Christmas and The Crucified God

Image result for metacrock's blog Christman


Christmas, God talk, incarnation, Jurgen Moltmann, Matthew Lamb, Solidarity with Victims, The Crucified God,


The Christian part of Christmas, that's the nativity scene with no trees or elves. That's the part you go to chruch to talk about. Show some mangers and some wise men and play the drummer boy song (eeeeee can't stand that son, p-rum-pum-pum-pum, rum-pum-pum-pum...enough already!) and you've done your bit for Christmas. I actually love Christmas, I like the manger and the baby and all that. Yet that is not what it's about. The entrance of Christ into the world in a lowly birth, worshiped by wise-men and heralded by angles and a star, those are nice folk tale elements. That masks what it's all about in the guise of cute fluffy heart warming imagery. Christmas is about the birth of Christ, God come in the flesh, and that signals to us the death of Christ; its meaning, it's end, it's un-final end and new beginning. The birth heralds more of the positive side of Jesus time in the flesh, his career, his mission, the promise and the possibilities. After all the angels said "peace on earth, good will toward men." How does that connect to a kid born in a manger?

Even with the positive possibilities of peace the birth hearlds the death and since we are compelled to think of both they both remind us of the meaning of Christ's mission and the reason for his coming. I used to read a book every Christmas, the same book. It was one of my all time favorite books; The Crucified God, by Jurgen Moltmann. The subtitle is very important: The Cross of Christ as the foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology. That book seemed to most adequately sum up what the incarnation is about.

Motlmann was from the 60's to the 90's and maybe even up to the present was the greatest living Protestant theologian. He was best known for this book and his Theology of Hope. both of which served to dramatize and legitimize the theology of liberation and the struggles of Latin America. Moltmann's book is actually an argument for placing Praxis on the front burner of theology and leaving the dray musty doctrinal stuff on the back burner. Praxis is the idea of reflection upon material need, how to apply the lessons of theology in a practical way to people's needs.
....... 
To get to the core of the book and it's relation to Christmas, the argument goes like this: So what if Jesus was crucified? what's the big deal? There are much worse ways to suffer. Crucifixion is bad but it is far from the worst thing that can happen to you. So why was it a sacrifice, I mean after all he is God, what would it matter to him if he dies? And he got to come back."

First, most Christians try to answer this out of a need for piety. They do not give a theological answer, they give a pious one. The pious answer can't be undestood by modern people, they lack pious feelings, so it just makes it worse. The pious answer of course is to try and mount up the pain and make it seem so very much worse. O. Jesus suffered in hell and he suffers every minute and he's still suffering and he felt all the agony in the world. Of course it doesn't' really say that anywhere in the Bible. While I think this is true, and while my pious side feels the proper sense of devotion and gratitude to our savior for his work, we can't use this to answer the question because modern impiety can't understand the answer. They just hear us reiterating their hidden primes.
....... 
The other Christian answers are Propitiatory atonement, Substitutionary, or Moral government. These are the tree major ways of looking at the atonement. Propitiation means to turn away anger. This answer is also incomprehensible to moderns. God is so very angry with us that he can't stand the sight of us, he has to stick Jesus between himself and us so he will see Jesus and turn away his anger. This just makes God seem like a red faced historical parent who couldn't comprehend the consequences of his creation when he decided to make it. Substitutionary atonement says that Jesus took our place, he received the penalty our sins deserved. This comes in two verities. One is financial transaction, Jesus paid the debt. the other is closer to moral government, Jesus was executed because he stepped in and took the place of the guilty party. Both of these are also problematic, because they really allow the guilty to get off Scott free and persecute an innocent person. Again modern people can't understand this kind of thinking; you could not go down to the jail and talk them into letting you take another prisoners place. We can harp on how this is a grace so fine we can't undersigned it in the natural mind, and relapse into piety again singing the praises to God for doing this wonderful act, but it wont answer the atheists questions.
....... 
I realize that the view I hold to is a little known minority view. I know I'm bucking the mainstream. But I think it makes a lot more sense and  actually explains why there was an atonement. Before getting into it, however, I want to comment upon the atheist hidden premise. The explicit premise of the atheist argument is that atonement works by Jesus suffering a whole lot. If Jesus suffers enough then restitution is made. But wait, restitution for what? For our sins? Then why should Jesus suffer more than we do or more than our victims do? Why do atheists seem to think,  that Jesus must suffer more than anyone ever has for the atonement to work? It's because the hidden premise is that God is guilty and the atonement is the time God pays for his own mistakes. Jesus has to suffer more than anyone to make up for what God has done, in conceiving of us by creating us. The sickness of the modern mind can scarcely comprehend Christian theology now. I wonder if it isn't too late and we are just past the day when people in the West can really be saved?

