Tag: Peace Theology

More on salvation: Responding to responses (Part 1)

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Ted Grimsrud

I appreciate the numerous responses to my two recent posts on salvation, “The Bible’s salvation story” and “A message to President Obama about salvation.” It has taken longer than I would have hoped, but I want to reflect further on the issues raised by these responses. [Here is part 2 of these reflections.]

Why did Jesus “have to” die?

I appreciate “Tommy’s” affirmative comments about the “Bible’s salvation story” post. He raises a good question. In light of my suggesting that the core content of the salvation story is established at the very beginning and remains in effect throughout (i.e., salvation through God’s mercy in a way that does not require humans offering sacrifices to satisfy God’s requirements), then why does Jesus seem to say that he “had” to die? Thus, “the death obviously holds some significance.”

I strongly affirm that Jesus’ death “holds some significance.” In fact, in my forthcoming book, I devote five long chapters to the significance of Jesus’ death. The issue is what is this significance. I would ask what “had to” means. And, even more, why did he “have to” die? This all comes back, then, to the basic issue—did God need Jesus’ death in order to make salvation possible in a way that it wasn’t otherwise? Did Jesus “have to” die in order to make salvation possible on God’s side—or did Jesus “have to” die in order to make God’s already present (and fully sufficient) mercy sufficiently visible to encourage of response on the human side?

I am uncomfortable with the deterministic connotations of using “had to” in this discussion. However, I would be comfortable saying that Jesus’ death was inevitable given the way he undermined the Domination System of empire, temple, and legalistic cultural boundary maintenance. Because the Powers are so set on opposing agents of the true God, such an agent who embodied God’s will for humanity as thoroughly as Jesus did “had to” die should the Powers not be overthrown. The power of the true God, though, was that this death (that was intended to defeat the will of the true God) actually boomeranged on the Powers. Not only did Jesus not stay dead, but his resurrection underscores how the Powers are hostile toward the true God, and it thus undermines the potential of the Powers to hold sway.

The tragedy is that Jesus’ death came to be misinterpreted. Instead of being seen as a denial of the idea that God is retributive it came to be interpreted in a way that makes God so retributive that God’s will to punish leads to God endorsing the necessity of Jesus’ death for the establishment of salvation.

One can reject the idea of understanding Jesus’ death in terms of satisfaction atonement and still affirm that this death was significant for salvation. Not as something that enables God to forgive but as something that underscores that God’s forgiveness is our starting point and that we need to see and turn away from the Powers that usurp God and keep us from trusting in God as merciful. Continue reading “More on salvation: Responding to responses (Part 1)” →

A message to President Obama about salvation

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Ted Grimsrud

[A friend of mine, in response to yesterday’s post, asked me to imagine trying to summarize my ideas about salvation so that they could be presented, say, to President Obama in 90 seconds. Recognizing that the President is a Christian, I will assume a certain level of common understanding and common commitments—such as belief in God, respect for the Bible, and acceptance that ultimately we as human beings are accountable to God and not free simply to operate in an autonomous way.]

God is a God of justice, and the universe operates according to this justice. However, contrary to many conceptions of justice, the biblical picture of God’s justice presents it in terms of healing and reconciliation, not punishment and retribution (or even strict fairness). God’s justice seeks to heal and restore people and relationships that have been broken.

From the beginning of the Bible, God works to bring healing in face of brokenness. Humanity’s biggest problem has been not trusting in God’s healing justice (which is an expression of God’s love, not in tension with it). Rather, humanity has tended to trust in sources of meaning and security other than God—that is, in idols.

Tragically, trusting in idols rather than in God exacerbates the problems of brokenness and alienation. The worst idols, according to the Bible, tend to be human kingdoms with their power politics, religious institutions, and cultural boundary markers. Like most idols, these human structures are part of created reality and can play a life-enhancing role when they are kept in perspective and do not usurp God. Continue reading “A message to President Obama about salvation” →

The Bible’s Salvation Story

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Ted Grimsrud

[I just completed and sent to the publisher a book manuscript with the working title, Instead of Atonement: The Bible’s Salvation Story and Our Hope for Wholeness. Hopefully it will be out by next summer. Here’s an except from the conclusion.]

