SALVATION

As noted in my previous post, I made a distinction between salvation and redemption based theology. In this post I am going to reflect on salvation theology and why I believe it to be problematic.  Since this is a post, I'm not going to go into an exegetical foray pointing out where scripture backs what I'm about to say  Rather I'm going to rely on personal observation to raise some questions.

The basic problem I see with salvation-based theology is that it fosters a sense of helplessness and hopelessness about human ability while offering a false sense of security; in that, our helplessness and hopelessness is an impermanent condition if we believe correctly, or to but it in Pauline terms, we are justified through faith in Christ Jesus.  Salvation theology theoretically attempts to free people to live more loving and compassionate lives, but at the same times devaluates life in this world as being futile in any attempt to better ourselves on our own and defers all goodness to God's grace and better things to come in the hereafter.  This devaluation of life in the here and now is, in my opinion, the most dangerous aspect of salvation theology in Christianity or any other religion.  It backed many an executioner's statement, "And may God have mercy on your soul" as the blade dropped or the noose tightened.  The "other" person's life is easily committed to the care and judgment of God if things don't go our way.  So many wars, so many atrocities, have resulted in the name and in the cause of salvation.

In Christianity, salvation theology is premised on the ideological belief that Jesus died for our sins (i.e. the sins of the world) in order to save us (save the world) from eternal damnation. This theology is rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures' creation myth of Adam and Eve's "fall" from a state of grace to sin. The apostle Paul, who I consider the founder of salvation-based Christianity; ergo Christianity, references this connection by pointing out that through one man (Adam) sin entered the world and through the new Adam (Christ) sin has been defeated and a new order of creation has been established. Augustine later establishes the doctrine of "original sin by which he ensured in perpetuity the futility of human endeavor to do anything right of one's own will and salvation as the mainstay of Christian theology. I need to point out, that not all Christians at the time of these gentlemen would have agreed with them.  Many didn't, but they are the ones whose theologies we are dealing with for the past 1800 to 2000 years and still today.

Nobody since the time Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire in 381CE has really argued this doctrine. It has been somewhat sided-stepped by many progressive theologians of lets say the past 100 years, but never taken on as something to seriously reconsider.

As iron-clad as this salvation based theology seems to be, upon closer inspection it appears  fabricated on  rather speculative premises that, had they been developed today, would raise serious questions.  This theology arises, as most theologies do, from the experiences of the people who formulated them.  Paul and Augustine are prime examples of this. Both were of a philosophical bent.  For both, the world was falling apart - "sin" was rampant as experienced in their own lives and in the lives of others around them. Both were  prone to extend and project their own sense of futility against the forces of evil onto the rest of humanity, and for most part, people could readily relate to their experiences. Both saw the world as innately flawed and sinful and couldn't see a way around it unless by divine intervention in the form of salvation.   

As  the Roman Empire collapsed and the long cold freeze of  the Dark Ages descended on Europe, the notion that life was short and brutal was etched into the psyche of the people and the Church for centuries to come.  Death was all around, in the form of plagues, wars, and famine. The sense that life was good was in many ways a treacherous, if not delusional path that could result in accusations of heresy or even witchcraft.  For most, life was not good.  While death was feared, living in misery was also feared and the fear didn't end there.  The afterlife was equally treacherous.  Few thought themselves worthy of salvation even if they believed in Jesus as savior.  Most were illiterate and lived by hook and by crook, as it were. Survival in this life often risked damnation in the next.  The choices were few and bleak.

The only ones who rose above this fray were the nobles and clergy who were seemingly blessed with plentitude in this life and most likely would enjoy the same in the next; even though, many a cathedral window and portico showed kings and bishops being dragged to hell because of their corruption.  I sometimes think this was depicted to appease the poor's sense of injustice at being poor  more than it was to deter injustice by the clergy and noble classes.  In effect, the poor most likely thought, "If those guys are going to hell, what chance do I have?" The peasantry, for the most part, didn't see themselves as having a chance.  It is in such soil that salvation theology took root and evolved.  Even as conditions improved in Europe, the notion that the world was  going to hell in a hand-basket was a firmly established meme in Western culture.