I mean consider the idea that usually acompanies this argument: well he is God after all, a little torutre death cant' hurt him. In the old days, when we had a culture that ran on Christian memories, people said how great that God would do this for us when he didn't have to! Now the argument is "Of course he had to, it's the least he can do, after all I didn't asked to be born, so I'm entitled to whatever goodies I can get in compensation." That's why I think the hidden premise is to blame God; its as though they are saying God has to suffer more than anyone to make up for the suffering he caused as creator. This sort of attitude marks the disease of the modern mind.

In any case, my view is the Participatory atonement. It was embraced by several church fathers and modern theologians supporting it are mentioned below:

I.The Atonement: God's Solidarity With Humanity.

........A. The inadquacy of Financial Transactions


Many ministers, and therefore, many Christians speak of and think of Jesus' death on the cross as analogous to a financial transaction. Usually this idea goes something like this: we are in hock to the devil because we sinned. God pays the debt we owe by sending Jesus to die for us, and that pays off the devil. The problem with this view is the Bible never says we owe the devil anything. We owe God. The financial transaction model is inadequate. Matters of the soul are much more important than any monetary arrangement and business transactions and banking do not do justice to the import of the issue. Moreover, there is a more sophisticated model; that of the sacrament for sin. In this model Jesus is like a sacrificial lamb who is murdered in our place. This model is also inadequate because it is based on a primitive notion of sacrifice. The one making the sacrifice pays over something valuable to him to appease an angry God. In this case God is paying himself. This view is also called the "propitiation view" becuase it is based upon propitiation, which means to turn away wrath. The more meaningful notion is that of Solidarity. The Solidarity or "participatory" view says that Jesus entered human history to participate in our lot as finiate humans, and he dide as a means of identifying with us. We are under the law of sin and death, we are under curse of the law (we sin, we die, we are not capable in our own human strength of being good enough to merit salvation). IN taking on the penalty of sin (while remaining sinless) Jesus died in our stead; not in the manner of a premature animal sacrafice (that is just a metaphor) but as one of us, so that through identification with us, we might identify with him and therefore, partake of his newness of life.

.......B. Christ the Perfect Revelation of God to Humanity

In the book of Hebrews it says "in former times God spoke in many and various ways through the prophets, but in these latter times he has spoken more perfectly through his son." Jesus is the perfect revelation of God to humanity. The prophets were speaking for God, but their words were limited in how much they could tell us about God. Jesus was God in the flesh and as such, we can see clearly by his character, his actions, and his teachings what God wants of us and how much God cares about us. God is for humanity, God is on our side! The greatest sign of God's support of our cause as needy humans is Jesus death on the cross, a death in solidarity with us as victims of our own sinful hearts and societies. Thus we can see the lengths God is will to go to to point us toward himself. There are many verses in the Bible that seem to contradict this view. These are the verses which seem to say that Atonement is propitiatory.

