Michael Elphick - Passion of Jesus: Theories of Atonement

8/12/2019 Michael Elphick - Passion of Jesus: Theories of Atonement

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Australian eJournal of Theology 9 (March 2007)

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The Passion of Jesus: Responding to James Alison

Michael Elphick

Abstract:James Alison rightly rejects a view of the cross premised on a populist reading

of the Atonement. His recent article An Atonement Update is an attempt to rescue

atonement when the notion should instead be jettisoned. Here, Michael Elphick agrees

with Alisons argument that the notion of sacrifice can best be understood in the socio -

cultural religious context of the Ancient Near East. However, Elphick argues that Alisons

treatment entirely ignores the political context of the event. The significance of which is

to continue to provide opportunities to privatize the Gospel story and reject its public

and political implications. This article suggests a socio-political reading of the Passion

that is far more accessible to modern Christians.

Key Words: Atonement; Mel Gibson The Passion of the Christ; crucifixion of Jesus

Christ political dimensions; problem of suffering

evisiting our theology of the crucifixion brings into play an entire set of principles

that we learnt early in our lives and which have been reinforced constantly and

continually over the years in our liturgy, our prayers and our hymns. I hope to

demonstrate some ways in which the populist view of Holy Week is inadequate and leavesus with some rather inaccurate and unhelpful images of God and of Gods involvement

with the rest of us particularly in our suffering.

A Popular View of the Cross

The popular view of what occurred at Calvary is that Jesus ransomed us back from sin;

that he paid for our sins with his blood. It is not difficult to find examples of this theology.

Gibsons film The Passion is a well executed instance. In the movies opening scene the

devil challenges Jesus with the question do you really believe one man can bear the full

burden of sin?The question and answer text that has been produced to accompany the

film further drills the point,

After the fall human desires become self seeking and disordered, Christs redemption

for us - His taking on the burden of sin restored our relationship with God.1

The study guide adopts the view that Jesus is the New Lamb, a sacrifice of atonement that

parallels and indeed replaces the Passover event of Exodus,

The Passover event of Exodus is a foreshadowing of Christs death on the cross. The

blood of Jesus, the perfect Lamb, would be sprinkled on the cross (the doorpost) for

His followers. All who accept Christ and keep His commandments will be saved by His

blood.2

1Tom Allen,A Guide to The Passion: 100 Questions about The Passion of the Christ(Westchester, PA: Ascension,2004), 14.

2Allen, Guide, 15.


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References to this viewpoint are numerous throughout the text. It is worth noting that the

study guide carries an introduction co-signed by the Archbishops of both Sydney

and Perth. What are some of the theological presuppositions behind this view? Where

does it come from? For our purposes there are several points to consider.

The first is that this theology fitted neatly into the broader religious modality of theAncient Near East. It was through sacrifice that human beings pleased and placated their

God. The Gods of the ancients were offered the first fruits of the harvest; animals were

sacrificed to appease the Gods when they were thought to be angry. Sacrifice was used to

divine the future, to seek the right path. The Apostles, including Paul, were themselves

steeped in this tradition. It was their culture, a crucial part of their cosmology. It was

central to their religious world view. It is not surprising then that this culture formed part

of how the early Christian community explained the Jesus Event. In fact it would have been

odd if they had not. Tissa Balasuriya explains the role of culture in the development of

dogma,

Many elements contribute to the evolution of a theology. The vision of the founder isinterpreted according to various factors, such as the culture of a people, the myths that

give a people its identity, philosophies, popular culture and its cultic practices, group

interests and ideologies, and other factors. It is necessary to try and understand the

origin of the content of teachings that constitute a theology and the beliefs that form

part of a religious faith. They do not necessarily derive from the founder. 3

Any attempt of the early church to devise other ways of talking about the death of Jesus

however were sidelined in the fourth century when the conversion of Constantine brought

a new influx of former pagans into the church. They brought with them their socio-cultural

perspectives on sacrifice.

My argument begins then with this question; does the notion of sacrifice as it is

presented here still speak to us with any authority? In attempting to describe what

occurred at Calvary it is no longer a helpful metaphor. Is it possible to find a better one?