Jesus, on the other hand, didn't see life that way.  In the midst of living in Roman-occupied Palestine, Jesus embraced this life as valuable.  He said very little about an afterlife. His teachings (even those dealing with an afterlife) are geared to living a better life now; that is, enjoying life by treating others as we would like ourselves to be treated.  Jesus was no stranger to the sufferings of others, nor to his own.  Jesus met life with gratitude and compassion. I will speak more about this in future posts.  My point in saying this is to illustrate how Jesus becomes separated out from the rest of humanity as being the "exception" to the effects of this life as opposed to being the model for the life well-lived by those who promulgated salvation theology.

LOOKING BACK

Christianity's salvation-based theology contains two perspectives - a theology that looks back and a theology that looks forward. The present accounts for very little in salvation theology. Where we are is a result of a human condition before our time.  Where we are going is in God's hands.  These approaches were developed simultaneously as a way to talk about Jesus within the context of salvation theology. In order to look forward, the earliest Christians, who were mostly Jews, had to look back and re-interpret their own Hebrew scriptures to make sense of their emerging salvation theology. 

JESUS AS THE EXCEPTION

As much as Jesus is purported to be central to Christianity, Jesus posed a problem with regard to what to make of him.  Central to salvation theology is Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. Without the combination of these two events, salvation theology disappears.  During his life (if we are to take the Gospel accounts as having a historical base) Jesus was considered the son of Joseph and Mary.  He had brothers and sisters.  He was from Galilee and for all intents and purposes was devout Jew with a following who saw in his teachings a better way to understand and live life.

One can garner from the Gospels that Jesus' disciples and followers had some hope that he would be the Messiah, the one to lead them out from under the tyranny of Roman rule.  They were obviously enamored by his teachings and the way he treated those who were often rejected by religious elite and who took the religious elite to task.  Jesus was a compassionate radical, but a radical nevertheless.  He challenged the religious authorities of his time for their complacency regarding the conditions of the poor and their complicity in creating the situations that caused or made them worse.  It is clear that Jesus was attempting to change the religious landscape of Judaism by bringing it back to its prophetic foundations of doing justice and walking humbly with their God. This notion was probably less exciting to some of his followers, who were looking for a more militant messiah, but his preaching on compassion and turning things around became an unbearable irritant to the temple authorities who appear to have had little time for such pious platitudes, being preoccupied in maintaining temple worship, their prestige, and their necks within an ever-volatile environment.

When Jesus is executed for his efforts, at the prompting of  the temple's hierarchy, his followers refused to let his mission and message die. They quickly formed an alternate Jewish community within Jerusalem, headed by Jesus' biological brother, James.  Whether or not Jesus was physically raised from the dead, one thing is certain; Jesus followers were making sure that the temple authorities were unable to stop Jesus' mission. For them and for those who joined them, one thing became a certainty, Jesus lives.  Jesus becomes the exception to very laws of nature and there is no authority on or beneath the earth that can touch him. 

From asserting Jesus' resurrection, things are read back into Jesus' life that weren't apparent before his crucifixion.  All of a sudden, it becomes clear that Jesus was and is the Messiah, but not like the one they were originally looking for. He is far greater than what they originally were looking for.  So what kind of Messiah is he?  In the process of discovering who Jesus is, his message (as dear as it is to his followers) starts taking a back seat to the theology that was being developed about Jesus. 

JESUS AS THE SUPREME SACRIFICE

For the earliest Christians, the death of Jesus is seen as a sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice.  Jesus (no matter what he may have seemed prior to his crucifixion) becomes the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. 

