I feel like it might be helpful to get back to basics for a minute. My question is: What is salvation? In the context of our particular blog here, another way of putting it might be: What is the point?I'm going to take some cynical liberties and for the sake of argument colour some possible answers according to some of the language I've been picking up on here on this blog and also in evangelicalism as a whole. I'm not trying to pick on anyone, but I want to push and prod us a bit too.
1) Is salvation to be thought of in terms of individual life-transformation? A change of character so that one is more Christ-like not only in outward moral action but in terms of inner peace and so on?
2) Is salvation a matter of personal allegiance; an assent or surrender of the will to God?
3) Is salvation to be thought of as the invoking of a new kind of humanity? Thus to be saved is to be converted to a sort of humanitarianism modeled after Christ?
4) Is salvation about personal destiny? Eventually you will be raised to life with God in heaven or you will die into an eternity apart from God in hell; and that's the basic issue at stake?
5) Is salvation about being in love with God? Coming into a personal relationship with Christ and loving Him and loving others?
6) Is salvation about being part of communion with the Triune God in Christ together with all the saints, as sort of a first outposts of the City of God's self-giving love; the Kingdom of Heaven?
7) Other?
Now before everyone decides this is merely abstract theology and therefore irrelevant, let me take my provocative "colourings" of the issue a bit further and spell out what I see to be practical ramifications of these different views:
1) Self-help books are more important than the Church, unless of course you've been lucky enough to find a church that caters to your "felt-needs" pretty directly. Seems pretty ingrown to me. Not sure what place the Bride of Christ has in this view, other than being the collective place where hopefully our lives get enhanced, we get "fed", we get encouraged and inspired, and so on. And what does our witness to Christ become except trying to help people better themselves, ie, look what Christ did for me! I'm sure he can do the same for you! Spiritual gifts are also about personal self-fulfillment; they aren't really for others, per se.
2) What matters most here then is the act of the will, the surrender of oneself, the declaration of loyalties. The altar call is paramount. It takes over. It becomes what it is all about. Everything else is gravy; even optional. The worship service all leads up to these moments of decision. The testimony is mostly about what led us to our turning point. It is about us and our choice. What about God? What about life?
3) Why go to church? Come to think of it: Why be a Christian? What does Christ have that Oprah and Brangelina don't? (By the way I love Brad Pitt, don't get me wrong)
4) Again, why life on earth at all then? Why even create earth? Why not cut to the chase? And why does life go on and on? And why did Jesus do so many healings? Why was the idea of heaven and hell almost absent from Israel's teachings?
5) Too often this view makes it all about the isolated personal relationship, so that all that matters is our fuzzy-wuzzy moments with God, our "sacred romance", and so when we get together for corporate worship we all have our eyes closed trying to get that experience of God. And we talk about being in love with Jesus in ways that I don't see even the disciples who walked with him doing.
6) Obviously, by saving this one for last, I'm showing my own colours. I think this enfolds the truths of the others, and yet puts a perspective on things that is much more holistic and true.
Forgive my provocative cynicism here. I offer it in a spirit of (serious) fun. The above is written as a conversation starter, not as some sort of full-fledgedstatement of faith or something like that. Of course, I am trying to say some things here, but they are haphazard and sloppy to some degree, just to get us started. Feel free to add a seventh option, to "redeem" one of the ones I've offered and mutilated; or to critique or prod for more on number 6!
9 comments:
Hmm, I think this might be a pretty interesting discussion. I think 6 is a good starting point, but I also see salvation as God's work in rehabilitating us, both individually and corporately as the body of Christ, to all that it means to life fully lived...I would also love to see something of the salvation and redemption of all creation that is mentioned a few times both in the OT and NT. Unfortunately, I should be working on my class right now and not blogging, so I will check back latter and see if someone has gone that way or not.
can't disagree Chris. I'd be happy to see it go there.
Yeah, seems to me that 6 is a great place to start. That said, I can see some merit for including elements of the other five as well. 6 leaves room to fill-in the ecclesial, ethical, and, eschatological dimensions. Unfortunately, the term "participation" is so pickin' ambiguous that it often doesn't add much content. It's also got a lot of Platonic baggage that can skew the whole picture. What I think is really helpful with 6 is that it tries to blend the Synoptic "Kingdom" with the Pauline "In Christ".
Thanks for the post Chris!
From my perspective, I guess my brief answer would be yes, yes , yes, yes, yes,yes . . .but, but, but, but, but...
I think each of these conveys important truths, while focusing exclusively on any of them leads to the weaknesses you mention.
This is a huge question, and each of these points could be discussions in and of themselves, but very briefly:
1. Salvation as transformation: I agree, not as self-help books would have it, but in in terms of being re-made in the image of Christ, with hearts and minds transformed (Rom 12), and actions flowing from a renewed heart like good fruit flowing from a good tree (Luke 6:43-45; the order is key here: a diseased tree can't produce good fruit, but a good tree naturally does...even though it may still have a few bad apples, these don't make the whole tree bad).
2. Personal allegiance: This is where discipleship gets lived out and directed to its true master. Christ or Caesar? New Jerusalem or Babylon? Kingdom of God or kingdom of this world? Obama or Bush? (just kidding on that last one :) )
3. A new humanity: yes, in the sense of being included in the 2nd Adam and restoration to God's original creation purposes (or perhaps better, inclusion in God's new creation purposes). If Christ truly lived what it means to be human, then Christianity (in patterning itself after Christ) does point to a new humanity. This view also reminds us that the gospel concerns our very being, not just our "spirituality" or "beliefs" or "affiliations", but our humanity as God intended it.
