Upload
loydo38
View
48
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Paper for Society for Mormon Philosophy and TheologyLoyd EricsonNovember 1, 2013 – Utah Valley University
Citation preview
Paper for Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology
Loyd Ericson
November 1, 2013 Utah Valley University
Several Sundays ago I asked my young niece what she had learned in primary that day.
She excitingly told me about the object lesson that she had participated in: We went outside and
sat on the grass, and our teacher had two buckets. One bucket had dirt in it and another bucket
has water in it. We put our hand in the water and then put it in the dirt. This is what it is like
when we do things that are bad. We become dirty. Then we put our hands in the water and it
cleaned off the dirt. This is like when we repent. If we repent Jesus cleans away our sins and we
are clean again.
While much has been and is being said about the Atonement in Latter-day Saint thought
(especially at this conference), very little discussion seems to involve the nature of this thing
called sin that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is said to be remedying. And while many, if not
most, may not think that my nieces object lesson was the perfect metaphor for understanding the
Atonement, most theories of the Atonement assume a shared basic premise with the lesson of the
dirty hands: that the Atonement is meant to remedy *effects* of our actions. The purpose of my
paper is to explore the nature of sin and its relationship to the Atonement, beginning with an
examination of what some of the major traditional theories of atonement assume to be
remedying, followed with a similar examination of the traditional understanding of the
atonement in Latter-day Saint thoughtparticularly that of Blake Ostler, who has offered the
most robust analysis of the Atonement from a traditional Latter-day Saint perspective. In doing
so I will argue that the underlying premise of traditional LDS understandings of the atonement is
both nonsensical at the least and perhaps even harmful in how it is relayed. Finally, I will point
to liberation theology as an alternative way to understand the Atonement that proposes a new
way to understand sin, Christ, and the Atonement in what I will call an Archetypal Theory of
Atonement, where the primary purpose of the Atonement of Christ is not to remedy the spiritual
effects of our actions (or our works), but rather, as Christ tells the Nephites, to draw all men
[and women] unto me (3 Ne. 27:14) in joining his work to seek the salvation of the poor and
oppressed.
***
Dominating the first millennium of Christian thought, the Ransom theory of atonement
posited that during the Fall of Adam and Eve, Satan took possession of the Garden couple and
their posterity through the Original Sin and its effects. Here the relationship between Satan,
humanity, and God is understood in the context of warring nations and prisoners of war, wherein
ransoms are paid for the return of captives. Desiring to free his creations, God offers his Sons
death as a ransom for Adam, Eve, and their descendants. The wool has been pulled over Satans
eyes though, as he did not know that Jesus possessed the ability to resurrect himself. Thus the
ransom is paid, we are freed from Satan, and through the resurrection of Jesus, God is made
victorious. Recognizing that this theory implies that Satan has a certain power over God, wherein
he is able to make demands of God that can only be overpowered through trickery, variations of
the Ransom theory posited instead that humanity was held captive by either Satan (or just sin,
suffering, and death in general) because of our banishment by God, and that a ransom of pain
and punishment, rather than death, was paid to God the Father by His Son Jesus Christ.
Regardless of whether humanity is captive to Satan or to the hardships of the world, or
whether the ransom was paid to Satan or to God, the Ransom Theory is meant to describe how
the Atonement remedies the effect of disobeying Gods commands. In this case, Adam and Eve
(or all of humankind) disobeyed God. As a result we have been separated from God, and an
atonement is necessary to bring us back into Gods presence. While we are not made *dirty* in
this scenario, our actions have consequences for ourselves and the Atonement is meant to
remedy those consequences.