The temple authorities may have killed Jesus, but in so doing they killed the need for the temple sacrifice and the temple economy.  Sacrifice was very much a part of religious life in the ancient world and Christianity picks up on this as being the purpose of Jesus' existence.  If this good and righteous teacher was the Messiah and he was killed for no valid human reason, there must have been a divine one, a divine purpose. The answer resides in Jesus being a sacrificial victim to atone for the wages caused by sin, not just for God's people, Israel, but (eventually) for the world.  In this sense Jesus' sacrifice surpasses any sacrifice offered in the temple or any other temple for any other god.  For all practical purposes sacrifice is rendered useless and all that is necessary for salvation, to atone for one's sins, is to believe that Jesus died for one's sins. 

This of course leads to another problem.  If Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God, the sinless victim who atones for everyone's sins, how did he become so?

JESUS AS THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD

Judaism contains within it the idea of someone being a son of God.  Kings were considered such and the Messiah would also be considered a son of God, but the notion of God having begotten a Son of his own was foreign.  Jesus becomes that because there is no known way for Jesus to be sinless unless he is divine.  In fact, Mary, his mother, was also considered to have been immaculately conceived to further bolster Jesus being sinless. 

The concept of a human and divine origin was nothing new in the ancient world.  Almost all other ancient religions had such stories.  The point being that while not exactly immortal, mortals who had a divine parent possessed divine qualities and even though they could die, they often became translated into full divinity or demi-divinity after death.  Salvation theology follows this pattern, but differentiates it from other ancient religious notions by premising it on vague Hebrew Scriptures which lent themselves to such interpretations.

LOOKING FORWARD

One thing becomes quickly apparent to the emerging church.  If Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God, the spotless sacrifice  who died for the sins of the world, the world was pretty much the same sinful place it was before all this happened.  The mission of Jesus therefore shifts from returning Judaism to its prophetic roots to spreading the gospel; to grant assurance of and prepare people for the life to come in the new heaven and earth that Jesus will establish when he returns.

Christianity maintained the apocalyptic vision of Judaism of the time and expanded it.   The messianic hopefulness found in Judaism is retained in Christianity. In fact, Christianity mimics Judaism in many ways in regard to feasts and customs.  The image of Jesus becomes more closely linked to two Jewish icons, Moses and Elijah.  A sense of triumphalism emerges with salvation theology. Sin, death, and the devil are vanquished.  Although, salvation theology is filled with talk about grace; as in, there is nothing we can do on our own to affect our salvation, it begins to acquire a lot of "ifs, ands, and buts" in the process.  Belief in the Lord Jesus is paramount, but as time progresses belief consists of believing the right things about Jesus rather than in what Jesus actually taught. 

As time goes on and Jesus does not return, theology becomes increasingly apocalyptic, about the hereafter, about a new age, new heaven and new Earth.  In all of that Jesus becomes more remote by becoming equal with God.  Salvation also becomes increasingly conditional.  Right belief becomes paramount as Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.  As the Gospel spreads and the Christianity expands, the world remains pretty much as it always has.  Wars, plagues, famine and corruption remain rampant.  Radicalized violence broke out between Christians considered to be orthodox and non-orthodox. Christians persecuted "other" Christians and non-Christians with a furor that is still etched in the ruins of ancient Greece and Rome.  In short, salvation theology did and does little to remedy the ills Jesus was attempting to address in Palestine, much less, in the world at large. 

Over time and looking ahead, salvation theology remains largely a theology of the hereafter.  Inadvertently, I feel, this has led to turning a blind eye to the conditions that have confronted the world.  Any positive changes that have happened; for example, in western culture such as the abolition of slavery and the advancement in women's rights do not appear directly linked to salvation theology. In fact, churches with a strong creedal attachment to salvation frequently argued against abolition and women's suffrage.   If these changes have a link to Christianity it is because the message of reform in Jesus's teaching began to emerge in social consciousness, particularly and ironically to some degree, as  response to the Enlightenment which put little credence in theology.  In fact, the Enlightenment, for all of its criticism of religion, awakened Christianity to the message of Jesus as opposed to the theological messages about Jesus (doctrine and dogma). 