For many Christians, the “biblical view” of salvation centers on Jesus’ death. The doctrine of salvation (“soteriology”) is defined in terms of how Jesus’ death makes salvation possible. It is linked closely with the atonement, which is commonly defined as “how Christ accomplished our justification (i.e., being found just or righteous before God) through his sacrifice on the cross” (Stephen Long, “Justification and atonement,” in The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology, 79).

I believe that the Bible’s portrayal of salvation actually does not focus on Jesus’ death as the basis for reconciliation of humanity with God. Not all accounts of salvation that place Jesus’ death as central explicitly argue in favor of retributive justice as part the divine economy that must be satisfied by a sacrifice such as Jesus’ death. However, I suspect that any view of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice necessary for salvation at least implicitly accepts retributive justice as an element of the process of providing for salvation.

Salvation and restorative (not retributive) justice

I have made a case: (1) to see that salvation in the Bible is not centered on Jesus’ death as a necessary pre-requisite for salvation to be made available, and (2) to see that the dynamics of justice that undergird salvation in the Bible are best understood as restorative and not retributive. In a nutshell, I argue that the biblical story of salvation portrays God as reaching out to human beings with mercy. The God of the Bible responds to human brokenness, violence, and sinfulness with healing love. In telling the salvation story in this way, the Bible refutes the logic of retribution.

If salvation stems from a holy and pure God being governed by the need to destroy sin and impurity unless God’s righteous anger is dealt with, then the logic of retribution may be validated. However, if salvation according to the Bible instead may be most accurately understood as contrary to the logic of retribution, governed by God’s simple healing mercy—unearned by human repayment, unconditional except for human acceptance of it—one of the main bases for affirming the logic of retribution will be refuted. Continue reading “The Bible’s Salvation Story” →

Anabaptist Evangelicalism?

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 6 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—July 8, 2012

What do you do if you are a young theologian or historian who is located in an evangelical tradition long removed from its Anabaptist heritage and you discover that heritage and find it attractive? If you are Jared Burkholder, a professor at Grace College, and David Cramer, doctoral student at Baylor University and former instructor at Bethel College (Indiana), you tap the shoulders of other like-minded young scholars and sympathetic senior scholars and produce a lively and thought-provoking collection of essays that, in sum, makes the case that evangelicals would benefit greatly from more appropriation of Anabaptist emphases—and that Anabaptists should see their tradition as compatible with evangelicalism.

This is the book: Jared Burkholder and David C. Cramer, eds. The Activist Impulse: Essays on the Intersection of Evangelicalism and Anabaptism Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2012.

I am quite a bit more sympathetic with the first of these two cases (that evangelicals would benefit from more Anabaptism) than with the second (that Anabaptists should see their tradition as compatible with evangelicalism). Without question, though, this is an excellent group of essays. Each one is readable and interesting.

What is “evangelicalism”?

The first section of the book, “Intersecting Stories: Historical Reflection on the Nexus of Evangelicalism and Anabaptism,” draws on three of the senior scholars, including two Mennonites (Steve Nolt and John Roth) who warmly welcome the interest of evangelicals in Anabaptism and emphasize the compatibility between the two streams of Christianity. Roth, especially, seeks to counter the much more hostile response to evangelicalism characteristic from Anabaptist scholars in a much earlier collection (C. Norman Kraus, ed., Evangelicalism and Anabaptism [Herald Press, 1979]) that is cited as the main previous book to take up these issues in depth.