The second presumption that stands behind this popular view of the crucifixion is

that of original sin. There developed over the centuries a view of original sin, and

formalised around the Council of Trent, quite different to how the Jewish people

themselves interpreted the Genesis story. To quote Balasuriya once again,

I question the hypothesis of original sin as propounded in traditional theology,

according to which human beings are born into a situation of alienation from God

because of the primary original sin of the first parents.4

This theology has several drawbacks; the most obvious being that it treats the Genesis

myth as literal and historical fact. Reinhold Niebuhr writes,

Christian theology has found it difficult to refute the rejection of the myth of the Fallwithout falling into the literalistic error of insisting upon the Fall as an historical event.5

Balasuriya explains the whole process this way,

The traditional interpretation understands original sin as alienating the whole human

race from God and requiring a divine-human redeemer to appease the anger of God the

Father. Jesus has to pay the price for the sins of humanity as expiation to the Father.

Such a theology of original sin, based on certain texts of Paul was evolved especially by

Augustine, and the need for atonement to the Father was further developed later in the

3Tissa Balasuriya, Mary and Human Liberation: The Story and the Text(Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 1997),

108.4Balasuriya, Mary and Human Liberation, 132.

5Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man(New York: C. Scribners Sons, 1964), 267.


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Middle Ages by Anselm. These are extra historical interpretations of the fundamental

human condition and of the life and death of Jesus.6

In other words the Genesis story cant carry the weight of the theology we have built

around it. Likewise, the atonement theology of Anselm arises from a feudal period and

reflects the political, economic and social order of its day

a sacred mimic of the secularorder. It has persisted even though the social order that gave it meaning has faded.

With these thoughts in mind my key difficulty with the traditional theology of the

cross is in what it suggests about Gods nature. In atonement theology God becomes some

kind of divine shylock requiring his pound of flesh, literally in the form of his own son. Is

this consistent with what else we know about God in the New Testament?

Joseph Ratzinger, before his elevation to either Cardinal or Papacy commented that

atonement theology was untenable,

To many Christians it looks as if the cross is to be understood as part of a mechanism of

injured and restored right, and as a consequence, for many Christians, faith in the cross

visualizes a God whose unrelenting righteousness demanded a human sacrifice, the

sacrifice of his own son; One turns away in horror from a righteousness whose sinisterwrath makes the message of love incredible. This picture is as false as it is widespread.7

To elaborate on Ratzingers point is it likely that the God Jesus calls abba would setup

and require such an economy of redemption? This position should be rejected because it

supports an image of God fundamentally opposed to what else we know about God as

loving father. Even in human terms how would we regard someone who had a hand in the

brutal death of another human being? What would be his legal and moral status? Some

argue that Gods ways are not our waysbut consider that God must be at least as good as

the best of us.

Our rejection of atonement theology clears the way for us to say this - God is not

complicit in the death of Jesus. The Crucifixion was not part of God s plan. It was not

willed, organised or ordained by God. This is not to say, of course, that God is uninvolved

in the death of his son but that his involvement is radically different to that which

atonement theology suggests.

Why is this important - simply because if we fail to release God from responsibility

for the death of Jesus then God remains responsible for the suffering that afflicts the rest of

us too. To get God off the hook for the one is to free God from the other. By doing this we

can shift Gods whereabouts. We can move God from being the author of our suffering to

someplace else, perhaps somewhere ultimately more helpful.

This movement is essential not only for our own personal encounter with God but in

our communal appreciation of the social forces that might oppress us. Balasuriya argues

that the populist position fails to provide a solid platform for social engagement andaction, something which was central to Jesusministry.

From this perspective, the gospel story of the death of Jesus is neglected in its

contextual, socio-economic, religious and political implications.8

The need to recover these implications drives our search for an alternative view.

The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Social and Political Perspective

The first step in creating an alternative theology of the crucifixion is to see the event not as

part of Gods plan but as a consequence of the Incarnation. When God became a human

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Balasuriya, Mary and Human Liberation, 169.7Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity(London: Burns & Oates, 1969), 213-215.

8Balasuriya, Mary and Human Liberation, 170.