The Ransom Theory eventually became less favored and was replaced with theories of
Penal Substitution and Satisfaction. With this view, our relationship with God is largely one of
master and servant (or noble and civilian) where disobedience of the servant disrespects the
master and must be punished in order to restore the masters honor. Not only did the
disobedience dishonor the master, but if the master did not follow through with punishing the
person who disrespected him, he would dishonor himself further and lose respectability. After
all, who would honor or respect a ruler who did not follow through with his own edicts. (For any
number of examples of this, watch an episode of Game of Thrones or any number of films
depicting Japanese feudal life--where disobedience to the king or leader is viewed as mockery,
and punishment must be handed out to save face--despite the pleadings of a wife or mother to
forgive the wrongdoer.)
Similarly, when we disobey Gods commandments, we dishonor Him and must either pay
God back in some way or be punished in order to restore Gods honor. Because of our inability
to pay God back and restore His honor, the punishment of death is required. (We can easily see
the same logic in arguments for contemporary capital punishment.) And, of course, like any
leader of respect, God cannot simply forgive the act without recourse and expect to be taken
seriously. In order to be *both* forgiving and respectable, God chooses to suffer the punishment
Himself, substituting the disobedient servant with His person of the Son Jesus Christ. Thus,
punishment is made, honor is restored, and the erring servant is forgiven of his disobedience.
With the Penal Substitution Theory, the primary purpose of Christs sacrifice was to take the
place, or be a substitute, for those who should have been punished.
Not liking the punitive nature of God described in Penal Substitution, Saints Anselm and
Aquinas instead proposed a modification of this as the Satisfaction Theory, wherein punishment
was not a punitive act for the benefit of God, but was for the benefit of the disobedient to help
them learn the error of their ways and recover from that which they had done. (A recent of
example of this has been in the news, where a man confessed on youtube about accidentally
killing a man while driving intoxicated. The man was so ridden with guilt that he felt he had to
be legally punished in order to find peace.) With the Satisfaction Theory, the dynamic of honor
was still in effect though; but rather than Jesus suffering as a substitute for punitive punishments,
he instead takes on the reparative punishment so that humanity can still reap the healing and
experiential benefits without having to suffer the punishment itself. This self-sacrificial act of
Christ is so honorable that it more than makes up for the dishonor we have caused God through
our disobedience.
Interestingly, with both the penal substitution and satisfaction theories, what is being
*fixed* is not the sinner, but is actually Gods honor. The status of the former is only changed
insofar as Gods honor no longer requires punishment. Ultimately though, what necessitated the
Atonement was the *effect* of the sinners act. Disobedience had the effect of Gods honor being
diminished, which required punishment to restore. Or, to go back to my nieces object lesson,
when we do something bad, the problem is not that we end up with dirt on our hands, but that
God ends up with mud on His face. The Atonement washes Gods face clean and removes the
need for us, the disobedient servants, to therefore be punished. While the Satisfaction Theory
also restores Gods honor, it also sees Christs sacrifice as providing a healing benefit for those
who have done wrong. It thus acts as a remedy for both the effects that our disobedient acts have
on God and ourselves.
While the Ransom, Penal Substitution, and Satisfaction theories all understand the
Atonement as Christs sacrifice remedying the consequences or effects of sin, it is interesting
that none of these do so in a way that is described in my nieces Primary lesson or is commonly
evoked in LDS discoursethat is, they do not evoke a metaphysical stain or dirt that needs to be
cleansed away. While the scriptural metaphor of washing away sins is commonly tied to these
theories, that metaphor is usually evoked as simply a metaphor. However, in LDS discourse the
language of cleanliness, impurity, washing away sins, purification, etc has been transformed
from a metaphor into a metaphysical reality. Thus in traditional Mormon discourse about the
Atonement, this language is not simply used to describe the remediation of certain effects of
disobedience, such as the absolving of punishment or the freedom from captivity, *as if* those
things were washed away, but rather the language assumes a metaphysically real dirt, stain, or
impurity that is created through disobedience and must actually be cleansed.
This transformation of washing away sins as a metaphor to a metaphysical reality seems
to come hand in hand with the super-materiality of 19th-century Mormon theology (and much of
contemporary Mormonism), where all spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure (D&C 131:7).
