a series of six posts on how my faith convictions have changed (or not) in the past 15 years that I have been a college professor. Not long before leaving congregational ministry to begin teaching I did a series of sermons trying to state in concise terms what I understood to be key Christian beliefs. I am posting an excerpts from my sermon on Jesus here. I will follow this post from 1996 with a post looking briefly at changes (and the lack thereof) in my convictions about Jesus in the past 15 years. Here are links to the first two posts—one on my views of God 15 years ago and the second on present-day thoughts about God.]

What Do We Believe About Jesus Christ?

Ted Grimsrud—January 14, 1996

Years ago, I had a memorable experience—though not a memory I recall fondly.  I had been pastoring long enough in my first pastorate to be considered for ordination.  Our congregation asked the conference to process my ordination.  That led to me meeting with the conference leadership committee for an interview.

The interview was generally a positive experience, at least most of it.  The committee was made up of three pastors and the conference minister, all people I knew fairly well and a couple of them pretty good friends.  But one of the pastors was not particularly friendly.  He asked some questions in a kind of suspicious tone, and near the end of our time came to one of his big concerns.

He referred to the time Jesus asked his disciples what people were saying about him, who people said that Jesus was.  Then Jesus asks the disciples directly—“Who do you say that I am?”  The pastor asked me the same question—“Who do you say that Jesus is?”  I responded with a lengthy answer.  I had been reading a lot about the life of Jesus and theological understandings of Jesus, what is called “christology”.  I was ready for the question and enjoyed talking about it.  It became clear, though, that my response was not what this guy was looking for.  He had something else in mind.

This is a basic question, for sure, one which continues to be addressed to all of us.  Who do we say that Jesus is?  What do we believe about Jesus Christ?  I want to suggest that Mennonite Christians believe three central things about Jesus Christ.  First, we believe Jesus is God’s messiah who brings salvation through his suffering and death.  Second, we believe Jesus is the model human being, who asks us to follow his way of living.  And third, we believe that Jesus is God-with-us, who shows us that the power of love is the most important kind of power. Continue reading “Convictions About Jesus 1996/2011 (1)” →