The discussion by Nolt and Roth points to one of the most complicated issues that lurks throughout this book and, actually, in all such conversations. What precisely to we mean by “evangelicalism”? The editors state that they intentionally did not ask their writers to follow a given, stable definition but gave each the freedom to use the term as they saw fit. Continue reading “Anabaptist Evangelicalism?” →

A pacifist reading of The Lord of the Rings

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 11 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—June 30, 2012

I first read J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy in January 1977 when I was working swing shift in a plywood mill in Eugene, Oregon. For two months I had a job that allowed me to have my “lunch” hour by myself. So, I got a lot of reading done. Not only did I read the Lord of the Rings, I also read John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus for the first time.

As far as I remember, it was totally a coincidence that I read these books at the same time. My Lord of the Rings circle of friends and my Politics of Jesus circle did not intersect. But, nonetheless, having just read Yoder made me more interested than I might have been otherwise in the place of violence and warfare in Tolkien.

In the years since, I have continued to read and reread Yoder (and write about his thought). I would have been shocked (but delighted, I’m sure) those January nights 35 years ago to imagine I would end up a Mennonite, a pastor, and a theology professor. Over the next five years or so, I read the Lord of the Rings at least three more times. Two of those were out loud with my wife, Kathleen. Maybe twenty years ago, we read The Hobbit and the trilogy to our son Johan. And we watched the movies when they came out.

Violence in the Lord of the Rings?

I have remained fascinated by the issues of violence and war in the trilogy. About the time we read it to Johan, I also read with great appreciation Walter Wink’s wonderful Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. I learned from that book the phrase “myth of redemptive violence” that has provided a useful analytical tool for understanding books, movies, et al. This leads to my big question about Tolkien’s trilogy: Does “redemption” in this story rely on violence?

I think this is a totally appropriate question to ask of the trilogy as clearly it (or something like it) is a crucial question for Tolkien himself and in this story he gives us a challenging mediation on the place of violence and warfare in dealing with evil.

Just recently, for this first time in about twenty years, Kathleen and I read the trilogy aloud to each other. It was a fascinating experience for me. During the years since the last time we read it, I have continued to focus a great deal of thought and research and writing on issues relating to violence and war. How do I now understand Tolkien’s story in relation to these big issues? Continue reading “A pacifist reading of The Lord of the Rings” →

Pacifist apologetics

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 9 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—June 20, 2012

Christian pacifism faces an uphill climb in contemporary America. Since 1940, our country has embarked on a massive effort at world domination based on military firepower. This could be seen as the logical progression for a country whose founding rests squarely on warfare and other forms of violent conquest. And the Christian churches have, as a rule, joined enthusiastically in this project. Hence, today in the United States people self-identified as Christians are more likely than non-Christians to support war and the death penalty.

And yet, American Christianity has always produced, or at least tolerated, counter-voices. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) established themselves in colonial Pennsylvania in a remarkable effort to try to operate a political system heavily influenced by pacifist convictions. The results were mixed, to say the least. One clear achievement, though, was to establish a haven for religious freedom that drew other Christian pacifists to Pennsylvania—most notably Mennonites, Amish, and Brethren.

In the nineteenth century, some of the world’s first peace societies emerged in Antebellum America, and these often linked with abolitionist efforts. The Civil War more or less put an end to such activist pacifism, but that war also saw pioneering efforts by the state to accommodate conscientious objectors. Still, part of the reason the state could be open to tolerance of pacifists was because their numbers were so small.

In the twentieth-century, in face of terrible, unbelievably destructive world wars, the numbers of Christian pacifists grew significantly, and well beyond the Historic Peace Churches (Quakers, Mennonites, Brethren). However, when the United States entered an enormously popular war against Germany and Japan in 1941, the numbers of legal conscientious objectors totaled about one per 1,000 young men who joined the military—and the large majority of all of these soldiers were Christians.

From the start, Quakers worked hard to convey their convictions to the wider world—one term they used of their work was “publishers of truth.” Other pacifists in more recent generations have also taken up the challenge to try to present attractive and persuasive arguments for their convictions. And some fine literature has been produced. But we always need more.