Thus, in a book that surprisingly has no focused discussion on the Atonement, Parley Pratts Key
to the Science of Theology points out that
An agent filled with this heavenly fluid [the Holy Spirit] cannot impart of the same to
another, unless that other is justified, washed, cleansed from all his impurities of heart,
affections, habits or practices, by the blood of atonement, which is generally applied in
connection with the baptism of remission.
A man who continues in his sins, and how has no living faith in the Son of God,
cannot receive the gift of the Holy Spirit through the ministration of any agent, however
holy he may be. The *impure* spirit of such a one will repulse the *pure* element, upon
the natural laws of sympathetic affinity, or of attraction and repulsion.
While many Mormons may not adopt the language of the natural repulsion of pure
spiritual fluid from impure spiritual fluid, the assumption of a super-material effect on our spirits
from our wrong acts remains. In his very influential book Believing Christ, Stephen E. Robinson
writes:
I am particularly fond of the way the Lord says this in Isaiah 1:18 . . . though
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they
shall be as wool.. . . What the Lord is saying here is this: It doesnt matter what you did.
Whatever it was, no matter how horrible or vile, is not the issue. The issue here is that
whatever your sin was or is, I can erase it, I can clean *you* up and make *you*
innocent, pure, and worthy. (8)
The implication is clear. By Robinsons words clean *you* up, and make *you* innocent,
pure, and worthy, he is also stating that your actions have a very real and material effect on your
very being. They cause *you* to be dirty, guilty, impure, and unworthy.
In the second volume of his Exploring Mormon Thought series, Blake Ostler offers
perhaps the most philosophically rigorous approach to a traditional understanding of atonement
in Mormonism. In it, he begins to critique the language of an unclean spirit as being only a
metaphor, but he follows this by simply pointing the metaphor at another metaphysical reality
that affects our soul. He writes: The scriptures view our responsibility for evil acts as something
that remains with us after we do the act. It is uncleanness or a stain on our soul.
Metaphorically, this stain or uncleanness can be washed away through the Atonement.
*However, it is obviously only a metaphor* (245). For Ostler, it seems though that it is only a
metaphor insofar as there is not a literal stain that requires literal washing. The metaphor instead
refers to our harbor[ing] an *energy of sin* that remains within us unless and until we repent
(244). There is a sense in which guilt *adheres to our very being* until it is atoned for (245).
And while he does not directly mention this sin-energy in his most recent book, Fire on the
Horizon, the idea is still present. There, he writes: [T]he effects of sin are seen as a type of
poison that remains in us. . . . There is more than a metaphor here. There is a sense in which we
literally hold onto the effects of sin in our bodies. The effects of our behavior are not merely
mental but have real effects in our bodies. . . . The effects of sin are stored in our cells, our
organs, and our memories located throughout the central and automatic nerve systems (105-6).
For Ostler, the effects of sin are usually manifest physiologically. As he puts it, The
damage that we do to ourselves through sin is literally stored in our bodies in the form of painful
memories and disease. Our bodies manifest the energy of such pain in the form of heart disease,
high blood pressure, ulcers, and all kinds of psychosomatic illnesses and manifestations of
neuroses. The pain of a guilty conscience is real (245). And echoing early Mormon arguments
for the materiality of spirits, he writes: This energy is real in the sense that it causes real
effects in our minds and bodies. It seems necessary that anything that can cause such effects is a
form of energy because it brings about real change in us (245-6).