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being God became subject to the full consequences of being human; so much so that the

outcome of Jesus life would be subject to the same vagaries of living that each of us is

subject too. Jesus would fall victim to all those things that befall us, from happenstance to

the active malice of others. The outcome of Jesus life would, like ours, be influenced by

both his own free will and the free will of others. The Passion of Jesus would be a resultnot of a plan designed and intended by God but a result of how Jesus chose to live out his

own humanity. This is not to say that God was uninvolved and disinterested in the event,

far from it. It is to say that the crucifixion was a result of Jesus living like he did, a

challenging, confronting, revolutionary life style. Jesus led a life that offended and

threatened those in power until they moved violently against him. Before it is anything

else, the death of Jesus is a political killing. The Sri Lankan Jesuit Aloysius Pieris writes,

We express the mystery of redemption with our eyes on Calvary where, in a historically

recorded set of political circumstances, Jesus revealed himself as the Christ, the

Messiah, the liberator in the context of a social conflict, a public confrontation between

the world he dreamt of and the one we had constructed.9

Jesus was crucified not in fulfilment of a plan to buy us back from sin but because Jesus

preached a Gospel, a good news that was politically offensive to those who held power

in Palestine. Jesusinsight into what God required of his covenant people critically

confronted those who had made other deals and other arrangements. Balasuriya is of this

view when he writes,

(Jesus) opted for the liberation of the oppressed, as he announced in his mission

statement in Luke 4:18. He therefore took up a stance against the oppressors of the

poor and the weak; his whole life and message contested the falsehood of the dominant

religious and social order of his day.10

Common Objections to a Political Interpretation of the Cross

Whenever I present this material in a classroom, be it at university, high school or in an

adult education setting there are always a set of standard objections to the notion. Below

are the most predictable objections and some responses to them.

1. What about all the references Jesus made to his own death? Doesn t that suggest

there was a grand purpose, a plan unfolding that Jesus was aware of and participated in?

For the three years of his ministry Jesus had created a following and steadily

confronted the power elite of Palestine - both Roman and religious. Undoubtedly he had

the political nous and intelligence to read the signs of the times. He was aware of the

impact his ministry was having on the local elites. It would be foolish to think Jesus so

nave that he did not see his arrest or some other action coming. The Gospel record itself

seems to acknowledge his suspicion that Judas had betrayed him and he knew too that

Peter would not stand firm under pressure. Jesus does not need divine insight to know

these things; he would appreciate all this simply by virtue of his native wit. There are

many examples of political leaders both state and civil, who like Jesus, knew when events

had taken a turn for the worst. In the weeks leading up to his assassination Archbishop

Oscar Romero spoke often about the likelihood of his own death and what this would

mean for the Church in El Salvador. Martin Luther King fell to his knees on his kitchen

floor and had his own very painful Gethsemane moment. For those who confront

injustice the end is too often painfully predictable.

9Aloysius Pieris, The Christhood of Jesus: An Asian Perspective,39:3.

10Balasuriya, Mary and Human Liberation, 172.


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2. What about the prayer Jesus makes in Gethsemane? Doesnt he pray that Gods

will be done? This seems to imply that both God and Jesus were working to a plan?

What choices did Jesus have at this point? Clearly he had one of two paths open to

him. He could either run or stay. But what would escape have meant in political terms?

Jesus would have understood it as a betrayal; his own betrayal of everything his life andministry had been about to this point. To run away would weaken the power of his

preaching and discredit his ministry. So Jesus makes the choice to stay, knowing full well

that this choice would probably lead to arrest, some kind of show trial and possibly

crucifixion. This was the standard path walked by dissidents.

So how do we place notions such as Gods plan andGods will into this kind of

scenario? First, by asking this question; how would you describe the content of Jesus life?

What had it been about? What was it that Jesus never tired of talking about, that seemed to

obsess him? What theme did he keep returning to? To sum his life and ministry up in one

phrase would be to say that Jesus lived to bear witness to the Reign of God. All his

preaching, his miracles and his parables were elaborations on this theme. His passion and

death could be no different. When Jesus speaks in Gethsemane about Gods will it is this he

is referring to. God wills the Kingdom. God does not will the death of Jesus; but like Jesus,

God will accept death as the price and consequence of remaining faithful to the Kingdom.

One of the advantages this perspective has over its popular rival is that it fundamentally

reconnects the death of Jesus with his life and ministry, a connection that is unnecessary

in atonement theology Jesus death can logically and effectively stand alone.