.......C. Death in Solidarity with Victims.............. 
1) Support from Modern Theologians

.......Three Major Modern Theologians support the solidarity notion of atonement: Jurgen Moltmann (The Crucified God), Matthew L. Lamb (Solidarity With Victims), and D.E.H. Whiteley (The Theology of St. Paul).In the 1980s Moltmann (German Calvinist) was called the greatest living protestant theologian, and made his name in laying the groundwork for what became liberation theology. Lamb (Catholic Priest) was big name in political theology, and Whiteley (scholar at Oxford) was a major Pauline scholar in the 1960s.In his work The Crucified God Moltmann interprits the cry of Jesus on the cross, "my God my God why have you forsaken me" as a statement of solidarity, placing him in identification with all who feel abandoned by God.Whiteley: "If St. Paul can be said to hold a theory of the modus operandi [of the atonement] it is best described as one of salvation through participation [the 'solidarity' view]: Christ shared all of our experience, sin alone excepted, including death in order that we, by virtue of our solidarity with him, might share his life...Paul does not hold a theory of substitution..." (The Theology of St. Paul, 130)An example of one of the great classical theologians of the early chruch who held to a similar view is St. Irenaeus (according to Whiteley, 133).

..............2) Scrtiptural


...all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were Baptized into his death.? We were therefore burried with him in baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the death through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him in his death we will certanly be united with him in his resurrection.For we know that the old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.--because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.Now if we have died with Christ we believe that we will also live with him, for we know that since Christ was raised from the dead he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him; the death he died to sin he died once for all; but the life he lives he lives to God. In the same way count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Chrsit Jesus.(Romans 6:1-5)

.......In Short, if we have united ourselves to Christ, entered his death and been raised to life, we participate in his death and resurrection through our act of solidarity, united with Christ in his death, than it stands tto reason that his death is an act of solidarity with us, that he expresses his solidarity with humanity in his death.

.......This is why Jesus cries out on the cross "why have you forsaken me?" According to Moltmann this is an expression of Solidarity with all who feel abandoned by God.Jesus death in solidarity creates the grounds for forgiveness, since it is through his death that we express our solidarity, and through that, share in his life in union with Christ. Many verses seem to suggest a propitiatory view. But these are actually speaking of the affects of the solidarity. "Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if when we were considered God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! What appears to be saying that the shedding of blood is what creates forgiveness is actually saying that the death in solidarity creates the grounds for reconciliation. IT says we were enemies then we were reconciled to him through the death, his expression of solidarity changes the ground, when we express our solidarity and enter into the death we are giving up to God, we move from enemy to friend, and in that sense the shedding of blood, the death in solidarity, creates the conditions through which we can be and are forgiven. He goes on to talk about sharing in his life, which is participation, solidarity, unity.

.......D. Meaning of Solidarity and Salvation.

.......Jurgen Moltmann's notion of Solidarity (see The Crucified God) is based upon the notion of Political solidarity. Christ died in Solidarity with victims. He took upon himself a political death by purposely angering the powers of the day. Thus in his death he identifies with victims of oppression. But we are all victims of oppression. Sin has a social dimension, the injustice we experience as the hands of society and social and governmental institutions is primarily and at a very basic level the result of the social aspects of sin. Power, and political machinations begin in the sinful heart, the ego, the desire for power, and they manifest themselves through institutions built by the will to power over the other. But in a more fundamental sense we are all victims of our own sinful natures. We scheme against others on some level to build ourselves up and secure our conditions in life. IN this sense we cannot help but do injustice to others. In return injustice is done to us.Jesus died in solidarity with us, he underwent the ultimate consequences of living in a sinful world, in order to demonstrate the depths of God's love and God's desire to save us. Take an analogy from political organizing. IN Central America governments often send "death squads" to murder labor unionists and political dissenter. IN Guatemala there were some American organizations which organized for college students to go to Guatemala and escort the leaders of dissenting groups so that they would not be murdered.

.......The logic was that the death squads wouldn't hurt an American Student because it would bring bad press and shut off U.S. government funds to their military. As disturbing as these political implications are, let's stay focused on the Gospel. Jesus is like those students, and like some of them, he was actually killed. But unlike them he went out of his way to be killed, to be victimized by the the rage of the sinful and power seeking so that he could illustrate to us the desire of God; that God is on our side, God is on the side of the poor, the victimized, the marginalized, and the lost. Jesus said "a physician is not sent to the well but to the sick."The key to salvation is to accept God's statement of solidarity, to express our solidarity with God by placing ourselves into the death of Christ (by identification with it, by trust in it's efficacy for our salvation).

.......E. Atonement is a Primitive Concept?

