As regular readers will know, I’ve recently been delving into a non-violent understanding of the atonement (non-violent, that is, from God’s perspective) and, in parallel, what might be termed Jesus’ social ethic of non-violence.
Let’s just take a moment to recap on each of these.
First, non-violent atonement. There’s no denying the violence of the cross. But the predominant understanding of Christ’s atoning death in modern Protestantism has been that the primary purpose of Christ’s death on the cross was to absorb God’s wrath against our sin. This is problematic in that it pits the Father’s wrath and its need to be quenched against Jesus’ unwavering commitment to forgiveness and mercy. An alternative and, in my view, much more potent non-violent view of the atonement posits that all of the violence of the cross was ours, mercilessly inflicted on Jesus as a willing but undeniably innocent victim of our deeply ingrained penchant for violent power and blame-based religion. Rather than pouring out his wrath, God’s role at Calvary was exactly as Jesus’ role (since Jesus was and is the express image of the Father’s person): to declare in utterly unmistakeable terms the unilateral forgiveness of our corrupted and violent ways and to expose their folly and destructive ends.
I would suggest that, under a non-violent model of the atonement, Christ’s reverberating cry “It is finished!” no longer means “The legal transaction is completed!”; rather, it means, “No more! This is where violence and hatred are exposed and undone!”
Second, Jesus’ “social ethic” of non-violence. The very fact that I felt compelled to put the term “social ethic” in quotes is indicative of how we have mostly come to conceive of much of Jesus’ teaching: all well and good as a kind of abstract, idealistic statement of how we might live if only we could be miraculously transported back to Eden, but for all intents and purposes utterly impractical in our modern, complicated world.
Or perhaps our preferred tactic for keeping Jesus’ teaching on non-violence at a comfortable distance from our own personal concerns is to relegate it to the domain of politics and international relations. Thus we equate Jesus’ injunction to turn the other cheek with a call for political pacifism, and we reason that we, as single, lone individuals, are powerless to influence politics anyway and so may as well continue the struggle for individual survival using any means at our disposal.
Faced with these two aspects of non-violence – God’s commitment to it even unto his own death and Jesus’ crystal clear teaching of it – it’s easy to see how one might shrug one’s soldiers and ask “So what?” For many people, it’s enough to know that Jesus died to forgive us our sins and to see his teaching on non-violence as an aspirational, nice-to-have ideal that is beyond the reach of most mere mortals. Why sweat the details? Life is hard enough without trying to complicate matters by theorising about the whys and wherefores of the atonement and Jesus’ ethical teachings.
However, what I want to suggest is that Jesus’ teaching on non-violence and his violent death at our hands are not two disparate, unconnected components of his life that can be safely separated off and ignored; rather, they are intimately connected. The reason this is true is staring us in the face if only we will stop and look at it: it is our violence that put Jesus on the cross, and it is our violence that will continue to find and kill sacrificial victims unless and until we die to our old ways and are raised to Jesus’ new way.
Jesus didn’t tell his followers to turn the other cheek because he wanted to found a religion of nice people (or, indeed, of doormats). He called his followers to radical non-violence because he knew that the self-perpetuating cycle of violence was the bane of humanity’s existence and that, without a dramatic reversal, it would be humanity’s utter downfall and destruction.
To those would separate personal ethics from social and political action, I would say this: it is the same rivalry, protectionism, acquisitiveness and self-promotion that lies behind personal arrogance and hubris on the one hand and warmongering at nation state level on the other. This is why Jesus said that whoever calls his brother a fool is liable to judgement: the instinct that moves us to belittle or insult our family members, friends or acquaintances, let alone our enemies, is the very same instinct that moves “kings and rulers” to seize territories, ethnically cleanse populations and plunder their own nations’ wealth for personal gain. The only difference is one of degree.
To put it more baldly still, every time we sacrifice another person’s character on the altar of our own ego driven self-advancement, we participate in the crucifixion of Christ.
Jesus also famously cautioned Peter that those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Again, it’s tempting to think that this exhortation only applies to those who would literally take up arms. But it’s clear from Jesus’ entire ministry, life and death that he intended all those who would follow him to treat this instruction with the utmost seriousness.
When we boil all of this right down, it has a major implication for us. It means that every time we are about to demean someone with sarcasm or insults, assassinate someone’s character or pass on an unverified rumour, Jesus is warning us: those who live by such means can also expect to reap spiritual death by the same means. Even our verbal aggression cannot escape the cycle of violence. Indeed, our verbal aggression, trivial though it may seem to us, is the very fuel that feeds the cycle of violence that ultimately gives birth to rape, murder, mechanised slaughter and genocide. This may not be comfortable for us to hear in our superficially sanitised society, but it seems to me that it’s the inescapable truth.
In summary, then, here’s what I’m saying: there is a direct line from our hearts, and in particular how they overflow into the way we treat those around us – both friends and enemies – to what happened at Calvary. Let’s say it in three points:
1. It is the words and deeds issuing from our unhealed hearts that crucified God.
2. To try to detach Jesus’ ethical teaching from the purpose and meaning of his death is to fundamentally misunderstand both what it is he came to free us from and how that freedom is offered to us.
3. The cross is the place where the cycle is broken and our hearts are healed.
[ Image: Richard Masoner/Cyclelicious ]
