Should I start this with, "I'm sorry"...or should I just move on? Hard call.
I have three previous blog entries that say I will get back to a certain point, but haven't. For instance, I still have to respond to the second half of Natalie's set of questions!!!! I guess I want people to know I haven't forgotten.
I'm starting a personal study on "Atonement". Basically, I'm investigating the 7 different types of atonement that are most often talked about in the church. I'm starting with Scot McKnight's recent book - Community Called Atonement, and working from a number of other resources I have.
Check out Scot's blog, by the way: http://www.jesuscreed.org
And, of course, wouldn't you know, Scot is reading some books himself, and made recommendations in his blog.
- Picturing the Gospel, by Neil Livingstone
- The Justifying Judgement of God, by Justyn Terry
Side note: So, I'm hoping that in this study of atonement, I can find out the true purpose behind Stephen Colbert's "Atone Phone"....1-888-OOPS JEW. Have you seen this? I'm sorry, I should NOT find this as funny as I do. Starting on Rosh Hashanah, he has this white phone with a blue "Star of David" on the front sitting on his desk, and any Jews that have wronged him are to call 1-888-OOPS JEW and apologize before Yom Kippur. When the phone rings, it plays Hava Nagila (sp?). Check your local listings for when the Colbert Report is on Comedy Central in your area.
3 comments:
Wow, this is a really cool site. I can learn a lot here.
One book I would encourage you to read, well, two books by the same author, are "Against Heresies" and "On the Apostolic Preaching" by St. Irenaeus.
I'm taking a class on his theological thinking in seminary, and his view of atonement is fascinating and more than a little convincing.
His thought goes something like this: St. Paul wrote that man is malicious and rebellious; St. John wrote that man is malicious and rebellious because he is blind, deaf and lame when it comes to spiritual truth; Irenaeus says that man is blind, etc. because he is both immature and severely handicapped as a result of the fall.
He writes that Adam was created as a child, not a fully developed man, in order to illustrate this. God's intent was to teach man, to grow him up, but in his immaturity, man was easily seduced by Satan and sort of threw a kind of pre-adolescent temper tantrum. He defines sin as "pushing beyond our God-defined limits," which describes a child or teen's rebellion as pushing beyond their boundaries.
Atonement, then, is not so much the idea of God forgiving our bad behavior in a judicial sense, but has more to do with bringing healing, growing us up. The focus is not so much on the death of Christ, as in the Incarnation. It is not necessarily God-Incarnate dying for man that brings atonement, but God BECOMING man in the first place. The Virgin Mary is given a more appropriate role here, where it seems some Catholics and most Protestants would slide off to either extreme.
His major theme is "recapitulation," the idea that God undoes what was done in the fall. Atonement doesn't just return things to the way it should be, however, but somehow the state of creation following both the fall AND atonement is ultimately something greater than could have been the case if the fall had never happened.
WELCOME ANDREW!!!!
I've read Irenaeus. It's been a while, but good stuff!!!
This is just the beginning of the conversation. I'm excited to have you involved in this!
Thanx,
Brad
thanks brad! is there a place where i can post a list of questions i have, or do i need to find each separate blog to respond to in order to add them?
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