.......This charge is made quite often by internet-skeptics, especially Jewish anti-missionaries who confuse the concept with the notion of Human sacrifice. But the charge rests on the idea that sacrifice itself is a prematurity notion. If one commits a crime, someone else should not pay for it. This attack can be put forward in many forms but the basic notion revolves around the idea that one person dying for the sins of another, taking the penalty or sacrificing to remove the guilt of another is a premature concept. None of this applies with the Participatory view of the atonement (solidarity) since the workings of Christ's death, the manner in which it secures salvation, is neither through turning away of wrath nor taking upon himself others sins, but the creation of the grounds through which one declares one's own solidarity with God and the grounds through which God accepts that solidarity and extends his own; the identification of God himself with the needs and cry of his own creation.

The Blogging Parson
Moltmann's theodicy is the great strength of this work, in that it directly engages the protest atheism of the mid twentieth century without negating the powerful emotional impact of its claims. We are returned to the cross as the heart of the Christian message repeatedly - it is no accident that Luther features so strongly and so positively in these pages. Further, the rigour of his penetrating search for the implications of the cross for God himself has led him rightly to the trinity, and stands as a rebuke to the western tradition for neglecting this understanding of God for so long. The atonement is necessarily a trinitarian event/process. The sense of God identifying with human beings in Christ is also very strong. Moltmann develops a theology of the atonement with a cosmic scope, and does not fall into the trap of individualising the work of the cross.

Moltmann's work turns out to develop a "Trinitarian history of God." This works through a dialectic through which God rejects the Son, then accepts the son, then raises the son to a hope and a future in which we can participate. This also raises a dialectical relation between God and man because the son becomes part of humanity then humanity becomes part of the son through adoption to sonship and participation in the future. Christ particpates in our life and We in his. That's quite a philosophical turn on for a German.

Blogging Parson again:
We might complain that Moltmann's doctrine of God suffers from an overdose of Hegelianism, by presenting the history of the world as God's history, the process by which he realizes himself. By rejecting impassiblity and divine aseity, does he allow a compromise of God's freedom? This having been said, is God still as impersonal as he ever was under the scholastics? Further, the God presented here seems almost dependent on, or at least intrinsically tied to, the world. His is a vulnerable God. Moltmann's trinitarian reflection leaves him open to the charge of tritheism - however, he more than responds to such a charge in The Trinity and the Kingdom of God; and he is recapturing a biblical emphasis, after all.
While the cosmic vision of Moltmann's theologia crucis is admirable, it says almost nothing about individual salvation - in fact, it almost non-soteriological. He describes God's judgement in the terms of the "giving up" of human beings to their godlessness, as in Rom 1 (p.242). The atonement is achieved not by any substitutionary work of Christ but by his identifying with human beings in their lostness, by solidarity with them. In the end, his panentheism leads him to a universalist model; and the preaching of the cross becomes a following of God's example in identifying with the lost and godforsaken.
This last criticism I think is valid on the surface. Mostlamann doesn't spend a lot of time focusing on individual piety I think the implications for the individual are obvious and it's up to the individual to step into a relationship with God. For me I find Chrsitmas can be a great way to do what but only if you overlook the commercial crap and read a book like the Crucified God..

Comments

im-skeptical said…
Interesting story. But like all theodicies, it doesn't answer the most crucial questions. Jesus' mission is to create solidarity with people. But if that's what God wants, why dis he make us so different in the first place? Why couldn't he make us more like himself? After all, we were supposed to be made in his image, weren't we? Why is that image so imperfect?
im-skeptical said...
Interesting story. But like all theodicies, it doesn't answer the most crucial questions. Jesus' mission is to create solidarity with people. But if that's what God wants, why dis he make us so different in the first place? Why couldn't he make us more like himself? After all, we were supposed to be made in his image, weren't we? Why is that image so imperfect?

It's not a theodicy its soteriology. The classical answer is the fall, we are made in image of God that image tarnished due to sin, Adam's sin. In addition to that we might consider the implications of freewill. We are made in the image of God and we can respond to the pull of the Holy Spirit but we can't be cut out of a mold, freewill demands diersity.
im-skeptical said…
It's not a theodicy its soteriology.
- I think it's both.