3. From this perspective whats so special about the death of Jesus? Isnt it now just

an ordinary event?

In many ways the death of Jesus was just another political killing. The type of death

Jesus endured was commonplace and nothing worse than what many people in our own

lifetime have been forced to suffer at the hands of brutal men. This is another flaw of theGibson version which relies in part on establishing the extreme nature of the death

suffered by Jesus. Tragically, for his time and circumstance Jesus died an all too common

death.

At this point the Jesus event could be reduced to the story of just another good man

who staked his life and lost. But the Jesus narrative is not just the story of Good Friday

afternoon. What we refer to as the Jesus Event is in fact the story of Sunday morning as

well. It is the resurrection that completes the tale.

What can we say about the resurrection that is relevant to our purposes? First of all

once we argue that the death of Jesus was the result of his faithfulness to the Reign of God,

the resurrection becomes Gods faithful response in reply. This is what elevates the Jesus

event beyond just another story of a good man going down in a good cause. We participate

in the same resurrection if we, like Jesus, stay faithful to the Reign of God. The resurrection

becomes Gods singular act of faithfulness.

The Cross of Jesus and Our Suffering

This view of the crucifixion also allows us to re-work the traditional question which is so

often our first response to human suffering. We can now turn how did God allow this to

happen? intoin what sense is our pain Gods pain? the question asked by feminist

liberation theologian Dorothy Solle in her treatment on the book of Job.

Part of the answer I suspect is that suffering is so much a part of human experience

that even Gods son found it unavoidable and inescapable. Jesus, like us, was unable tofend off significant suffering from his life. Considering that we hold Jesus not just to be a


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human being but also the son of God we can come to a second critical conclusion in the

despair of Jesus on the cross we witness God s solidarity with human kind. Gods one

with us. This is a notion effectively blunted if we hold to a theology that argues that Gods

plan required the death of Jesus.

Catholic theology has always made the claim that the crucifixion of Jesus is anongoing reality. That is to say Jesus continues to be crucified today in the suffering of

human beings. A point Oscar Romero was fond of making when addressing the poor and

marginalised of Latin America. There is no shortage of scriptural evidence for this

assertion. In Matthews parable of the Last Judgement Jesus identifies the suffering of the

poor with his own self. I was hungry;Iwas thirsty; Iwas a stranger, naked and you

clothed me, sick and you visited me.

After his death and resurrection Acts records a similar close identification between

the contemporary sufferings of the oppressed with that of Jesus. The moment is the

conversion of Saul. Saul has been struck down, blinded and is confronted by the voice of

Jesus: Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me? Who are you Lord? He asked, I am Jesus and

you are persecuting me

(Acts 9:5). The Jerusalem Bible text remarks that whatever is done

to the disciples for the sake of the name of Jesus is done to Jesus himself. To balance this of

course is one further consequence of the resurrection; the anti-kingdom forces

responsible for such oppression will not have the final word. Human beings will not be

kept permanent victims of all those forces that in this life threaten to destroy God s Reign.

Pastoral Implications of a Changed Perspective

From this perspective God is no longer responsible for human suffering; instead God

stands alongside us in solidarity. God is not complicit in the death of Jesus nor is he guilty

of arranging any of the events that befall us. In pastoral terms the theology has more than

just a personal application. It also impacts on how individuals and communities relate to

their political, social and economic environments. The most liberative event in the life of

the poor is to come to the realization that God does not will their poverty. In fact the

opposite is true. God finds their poverty offensive. This is why a theology of Liberation is

both powerful and dangerous; why it draws such opposition from both third and first

world elites - within the church and outside it. Without this theological shift in Gods

whereabouts a true and informed conversation about social justice from a Christian

perspective is more difficult than it needs to be.

Author:Michael Elphick holds a Masters in Education from ACU National and is studying for

an M.A in Theological Studies with the Sydney College of Divinity. He is an Education Officerwith the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education. He is a sessional lecturer

in the school of education at Notre Dame University in Fremantle and in Sydney. Michael also

teaches in the overseas programme of Arcadia University, Philadelphia, U.S.A. His

professional interests include human rights education, organizational design and

development, as well as political and liberation theology.

Email:[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]

Michael Elphick - Passion of Jesus: Theories of Atonement

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