Salvation theology is complex and to some degree has been given a less dominant theological stance in the modern church.  It has undergone some re-visioning, but it  is unclear what the effects of that re-visioning has had, if any.  As mentioned above, within salvation theology there runs a deep strain of fatalism. Some Christians believe that people are predestined for salvation, while others are not.  But don't worry, it's all in God's hands.  Even in Christian denominations that espouse a more eclectic view of salvation, there remains a sense that everything is in God's hands and there is little we can do to save the world in which we live.  Many progressive theologians appear loathe to discuss these aspects of salvation theology, with some valid reasoning. To do so effectively would mean to bring into question the very premises upon which it is built and few, if any, appear willing to takes this on while maintaining they are essentially Christian. 

For example, the problem of the resurrection (and it does pose a problem) is that it is hard to explain as having a purpose.  Paul famously quips that if Christ is not raised our faith is in vain.  What faith is he talking about; faith in what Jesus taught, or faith in what is taught about Jesus?  His question raises other questions.  Is Jesus dying and being raised from the dead all there is to Jesus?  What of Jesus' teachings?  Paul hardly mentions them, if  at all, in his letters. 

As the appeal of an actual physical/bodily resurrection of Jesus becomes more of an untenable position to maintain, some theologians are quick to point out the resurrection is not resuscitation but then fail to explain what that means.  The difficult question Christianity must come to grips with is whether the resurrection story has any meaning or purpose.  If so, what is it, and if not, what are we to make of it?  That Jesus died as a result of crucifixion is very likely.  That his death was a sacrifice is less tenable and raises some perplexing theological questions.

THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS

The Gospels depict Jesus as physically resurrected from death, but in my estimation they fall short in proving it. Perhaps that was not their intent.  The intent in relaying this story, if any,  seems open-ended for interpretation. The Gospel accounts of Jesus' resurrection all agree on one essential detail; that whoever is shown as going to Jesus' tomb finds it empty; thereafter, the accounts vary.

In one, his disciples didn't recognize him as he was walking and talking to them.  In others, Jesus appears and disappears through closed doors.  Even Thomas who was invited to touch Jesus' wounds, didn't actually touch Jesus.  Nowhere in the Gospel of John does it say, "And Thomas thrust his hand in the wounds of Jesus."  It stops short of that.  In fact, all the Gospels stop short of offering any tangible evidence of a physical resurrection. 

That people "saw" Jesus and experienced Jesus cooking and eating doesn't prove anything, apart from their making a claim that they walked, talked, and ate with him.   As to the Gospels giving the resurrection a purpose or a particular meaning, they are silent on the topic. There are no quotes by Jesus after the event explaining the meaning of his resurrection. The Gospels basically end with it.

In fact, if the canon of the New Testament only consisted of the four Gospels, one would have to conclude Jesus is still physically alive on this planet. [Note: Mark and Luke have a verse at the end explaining the at Jesus was taken up to heaven.  They strike me more of an after thought or footnote attempting to explain why Jesus is no longer present. Matthew and John say nothing.] They do not include any explanation why Jesus is no longer physically present as human being walking, talking and eating with us now.

It is in the Book of Acts that the one and only Ascension story is recorded.  Nowhere else is it mentioned, which leaves one wondering if there was a need to find a way to explain the fact that Jesus was no longer here.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating some sort of conspiracy theory on the part of Jesus' disciples, just pointing out what seems obvious.  If there are four Gospels mentioning Jesus' resurrection, why is the Ascension of Jesus mentioned in only one place, outside of the Gospels?