... but we can't be cut out of a mold, freewill demands diersity.
- So God, and Jesus, and the angels didn't have genuine free will, because they didn't have to answer for their sins?
im-skeptical said…
You're saying that God couldn't make us like himself, because that would mean we are all cut from a mold. That implies that angels are all cut from the mold. At the same time, you say that Jesus was sent here to share our experience. But Jesus isn't like us. He's cut from that sinless mold, too. He isn't fallen like we are. He doesn't share the human experience of being made to be a sinner. Nor does he share our guilt for the "sin" of an ancestor (which actually was a case of tricking innocent people into eating the fruit, when they didn't know better). So how does this demonstrate solidarity?

See my comments on your post here.
im-skeptical said…
It's not a theodicy its soteriology.
- I think it's both.

sure I wont split hairs over it

... but we can't be cut out of a mold, freewill demands diersity.
- So God, and Jesus, and the angels didn't have genuine free will, because they didn't have to answer for their sins?

you have to have free will to act morally but you don't have to sin to have free will
m-skeptical said...
You're saying that God couldn't make us like himself, because that would mean we are all cut from a mold. That implies that angels are all cut from the mold. At the same time, you say that Jesus was sent here to share our experience.

He did make us like himself. But we used our free will to make wrong choices, that cuts the connection it has to be re established, the image of God in which we are made doesn;t negate our ability to choose wrongly,


But Jesus isn't like us. He's cut from that sinless mold, too.

He had human nature and could have sinned, That's the point of CAtengzakus' book the last temptation of Christ.

He isn't fallen like we are. He doesn't share the human experience of being made to be a sinner.

he has sin nature and he was tempted,

Nor does he share our guilt for the "sin" of an ancestor (which actually was a case of tricking innocent people into eating the fruit, when they didn't know better). So how does this demonstrate solidarity?

through his mother's lie he has a long string sinner ancestors,
im-skeptical said…
Sorry, but I just don't feel the solidarity. Everything Christianity teaches us is that Jesus is above us. He is a superior being. He's not like the rest of us. And what about those angels? They are superior, too. They have free will, but not a sinful nature. If God could make them good, why couldn't he make us good? This just doesn't make sense.
im-skeptical said...
Sorry, but I just don't feel the solidarity. Everything Christianity teaches us is that Jesus is above us. He is a superior being. He's not like the rest of us. And what about those angels? They are superior, too. They have free will, but not a sinful nature. If God could make them good, why couldn't he make us good? This just doesn't make sense.

I don't blame you. The church has often allowed itself to get caught up in ways of thinking that negate the simple nature of the gospel. We are in one of those periods now in
America. But God became man and entered human history and died at the bottom rung of society in order to make the statement of solidarity to us, We have to encounter that in the heart.all you need to do is be open.
im-skeptical said…
Joe, you are evading my question. Why is any of this necessary? Why couldn't God just make us without a sinful nature in the first place, as he did with Jesus, or the angels?
sin nature is inherent in the nature off freewill. Sin nature comes out of the anxiety that follows being able to anticipate consequences. Free will is essential love and moral decision making.So we have to have freewill to be moral beings Thus being righteous means risking making wrong choices.
im-skeptical said…
sin nature is inherent in the nature off freewill.

- I disagree. Jesus had free will. God himself has free will. Does that make them sinners?
sin nature is inherent in the nature off freewill.

- I disagree. Jesus had free will. God himself has free will. Does that make them sinners

absolutely, sin nature caused by anxiety of self transcendence, there is no self transcendence in determinism,

Freewill does not have to issue in sin nature but sin nature is dependent upon free will, But Jesus had sin nature because he had human nature he did not give in to sin,

God's free will doesn't result in sin nature because he has no anxiety,
im-skeptical said…
But Jesus had sin nature because he had human nature he did not give in to sin

How do you know this? Jesus has always been regarded as "He who is without sin". And what about angels? Do they have this sin nature too? We already know that they don't have to be tested on earth like us mere mortals.
im-skeptical said…
But Jesus had sin nature because he had human nature he did not give in to sin

How do you know this? Jesus has always been regarded as "He who is without sin". And what about angels? Do they have this sin nature too? We already know that they don't have to be tested on earth like us mere mortals.

the creed says it truly God and Truly ma. The human side of his nature is just as much an important doctrine as the deity side.
im-skeptical said…
The creed? That is not the doctrine of the church, which says Jesus is not burdened with original sin like the rest of us. See this article.