It seems obvious that it is reasonable to say that wrong acts *can* bring about negative
physiological and psychological effects. For example, sexual promiscuity can result in disease,
drug abuse leads to addictions and other ailments, and other acts can cause depression, anxiety,
and harm to oneself. However, for Ostler the effects of sin run metaphysically deeper. These are
rather symptoms of sin-energy that have infected a persons very being. This is clear when
Ostler claims that, unlike the symptoms above that can generally be remedied or removed
through medicine, counseling, and time, the sin-energy cannot be simply removed. Rather,
they (perhaps like evil spirits in the New Testament) must be transferred to another body. Ostler
writes that through the Atonement of Christ the painful energy of sin that resides in the flesh
as memory is transferred to [Christ], adding,[T]his transfer is real and not merely
metaphorical (247-8). Robinson mirrors this notion when writes, God uses no magic wand to
simply wave bad things into nonexistence. The sins that he remits, he remits by making them his
own and suffering them. The pain and heartaches that he relieves, he relieves by suffering them
himself. These things can be shared and absorbed, but they cannot be simply wished or washed
away. They must be suffered (123). Thus returning to my nieces object lesson, the dirt on her
hands cannot simply disappear, it must be transferred from one location to another--from her
hands to the water. And just as that water becomes silted with the dirt from her hands, Jesus is
now the bearer of our negative sin energies.
If there were actual negative sin-energies that could not simply be washed away, it would
make sense then for a suitable Atonement theory to need to explain how these sin-energies are
remedied. This is a primary reason that Ostler gives for why his theory succeeds where most
others fail; because, according to him, the LDS view of the Atonement assumes that the transfer
of pain for sins is real (230).
Yet are those energies real? And are they things that can be transferred to another in any
meaningful sense? In his critique of traditional atonement theories, Ostler writes: The problem
of atonement in conventional Christianity consists of the fact that it is a solution looking for a
problem. Traditionally, theories of atonement answer the question about how we are forgiven of
our sins by Christs suffering as a substitute in our place, but there really does not seem to be a
problem here because we can forgive others without a third party enduring pain and suffering as
a necessary condition (250-1). It seems though that this logic can just as easily be applied to
Ostlers theory, that it is a solution looking for a problem of how the metaphysically or super-
materially real energies of sin be transferred or removed from our very being. And we could
simply contend that the problem is that there are no such entities to begin with.
While it is certainly the case that one could easily infer these energies or their
transference from certain scriptural passages, as Ostler does, we are still left with the problem of
determining whether these passages of scripture ought to be read literally or metaphorically. As
Ostler recognizes, explanations of atonement as ransom, acquittal, victory, etc all find their place
in the scriptures. However, he contends that these must be read as metaphorical expressions and
not actual explanations or theories--that is, scriptures that describe the atonement as ransom and
acquittal only tell us what atonement is *like,* whereas scriptures that might describe atonement
as a transference of negative energies tell us what atonement *is.*
Concerning the Ransom theory of Atonement, Ostler writes: What Christ did somehow
metaphorically pays the price owed to the devil to free us from bondage--although it quickly
leads to nonsense if the metaphor is pushed to far (204). This pushing to far of a metaphor
seems to be precisely what Ostler is doing with his conception of sin energies. However, just as
we can, or perhaps ought, to reject theories of atonement because of the absence of ways in
which forgiveness, captivity, and respectability have sense in our understandings of the world
and relationships, we can (and I say ought) to reject a theory of atonement that depends on the
actuality and transference of negative sin energies or metaphysically real impurities of the soul.
This is because (1) the positing of these transferrable energies simply lacks sense; (2) the rhetoric
of soul-binding negative consequences is harmful, especially when it is unnecessary; (3) it
misplaces moral concern away from concern for others and instead promotes selfishness; and (4)
the emphasis on these energies completely ignores and has no necessary or practical relation to
the predominant theme of atonement in Christian and LDS scripture: that is, the cross.
First, while it makes sense to say that certain acts *can* have particular negative
consequences for a persons body or psyche, positing the existence of metaphysically or super-
materially real energies adds nothing to the equation. It is akin to positing undetectable rainbow
power to explain how a magnet works when we already have a suitable explanation. Ostlers
elaboration of these negative energies is ultimately a longer rephrasing of the inference he is
trying to explain. In other words, in attempting to address how it is that Jesus is able to literally
take our sins and pain and suffers from them, Ostler explains that Jesus does so by literally
taking our sin energies and pain energies and suffering from them. Adding the language of
energies when they have no sense outside of the explanation leaves them sense-less as an
explanation.