So this new collection of essays, Tripp York and Justin Bronson Barringer, eds., A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: Addressing Commonly Asked Questions about Christian Nonviolence (Peaceable Kingdom) (Cascade Books, 2012), is to be welcomed. I am not aware of any other single, relatively short, volume that tries to address as many challenges to pacifism. Several of the essays make particularly excellent contributions to the task of defending pacifism, and all the essays are well worth reading. Continue reading “Pacifist apologetics” →

Should Anabaptists be evangelicals?

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 26 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—June 11, 2012

I recently read a fascinating and well executed collection of essays, The Activist Impulse: Essays on the Intersection of Evangelicalism and Anabaptism, edited by Jared S. Burkholder and David C. Cramer (Pickwick Publications, 2012). I interact more explicitly with the book in this review, but here I want to reflect a bit on some thoughts that reading it triggered for me.

One of the basic issues The Activist Impulse takes up is the relationship between “Anabaptism” and “evangelicalism”—especially how closely those in each movement should be linked. As many of the writers in the book acknowledge, each of these terms is difficult to define. Both refer to movements and mindsets, not to clearly delineated organizations.

What one means by “Anabaptism” is probably easier to settle on, at least in a general sense, than what one means by “evangelicalism.” Most of us would agree in linking the term with a particular (though surprisingly diverse and amorphous) movement that arose amidst the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century and ultimately found institutional shape in the Mennonite churches, their siblings (such as the Amish and Hutterites), and various cousins (especially the movement that evolved in diverse forms to produce the Church of the Brethren, Brethren Church, Grace Brethren, and German Baptist Brethren).

However, since the term was rehabilitated following Harold Bender’s widely circulated and praised summary statement, “The Anabaptist Vision,” increasingly many non-Mennonites and Brethren have used the terms in a positive sense that speaks more to certain theological and ethical sensibilities—most notably pacifism, a strong emphasis on the Sermon on the Mount, simple living, and intentional community. Continue reading “Should Anabaptists be evangelicals?” →

Why World War II was a moral disaster for the United States (Part two)

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Ted Grimsrud—May 28, 2012

[This post is a continuation of a two-part set of reflections on the moral legacy of World War II. Part one may be found here. An earlier post in the series, “Was World War II an unjust war?” may be found here.]

The national security state and the quest for world hegemony

The years immediately following World War II were determinative for the moral legacy of that war. The rationale given to the American people for the extraordinary costs paid to execute such an all-out war combined a strong dose of fear with an equally potent emphasis on idealism. As postwar events proved, fear won out.

The idealism found succinct voice in President Roosevelt’s State of the Union address on the “Four Freedoms” in January 1941 and in the Atlantic Charter, drawn up by Roosevelt and Britain’s Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, in August, 1941. Out of these statements came the mantra that the U.S. was fighting this war to provide for the self-determination of people from throughout the world, to defeat tyranny and spread the possibilities of democracy.

The public relations efforts of the American and British governments focused on the ideals of these two purpose statements. The Atlantic Charter was agreed upon by all the nations who allied themselves with the Americans and British in the war effort (including the Soviet Union!). These allies took the name, the “United Nations.” After the War ended in an Allied victory, the Charter provided the core values for the formalizing of the United Nations as an international organization of all the nations of the world for the purposes of peace and cooperative relationships.

Many people who had been anxious about negative consequences of total war for democracy and international peace put a great deal of hope in the newly formed United Nations in the immediate postwar years. Regardless of what was thought about the War itself, it could be seen as serving a good end should it lead to an effective and widely embraced United Nations. And the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms ideals provided bases for such hopes.