As to the Resurrection having a meaning, observation could demonstrate that belief in the resurrection offers many people some comfort and hope that there is more to life than this life.  As far as saying that believing in it demonstrates faith in Jesus saving us from sin, death and the devil, I would have to conclude that, based on observation, it doesn't do that.  If the intent was to prove that Jesus is God, then why did God have to raise him up?  Of course, Christians of an orthodox bent (which most Christians are) could provide answers to all of these objections in the form of  salvation-based theology and doctrine about Jesus, but they cannot provide answers based on direct evidence or recorded comments by Jesus as the resurrection having a particular meaning. 

The fact is Jesus isn't here to tell us and didn't demonstrate to the Temple and Roman authorities at the time of his resurrection that he was physically alive after they had crucified him.  When Jesus cured lepers he sent them to the authorities to show that they were clean.  It seems odd that he should avoid them upon being raised from the dead.  Sticking around and showing himself at the Temple in order to become part of the historical record (Romans were good at keeping records) would have been helpful and would have changed the course of human history right then and there, but those things didn't happen and beg the question if the accounts of the resurrection happened at all. 

So what Christians are left with, in my opinion, is a dilemma regarding the resurrection stories found in the Gospels.  One can conclude (as many, perhaps most Christians do) that the physical resurrection of Jesus is to be believed as fact upon which one's salvation is dependent, or one can conclude that the resurrection cannot be apprehended in a factual way but its occurrence is nevertheless factual and apprehended only through faith as necessary for one's salvation, or one can conclude that it is not a fact but a spiritual metaphor pointing to deeper and intuitive understanding of being, independent of the need for a salvation theology. There are probably other ways of looking at the resurrection, but these will suffice for now.

THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS

As to  the crucifixion of Jesus being the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the world, one can understand how the early followers of Jesus could view Jesus' cruel death as some form of sacrifice.  As mentioned in my previous post, the idea of sacrifice was commonplace in ancient religions. 

There are two basic views of sacrifice in the ancient world - sacrifice as appeasement and sacrifice as atonement.  Most ancient ritual sacrifices probably held a little of both views with an emphasis on one or the other view.

The sacrifice of appeasement was largely preventive.  You wanted to keep the gods happy in order to keep yourself happy.  You did things to ensure good crops or favorable outcome to an adventure of some sort.  In other words, you paid up front. 

The sacrifice of atonement was largely retributive or payment after the fact.  It sometimes was associated with thank offerings for having received good crops or a good outcome, but more often it was about paying for the bad things you did in order to keep from exposing the community or the nation to the fact that you messed up and was the cause of things not going well for everyone. It's akin to appeasement, but after the fact of something occurring.

Sacrifice in Judaism contains this strong sense of atonement and the practice of it could be inequitable at times.  Those who had more could pay for more, in essence, could sin more, and those who didn't have much, worried they couldn't cover the debt incurred through sin.  The prophetic voices in Israel addressed this sense inequity and so did Jesus.  Remember the story of the widow's mite?

Being rooted in Judaism the crucifixion of Jesus, according to salvation theology, is portrayed as an act of atonement, paying for the price for the sins of the world; past, present, and future.  The problem with this approach is that Judaism abhorred human sacrifice. There was no place for it. God frequently showed displeasure with any form of ritual animal sacrifice in the Hebrew Scriptures.

God is known in those scriptures to have said he was fed up with burnt offerings and was more concerned with contrition rather than receiving a retributive sacrifice. Although the Temple in Jerusalem was very active in Jesus' time, it was for the most part a symbol of national and religious identity for Jews throughout the world.  Judaism, out of necessity had a robust synagogue-based religious life that could and eventually did exist without the temple. The template for ritual atonement I believe was weak and antiquated even as the idea of the crucifixion was considered the ultimate sacrifice.

Christianity had to reinterpret long held understandings of God and sacrifice.  For example, the angel stopping Abraham from sacrificing his son Isaac was long understood as an abolition and prohibition against human sacrifice in Judaism. Christianity reinterpreted the angel stopping Abraham from sacrificing Isaac as a prophetic event which pointed to Jesus, as God's only begotten Son, becoming the spotless lamb who would remove the debt of sin for the whole human species.