This is rendered even more sense-less when actual pains and harms are said to be
transferred to Jesus via these energies. Pains, especially our deepest pains, have their sense in a
complex web of experiences, identity, relationships, memories, and physiology. Pain is not found
in a separate energy tagged on top of these things; and despite what science fiction movies
depict, they cannot be contained in test tubes and injected. What does it mean to say that Jesus
feels the pain of birthing labor through the transference of pain energy? Even if we set aside the
fact that Jesus does not have a uterus, this pain is much more than just nerve fibers in the brain
responding to signals from a contracting cervix. Its a complex web of fears of a first pregnancy
or complications from the last, it involves the months of hope for the child, the trauma of a
premature delivery, the inadequacy of a new mother, the stress of a single parent, and so on.
What does it mean to say that Jesus knows through a transfer of energies what it is like to be
brutally raped and violated? What can these energies tell Jesus about a husband who was
unfaithful to his wife he deeply loved, and is now facing the risk of losing his family and all that
he truly holds dear? How can the energies convey the life of a father who accidentally drove over
his daughter while backing out of his driveway, turned to alcohol as a way of coping, and lost his
wife, the rest of his children, his job, and his home to alcoholism? Without the rush of
methamphetamines and later withdrawals how does Jesus understand the pain of a drug-addict?
Even the most vivid dreams are just that--dreams. Though I may feel pain and even guilt
in my dreams, I can wake up and know that it was all just a dream. It was never my reality. Part
of the pain of a teenager who accidently kills a mother and her children while driving intoxicated
on a Christmas Eve is knowing that he will always know the pain he caused. No matter how
much the grief-stricken surviving father forgives him, no matter how much God forgives him,
and no matter how much he forgives himself, he knows that the fact of the accident will always
be with him. This is something that Jesus cannot know and makes no sense of him ever knowing
through a transfer of energies.
Second, teaching those who have done wrong that they are in some way tainted, dirty,
unclean, or necessarily damaged in the deepest way possible adds further harm to those who
have made mistakes. In The Book of Mormon Girl, Joanna Brooks poignantly recounts the object
lessons of her youth, something not entirely different from the lesson my niece received. After
discussing a lesson involving a rose that had been wilted as it was passed around, she writes:
Standards Night were all about object lessons. Some years, it was not roses but cupcakes, or
donuts, passed from girl to girl around the semi-circle of folding chairs, losing glaze or frosting,
fingers getting sticky, and the inevitable question: Who would like to eat this damaged donut?
And who would rather have one of these untouched donuts here in the pink box? (114). While
this was an object lesson on sexual purity, the message is the same for my niece and for anyone
who is told they are now in some way tainted or deeply and negatively affected by their acts:
Why would God want to be near something as tainted as you? While it usually would not be
presented in this way, it is implicit with talk of the pure spirit being repulsed from impure spirit,
or as Robinson writes: Some of you know what it is like to do something that makes you feel as
if you just drank raw sewage. You can wash, but you can never get clean. When that happens,
sometimes we ask the Lord as we lift up our eyes, O Father, cant we ever be friends again?
The answer that can be found in all the scriptures is a resounding Yes, through the Atonement of
Christ. Note his response to the hypothetical question. It is not No, God is still your friend,
regardless of what you did. Instead, it is Well after you are clean, God will renew the
friendship. To Ostlers credit, he does not posit that God is repulsed by our unclean selves, but
that it is us who choose to stay away from God. He writes: They [who sin] will not voluntarily
enter into a healed relationship with him because they are unclean and cannot stand the guilt of
being in relationship with a perfect and holy being (219). Note what is going on here though.
The guilt is not guilt for what they have done, but for the impurity of their souls in the presence
of God. They feel they are the dirty donut that God would not want to touch. I havent
constructed an argument about how telling someone that they are dirty and impure is necessarily
harmful, but I think we can all intuitively understand how it is.