At the same time, many among the American leadership class believed that decisive victory in the War provided a not-to-be-missed opportunity for establishing their country’s economic and military domination. They faced a crossroads in the years immediately following the War. Would the U.S. demobilize in the dramatic manner that characterized the country after the Civil War and World War I? Or was this instead an opportunity to sustain the extraordinarily powerful status the country had achieved through its war effort (and, of course, through the devastating losses all its possible rivals had sustained)? Continue reading “Why World War II was a moral disaster for the United States (Part two)” →

Why World War II was a moral disaster for the United States (Part one)

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Ted Grimsrud—May 27, 2012

World War II stands as the greatest event in the history of the United States. The country poured all its energy into an intense effort that resulted in the defeat of one of the odious embodied political philosophies ever. As the years pass and we learn more and more about Nazi Germany, the more grateful we can be for the ignominious end to the “thousand year Reich.” This war also led to an almost equally ignominious end to the extraordinarily vicious Japanese imperial regime.

World War II also proved to be the catalyst that finally brought the deprivation of the Great Depression to and end in the U.S. and ushered in an extraordinary era of economic prosperity—prosperity for once that reached down into the middle classes and beyond. The U.S. not only contributed impressively to the defeat of these terrible enemies, but the country actually came through the War relatively unscathed. At the end of the War, the U.S. stood with unprecedented economic power and unmatched international prestige as the bearer of the ideals portrayed to great effect in statements such as the Atlantic Charter and the initial declaration of the “United Nations.” These statements rallied people to defeat forces in the world that stood implacably against ideals such as self-determination and disarmament.

World War II as a moral disaster?

So, in what senses, then, was World War II after all a moral disaster for the United States? I will suggest that what World War II actually did for the United States was (1) decisively corrupt the American democratic polity, (2) decisively empower the forces of militarism in the country that have since 1945 led the U.S. into foreign policy disaster after foreign disaster and visited so much violence and destruction on major sections of the world that the term “American holocaust” (William Blum, Killing Hope) may not in actuality not be much of a hyperbole, and (3) decisively shift the economic center of gravity in the country toward the corporate sector, setting the country on a path of long-term corruption, exploitation, and—in a genuine sense—economic self-immolation. Continue reading “Why World War II was a moral disaster for the United States (Part one)” →

A basic Christian argument for affirming gay marriage (Part three)

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Ted Grimsrud—May 22, 2012

In Part One of these three posts, I suggested that Christians should be disposed to affirm gay marriage—and then noted three arguments that tend to be used to override that positive initial disposition. Then, in Part Two, I focused on two of those three arguments that tend to be used as bases for withholding affirmation of gay marriage in Christian churches: that by the nature of it being between people of the same sex, gay marriage is harmful to the people involved and that gay marriage undermines the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. In this final post, I will look at the third argument: the teaching of the Bible.

The discussion of the Bible’s teaching is probably the most contentious of all three of our “debates.” Here are just a few thoughts.

The Bible, on the one hand, contains a great deal of teaching and many stories that indirectly speak to our general theme of affirming gay marriage (or not). Not least are the teachings and stories that speak about hospitality and God’s special concern for vulnerable people. As well, teachings and stories about human relationality (going clear back to the very beginning when God says of Adam that it is not good for this first human being to be alone). We also have teaching and stories about the importance of fidelity in relationships and the problems of socially harmful actions (such as violence, injustice, adultery, abuse in various forms).

On the other hand, the Bible does not say much directly about homosexuality (which is not surprising given that the term “homosexuality” itself is a modern term that seems to reflect a modern awareness of affectional orientation and sexual identity). What do we make, though, of the several texts that have typically been seen as providing a basis for generalizing about a biblical mandate to forbid same-sex intimate relationships (and, certainly, same-sex marriage)?

We should notice three things about these texts (the main ones that interpreters usually focus on are the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18–19, the teaching in Leviticus 18 and 20 against “men laying with men as with women,” and Paul’s references in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6 to problems with same-sex sexual behaviors [we could also include 1 Timothy 1:10 which clearly is derivative from I Corinthians 6 and adds no new information to the issues raised in these texts]): (1) the Bible speaks only of male “homosexuality,” (2) the Bible is concerned with various behaviors, not just one “homosexual practice,” and (3) the New Testament contains no direct commands to Christians concerning homosexuality. Continue reading “A basic Christian argument for affirming gay marriage (Part three)” →