In my opinion, the early Christians seemed to latch on to an explanation of the crucifixion as a sacrifice without thinking it through. As a result the event became "mystified." At the surface, one would have to ask who was  Jesus being sacrificed to?  God?  The answer would have to be yes, which would then have to lead to the question, why?  Is there something about sin beyond God's control; to the extent it was not God who Jesus was sacrificed to but some other source; some other power?  You can see how convoluted and speculative this line of questioning can be.  I could go on for a long time with this line of questioning without finding an answer. 

What I would suggest is that in a world where sacrifices were common place there was great appeal to the notion that an ultimate sacrifice was available that ended the necessity of ritual sacrifice as appeasement or atonement.  I suspect it was one of the main attractions to Christianity. No longer needing to make sacrifices, which could be expensive, saved people in any number of ways.

As I mentioned early, it doesn't make sense that the earliest Jewish followers would have seen Jesus' crucifixion as a sacrifice as they would have seen it as total affront to God, a wrongful death of an innocent man, another prophet being murdered, the Messiah being slain by the very people he was trying to deliver.  It is not clear that the earliest followers of Jesus, the one's who formed the church in Jerusalem, had a salvation theology based on Jesus being sacrificed for the sins of the world. That theology appears to originate with Paul who was, in many ways, a Hellenized Jew and perhaps more influenced by Hellenistic thought than he portrays.

Pre-Pauline Christians called themselves The Way and the church in Jerusalem seemed to hold the teachings of Jesus in high regard, given their communal life style, rather than taking time to develop teachings about Jesus.  They also seemed to have retained a sense of Temple worship.  So it is unlikely they would have seen Jesus as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.  What they might have concluded is that when Jesus forgave those who crucified him, God did also or that only Jesus did.  The crucifixion was not a sacrificial act. It was a crime. It did not pay for anything. Jesus simply forgave those involved in putting him to death.  It was an act of pure grace on the part of Jesus for those who brought about his execution.  That, in itself, provided a powerful template for how Jesus followers should have reacted to his death.

In the  Acts of the Apostles, however, one gets a sense that Jesus' disciples were less forgiving than Jesus and were willing to place a guilt trip on the their fellow Jews,  In a speech attributed to Peter addressing a crowd during Pentecost, Peters comments,   "Jesus.. who you... put to death... ." This statement would resonate throughout the Western history as a premise for Jewish persecutions. Again, another example of how salvation theology is prone to radicalization.

A PARTING COMMENT

Salvation theology is deeply rooted in the crucifixion and resurrection stories about Jesus.  While I am not trying to dissuade anyone from their personal beliefs in salvation theology, I am interested in questioning it and looking at alternatives to what seems, for all practical purposes, a theological nightmare; one that requires unreasoned and baseless belief in unproven and untenable premises.  While I consider the "factuality" of the physical resurrection of Jesus and the crucifixion of Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the world highly speculative, at best, what I will offer will be blatantly speculative on my part.

The fact is nobody can know for sure what exactly motivated Jesus to be a teacher and preacher within the framework of Judaism.  Personally, I am convinced that it was not to establish a new religion or to bring about a salvation-based theology.  Being true to my agnosticism, I admit that I don't know.

I do not see a need for God to out-perform what God is already doing; creating the universe as I write.  Faith, for me, is not based on having to believe in the extraordinarily miraculous. Don't get me wrong, I believe in miracles (the concept exists and for me the experience exists).  It is just that I do not base my faith on the extraordinarily miraculous.  Life is miraculous in its own right, and if one cannot see the uniqueness in one's being and in the life one is surrounded by, it is doubtful that one will be able to find it elsewhere.  God has no need for unreasoned beliefs. 

Next week I will begin exploring an alternative to salvation-based theology.

Until then, stay faithful.