[Sermon recorded for the online service for the Third Sunday of Easter, 2020, for St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Phoenix AZ. The recording of the service with the sermon can be viewed (and heard!) here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDaQBueGi44 ]
✠In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In his treatise, Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy, Bishop John Shelby Spong stated that, “I have become convinced that we must put an end to atonement theology or there will be no future for the Christian faith.” If you read beyond the sound bite, he goes on to some length observing a whole host of social ills arising from the unhealthy separation of redeemed from unredeemed, chosen from heathen, which he attributes to atonement theology. He even challenges the thought that we had an actual fall, looking to the now well established fields of biology and anthropology to show that our gradual evolution precludes the notion of such a fall, that the baser impulses we attribute to the fall are merely products of natural progression. If we purport to be rational beings, who don’t turn off their minds, who are open to the insights of scientific discovery, it is a foregone conclusion that we should follow this path and come to the same conclusion.
Well, to a point.
The doctrine of the Atonement has a long history. There is a huge corpus of Christian writing out there spanning almost two thousand years stacked on top of Israelite witness about atonement. Now, some of it is theological gold and some of it is heretical twaddle, a good deal dance on that line between the orthodox and the heterodox, and some of it is so out there as to be the simple ravings of mad loons. I understand what Bishop Spong is trying to do; this is a natural reaction to the heretical excesses of the Christian Fundamentalist that holds Holy Scripture to an idolatrous standard; but sadly, like many before him, his reaction is an overreaction that plunks him squarely into the fold of the heretic.
I don’t really malign him for that, his motive is born out of love for neighbour, for those created in God’s image, victimized by the very evils he points out, evils I might add that arise from the misapplication of this doctrine. The problem is that he bases his claims on some very shaky assumptions that lead him to question doctrines that are central and critical to the Christian message and must NEVER be removed at the peril of our souls.
Our readings for Mass today, in fact, are all about the atonement. Holy Scripture, which was named and accepted by the Church for centuries as the authority for matters spiritual, is peppered with references to atonement. We could argue all day about the nature of the Fall, but I think we can agree our sinful natures were part of us from the beginning, whether because of a single decision from our common ancestors to eat a piece of fruit, or taking it more allegorically, because from the first humans to walk the earth we inherited selfish behaviours and inclinations that put us at odds with God. Where Spong’s analysis breaks down is regardless of our origin, we as a species became infused with the image of God and that this image is at loggerheads with the Darwinian drive within us. The base fact of the matter is that in order for God to bring us to himself, an atonement, a reconciliation is required. Indeed, this was the goal from the beginning even before our creation, because as our Epistle stated today, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake.”[1]
“Before the foundation of the world.” Ponder that. There are far reaching implications in those six words. That means God knew this species was going to require reconciliation. God knew that if He were to raise us to His image, HE was going to have to do the hard work to get us there. That means God knew what it would take. After all, our biological programming is powerful; this current crisis has pretty much underlined it. While God’s image within us reflects God’s own selfless interplay among the persons of His Holy Trinity, we also have within us the selfish impulses best termed “survival of the fittest” as shown by our selfish competition for flour, yeast, and toilet paper…and if we let it progress further for territory, water, and other basic resources. While God’s image entails self-denial in order to promote the well-being of those around us, our mortal natures put others at risk to eliminate the inconvenience self-denial imposes on us. God’s image shows compassion, but our mortal, sinful natures impel us to sacrifice the weak, the elderly, the disadvantaged.
Why in the name of all that is holy in the face of this evidence would we abandon the idea of the atonement at this time???
Let’s stop and take a breath and remember that during the Paschal season we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. Moreover, every Sunday we celebrate the Passion and Resurrection of this same Jesus. Why? Because this really is the lynchpin of our history. Jesus Himself proclaimed this to the disciples he tracked down in today’s reading.[2]Make no mistake, he tracked them down to make this point, that all the Law and the Prophets pointed toward this event. But why was this event so necessary? I turn to the example of our Orthodox brothers and sisters. These Christians took the reason for this event and make it part of their DNA by spending forty days every year chanting this refrain at every service:
Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling down Death by death,
and upon those in the tombs
bestowing Life.
Why is it so important to trample down death? Why is it important that Death and the realm of the Dead be destroyed?[3] It is because Death is the enemy that made the atonement necessary. Death is that destructive influence that powers our selfish animal natures. Death is the powerhouse behind entropy, the un-doer of Creation. Death is the reason behind the deficit spending that powers every competitive action in which we engage. The Passion and the Resurrection destroys that power cycle, an atonement not just for select humans but for all of creation as well, “because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.”[4]
Jesus suffered and died to destroy Death and Hell not just for us, but to take a “very good” creation and make it better. God shows us in Jesus that base survival of the fittest is not the way and that eventual death is not the final answer. Jesus died on the Cross not to make another political statement but to draw all humanity to himself.[5]In Him is Life, and that Life is the Light of humankind.[6] THAT is atonement, drawing us from the survival of the fittest to selfless love for our neighbour, from being slaves to biology to Children of the Living God, from agents of Death to servants of Life.
What then should our response to this be? God asks us to fully embrace that image He has given us, to reject the baser nature that afflicts us, to live the redemption He crafted for us. The exclusionism, the hatred, everything Spong detests about atonement theology is not the result of atonement theology but the perversion of atonement theology, the falling into patterns from which the atonement would save us. As St. Peter told the crowd at the Temple on Pentecost, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”[7] It is that gift of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of God in us, that allows us to put on God’s image, to begin to live the internal life of the Most Holy and Glorious Trinity. Then, and only then do we break the cycle. That is the atonement. That is our salvation. I have become convinced that we must put an end to the perversion of atonement theology or there will be no future for the Christian faith.
Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Saviour save us.✠
[1] 1 Pet.18-20
[2] Lk. 24.27
[3] Rev. 20.14
[4] Rom. 8.21
[5] Jn. 12.32
[6] Jn. 1.4
[7] Acts 2.38