But you still are not addressing my point. If is is possible for beings (like the angels) to exercise their free will in the spiritual realm, then why subject mankind to the burden of original sin? And what is the point of placing us in the corrupt physical world? The only reason I can see is that God just wants it that way. In other words, this is all for his pleasure.
The creed? That is not the doctrine of the church, which says Jesus is not burdened with original sin like the rest of us. See this article.


yes the creeds are official doctrine and they are not optional You are not distinguishing between having the nature and acting it.

But you still are not addressing my point. If is is possible for beings (like the angels) to exercise their free will in the spiritual realm, then why subject mankind to the burden of original sin?

we have free will. sin nature means you have the potential it does not equate to guilt,


And what is the point of placing us in the corrupt physical world? The only reason I can see is that God just wants it that way. In other words, this is all for his pleasure.

that's where you are going to have a moral decision to make. Yes Go wants us to make moral decisons,
im-skeptical said…
yes the creeds are official doctrine and they are not optional You are not distinguishing between having the nature and acting it.
- Joe, the doctrine of the church is that Jesus does not have original sin.

we have free will. sin nature means you have the potential it does not equate to guilt
- You are not answering my question. Why subject mankind to the burden of original sin?

that's where you are going to have a moral decision to make. Yes Go wants us to make moral decisons
- Unresponsive. Angels make moral decisions, but they don't need a corrupt physical world to do it.

Joe, you have repeatedly refused to address the issues I raise. Could it be that you have no cogent answer?

im-skeptical said…
yes the creeds are official doctrine and they are not optional You are not distinguishing between having the nature and acting it.
- Joe, the doctrine of the church is that Jesus does not have original sin.

sin nature is not orignal sinwe have to clarify what we are talking about when we speak of "regional sin."

:"Eastern Orthodoxy accepts the doctrine of ancestral sin: "Original sin is hereditary. It did not remain only Adam and Eve's. As life passes from them to all of their descendants, so does original sin." ... In the Orthodox Christian understanding, they explicitly deny that humanity inherited guilt from anyone.
Original sin - Wikipedia"

""

that's where you are going to have a moral decision to make. Yes Go wants us to make moral decisions


- Unresponsive. Angels make moral decisions, but they don't need a corrupt physical world to do it.

no it answers the question: "Why subject mankind to the burden of original sin? " Because God wants free moral agents

Joe, you have repeatedly refused to address the issues I raise. Could it be that you have no cogent answer?

you are not thinking bout my answers
Original sin is an Augustinian doctrine not all all Christians accept it.

"Baptists baptize persons only after they make a personal confession of their faith in Christ. Baptists do not believe that a loving God condemns anyone for a sin they did not commit. Baptists do not view baptism as a remedy for original sin. Baptists do not baptize infants.
Mainstream Baptists" - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_Baptists

im-skeptical said…
Joe, you are not thinking about my questions. Could you explain how original sin is necessary in order to have free will? The angels have free will but they don't have original sin. You are not answering the question I am asking. Just spouting some religious dogma or repeating some random quote from Wikipedia doesn't answer the question I am asking.
Joe, you are not thinking about my questions. Could you explain how original sin is necessary in order to have free will?

Original sin is just the effects of the fall. those effects are necessary to have free will because free will means we must risk making the wrong choices,we do make wrong conics, As I intimated not all Christians believe in original sin and I don't bleieve in the conentinoal version of it.

The angels have free will but they don't have original sin.

angels are not decadence of Adam


You are not answering the question I am asking. Just spouting some religious dogma or repeating some random quote from Wikipedia doesn't answer the question I am asking.

you are turning off my answers because you thin it;s dogma

Mary Christmas, happy festivus

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