Third, this understanding of sin and its effects misplaces the morality that should
undergird Christian behavior. When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus answered
that two great commandments were to love God and love our neighbor. Regardless of how we
interpret these, implicit in them is that the basis of Christian morals is love for the other. This is
perhaps best exemplified when Jesus states that what separates the sheep from the goats at
judgment is whether or not a person was helping those in need. More importantly, the underlying
premise in Jesuss response is that the sheep served others for no other reason than concern for
them, and not for the inheritance that Jesus promises them. Hence they ask, [W]hen saw we
thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? (Matt. 25:37). On the other
hand, the emphasis on cleanliness and worthiness before God misplaces the moral concern in
Christian behavior from the other to the self. We dont love others for the sake of their well-
being, we love others for the sake of our spiritual purity. And coming unto Christ becomes less
about acting as Christ would, but of our selves being clean before him. Thus, we end up teaching
that the real harm when we sin against others is not about the harm we do to others, but about the
harm we do to ourselves. Sexual immorality is less about objectification, abuse, and risk and
more about personal purity. Theft is less about taking from others and more about worthiness to
stand in front of God. And even murder becomes less about the killing of another person, but
whether or not we have committed some unpardonable sin and will remain tainted with
uncleanliness or negative energies for eternity. Or think about how modesty discourse generally
works in our culture, where it has little to do with the objectification and sexualization of
womens bodies, but has to do with the purity of the female who dresses *inappropriately* and
the potential loss of purity for the male who might see her.
Finally, this understanding of sin and its effects makes no room for the cross. While there
are certainly criticisms to be made of ransom, penal, and satisfaction theories, they are at least
built around the central Christian element of the Atonement, that is the crucifixion of Jesus. In
discussing his theory of Atonement, Ostler makes very little mention of the crucifixion, and does
so only in the context as being the end of Jesuss mortal suffering that began in Gethsemane.
This makes sense though, because it is hard to make sense of the cross in terms of spiritual
uncleanliness and negative energies. Instead then, Latter-day Saints are prone to appeal to
scriptures that discuss Jesuss suffering in abstract terms and read Gethsemane into them. In fact
the only passage of LDS scripture that seems to directly address (by way of Lukes gosepl) his
experience in Gethsemane is Mosiah 3:7, which states: [F]or behold, blood cometh from every
pore, so great shall be his *anguish for* the wickedness and the abominations of his people. If
we dont try to read a transference of energy or pain into this passage, the straightforward
reading is simply describing Jesuss response to the wicked state of the world and not a suffering
on behalf of it. I think we have all felt an anguish like this to a lesser degree when we have
witnessed unjust suffering in person or in film--a feeling that is often intended to be evoked with
films about Jesuss crucifixion.
This emphasis on Gethsemane and virtual unimportance of the cross seems to be
incongruous with Jesuss own account given in Third Nephi. After identifying himself by the
very wounds of crucifixion, Jesus teaches,
[A]nd this is the gospel which I have given unto youthat I came into the world
to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me. And my Father sent me *that I
might be lifted up upon the cross;* and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that
I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men
be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they
be good or whether they be evilAnd for this cause have I been lifted up; therefore,
according to the power of the Father I will draw all men unto me, that they may be
judged according to their works (3 Ne. 27:13-16).
Here the emphasis is placed on the cross and *zero* mention is made of Gethsemane. It should
also be noted, as will be discussed soon, that judgment is discussed in terms of how people
respond to his being lifted on the cross--ie., their works--and not in terms of spiritual cleanliness
and purity. And I note as well that in LDS temple liturgy the imagery of crucifixion plays a key
role, whereas Gethsemane is again absent.
This is all not to say that there are no scriptures that imply or explicitly discuss the
impurity of souls or the transference of sin. However, like with all scriptures, we must make
decisions on how we read them and whether they should be read metaphorically. And with the
reasons stated above to either question the reality or even avoid the rhetoric of them, it seems
that those passages can and should be read metaphorically. In the same way that scriptures
discussing the Atonement in terms of captivity and ransom can be read metaphorically to
describe our experience being *as if* we were captives of Satan who have been released, or
other scriptures discussing penal substitution can be read describing our experience *as if* we
were sentenced to be punished and someone took it in our place, it seems that we can just as
easily read these passages to describe our experiences of atonement being *as if* we were dirty
and had been made clean. I, for one, have certainly experienced it this way at times.
***
So what then of sin and the Atonement? It is here that I believe that liberation theology
can provide an understanding of Christs atonement in a way that both avoids the turn to
metaphysical effects of our actions and fully embraces the cross in a way that is meaningful and
not sense-less. And it paves the way for what I will call an Archetypal Theory of Atonement.
Without going into too much of a discussion on liberation theology, of which there are
many variations, I will instead briefly summarize what Gustavo Guiterrez calls the preferential
option for the poor. This means that all aspects of Christ, the Gospel, and Christianity need to
be understood through a hermeneutic of how it addresses the plight of the poorincluding
Jesuss life, the Cross, and resurrection, soteriology, ecclesiology, evangelization, scripture,
sacraments, and community. Through this hermeneutic, sin is defined as the existence of poverty
and the oppressive behaviors and systems that propagate it, and the atonement is the mission of
the Christ to confront those things.
This perspective of the Atonement is perhaps best illustrated by Ignacio Ellacuria when
he writes that the question Why did Jesus die[?] is inseparable from the [question] why did
they kill him[?] His colleague Jon Sobrino touches on this more when he says:
Persons who preach an exclusively transcendent [Kingdom] of God do not get
themselves murdered. People who preach a [Kingdom] that is only a new relationship
with God, or only love, or only reconciliation, or only trust in God, are not
murdered. All these things may be legitimately regarded as elements accompanying the
message of the [Kingdom] of God, but they alone do not explain Jesus death, and
therefore they alone cannot be the central element of the [Kingdom]. The [Kingdom] of
God must have had some bearing on the historico-social, not only the transcendent.
According to these liberation theologians, God as Jesus did not come to earth simply to
suffer and be hung on the cross to absolve persons of some sort of metaphysical effect of sin.
Rather than coming to earth to die, God as Jesus came to earth to live a life that both confronted
sin and taught his followers to do the same. And because of this life, he was murdered by powers
that wished to stop him. By this, the cross is not a symbol of violent sacrificial death for the sake
of sacrifice or an appeasement of a punitive deity. Instead, the cross signifies the question why
did they kill him. It is when we ask this question that we come to realize that Jesus was capitally
murdered for confronting oppressive systems and trying to liberate the oppressed from their
suffering. The cross is the center of Christianity because it symbolizes, points to, and embodies
the life that Jesus of Nazareth lived. Because Jesus was crucified for his work to free the
oppressed, the cross is a symbol of his life.
But, some may argue (as some of you surely feel), the scriptures are clear that Jesus died
for our sins and the sins of the world. To this, those who argue for a liberation theology would
answer, yes, Jesus died for the sins of the world. However, Ellacuria adds: We must ask in all
seriousness what the sin of the world is today, or in what forms the sin of the world appears
today. . . . If we look at the reality of the world as a whole from the perspective of faith, we see
that the sin of the world is sharply expressed today in what must be called unjust poverty.
Poverty and injustice appear today as the great negation of Gods will and as the annihilation of
the desired presence of God among human beings. Or we can phrase it as Doctrine and
Covenants 49:20 puts it: But it is not given that one man should possess that which is above
another, wherefore the world lieth in sin. It is for this reason that Ellacuria called Jesuss work
of salvation historic soteriology, because it addresses salvation in terms of the actual material
world instead of in the otherworldly or Mormon super-materiality.
Furthermore, by understanding the Atonement as not just transcendent, but rather
emphasizing the very real and material suffering of humans, God shows that his response to
suffering is not to justify or understand it, but to confront and end suffering at its roots. When
this is understood, our own identity and purpose as Christians should also be understood.
According to Sobrino:
Christian spirituality is no more and no less than a living of the fundamental spirituality
that we have described, precisely in the concrete manner of Jesus and according to the
spirit of Jesus. This is the following of Jesus. . . . Jesus was not merely vere homo, truly a
human being; he was precisely homo verusthe true, authentic, genuine human being. . .
. [T]o be truly a human being is to be what Jesus is. To live with the spirit, to react
correctly to concrete reality, is to re-create, throughout history, the fundamental structure
of the life of Jesus.
Now there is another significant Christian theory of Atonement that I did not discuss at
the beginning of this paper, and that is the Moral Influence Theory. Popular in the 2nd and 3rd
centuries and still popular among more liberal theologians today, this theory claimed that God
condescended as Jesus to, as the theory is called, be a moral influence on his creation. While
liberation theology can be viewed as a form of a Moral Influence theory, it is distinct in the way
in which I will call the Archetypal Theory of Atonement, because rather than just desiring to
teach us to be better people, Jesus taught us what it means to be Christ (or the messiah). Thus, to
a certain extent, Christ is bigger than Jesus of Nazareth, in that Jesus simultaneously incarnated
the expectations of the Messiah and became the new embodiment of the Christ. In doing so the
divine archetype of salvation (which was previously Gods liberation of the Israelites from the
Egyptians) and a new archetype--Jesus Christ--is established.
That Christ is bigger than Jesus of Nazareth is important because, as the archetype of
Christ, Jesus--as the revelation of God, shows us through his incarnation and death what it means
to be divine. Salvation is two-fold: it is salvation for those who are oppressed through liberation
from their oppression; and it is salvation for those who are oppressors through liberation from
their way of life. In some way or another, we are or have been oppressors of others. By seeking
to truly follow Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, we encounter God and are transformed.
Sobrino writes: The believer who follows Jesus, who lives in history, who makes history and
suffers it, finds himself or herself confronted with truth, life, cross, and hope. All of this is placed
by the individual in reference to the mystery of God. To be a follower of Jesus, is to be, as
Ellacuria phrases it, a crucified people. Whether literally as martyrs or symbolically through
our commitment to the poor, we are seemingly nailed and crucified with Christ for the cause.
For Sobrino, by seeking the welfare of others, the mystery [of salvation] comes forth to
meet the individual, as well, giving him or her a concrete, nonstransferable name. . . . In giving
us names, God enters into a personal relationship with us. It is perhaps of no coincidence then
that King Benjamin, whose farewell speech to his people emphasized that salvation is found in
serving the poor, told his people: And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye
shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath
spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name;
therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters. . . . And it shall come
to pass that whosoever doeth this shall be found at the right hand of God, for he shall know the
name by which he is called; for he shall be called by the name of Christ (Mosiah 5:7-9).
To summarize, then, the Archetypal Theory of Atonement, sin and its effects are not
simply acts that violate Gods commands, which have the effect of tainting or harming us in
some metaphysical or super-material way that separates us from God. Instead sin and its effects
are primarily the oppressive and abusive ways in which we treat each other and cause very real
and very material suffering. As such, salvation is ultimately salvation from oppressionfor both
the oppressor and oppressed. This salvation is the salvation of Christ, and the salvation that Jesus
of Nazareth, God incarnate, embodied. In doing so, he became the archetype of Christ, showing
us what it is to be divine, what it means to love others, and what salvation consists of. It is by
being freed from oppression (as either oppressor or oppressed), that we come to understand
Christ and seek to also embody that archetype through our allegiance to those in need. And it is
by doing so that we symbolically take up the cross and actually become Christ, and in the highest
form of worship we are crucified with him, becoming as saints, the body of Christ.