4. Destiny - yes. Everyone has a destiny, and Christians articulate hope for that destiny, but as Richard Foster says: Heaven is not the goal; it is the destination. Also, glorification is just one aspect of the doctrine of salvation and we should not short-change the others.
5. Loving God - absolutely. Loving God and neighbor summarizes the law, prophets, and gospel. BUT - being "in love" with God: I think this notion distorts ((through a modern N. American lens) what Scripture means by "love". It's not that we loved Him, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice...
6. The Trinitarian framework is a good one and indeed summarizes the others...communion with God, participation in the very life of God (through union with Christ by the Spirit). Having said that, trinitarian doctrine is sometimes dependent on philosophical categories (as Dustin mentioned), which isn't a bad thing in itself but cannot replace the biblical metaphors and images.
Another way into this discussion is to see a multi-dimensional approach to the atonement, in which each atonement metaphor communicates something important (but each, if isolated from the others, can distort our view of God and salvation). These would correspond to several of your points: Christ as the victor over evil, Christ as sacrifice for sin, Christ as moral exemplar, Christ as Liberator, Christ as the Goal of and Renewal of Creation, Christ as the Way to the knowledge of God (sort of an epistemology of the cross), etc., etc.
Well, I was going to come a say essentially what Patrick just said, but as he's just said it....
I think what your question does, Jon, is push us towards the realization that, again as Patrick's suggested, the concept of "salvation" works best if it's not over-defined. Of course that can become absurd as well, and fall into the everything=nothing trap, but if we are willing to allow salvation to be all of the things that you've suggested then perhaps we can begin to conceive of what the Cross of Christ means to us.
I think that Chris mentioned on another thread that we've become rather reactionary in our theology, particularly as recovering fundamentalists. The most important point that you hit here, Jon, is that a gospel that's only about meeting felt physical needs is just as empty as a gospel that's only about meeting felt emotional, spiritual, or psychological needs. When I talk on the other threads about the Gospel being transformative, I mean that it impacts every sphere of our lives.
yup, true enough. i guess what i'm pushing us to consider though is what is the "end" of salvation? i find that evangelicalism is over-individualistic and that if we could appreciate the communion that is at the heart of the faith then the personal/individual will fall again into its proper (and important) place. perhaps i'm being reactionary, but hyper-individualism is the bane of evangelicalism today, in my opinion. and this is apparent amongst both the hard-core worship addicts and the bed-side baptists alike. just opposite manifestations of the same problem.
so i think getting these things straight is pretty important.
i suppose "transformation" in the holistic sense makes a bit more sense to me colin. i was thinking you meant personal piety/holiness. this is important, but i don't think it is the "end" of salvation.
other comments: dustin, i didn't say "participation" did I? even if i didn't, i might as well have! i suppose it is somewhat ambiguous, or can be, but how much more ambiguous is it than being "in Christ" or "adopted of the Father" or "born of the Spirit" and so on? in my view once we grasp the ramifications of the idea that the Triune GOd wishes to enfold his people in that communion then we see in what sense we are ambassadors of reconciliation and then all the personal, social, physical, and ecological aspects of the Christian life fall into their proper place. We are participating in the Triune God's self-giving love and new creation as we follow Christ.
Patrick: you made some great statements there. i don't know if i agree that Trinity gets "dependent on philosophical categories". it can. it does often. but then again, the Trinity is what we got with our 200-decade-old reflection on the Christ event ... and so in that sense it isn't philosophy (from below) at all but our proper reflection on God's self-revelation (from above). the metaphors and images of Scripture are indispensible to our knowledge of God, but at the same time they do require interpretation and reflection. We have to do some mental calisthenic to get what is meant by "Father" and "Son" as it is. The metaphors need help from other parts of the revelation, and if Trinitarian theology helps bring that all together (as properly directed by Scripture and the discourse of illumined saints) then I think it is crucial to our ongoing understanding of what-all in fact redemption entails.
anyway, back to practicalities, maybe i can steer it in this direction: what do you think of this assessment of hyper-individualism? perhaps there is a danger of over-reacting, but at a time like this, with evangelicalism the way it is, isn't that better than not reacting at all? i feel increasingly distant from most of what is going on in church worship services these days and i long for some confessions, some communion, some lamenting, and some real-life reconciliation in action. and i think an overhaul on our conception of salvation might be the only way congregations will begin to make the change (at least for the right reasons).
i realize lots of this is perhaps regional. maybe none of you face the same problems. i do feel like its an epidemic though. patrick is right that we could really use a a "multi-dimensional approach to the atonement". would people even care about that? and how would that effect our everyday lives as Christians?
i imagine i should stop rambling. by the way my word verification is "couta"
I just wanted to explain to you guys why I've been MIA- all 5 of us have bronchitis and it sucks.
I'll be back when I can breathe.
keep going though- I like reading.
No, Jon, you didn't say participation. I was making a reference to the way participation is often used in the model that Colin set out. The problem with "participation" is that it is used as a term brought in to clarify the biblical terms but it ends up being more ambiguous than the original language itself. Of course, the term is used once in the Petrine corpus. The Platonic background can also be misleading because it hearkens back to a certain ontology that most of us wouldn't want to accept, unless we are John Milbank :) (T.F. Torrance uses it too, but I think it blurs his otherwise 'scientific' use of language, especially in regard to human agency.)
There doesn’t seem to be much disagreement here so I’m wondering if any of you could elaborate on the community aspect of salvation. If salvation is about “being part of communion with the Triune God in Christ together with all the saints, as sort of a first outpost… of the Kingdom of Heaven”, what does that look like? Community can be about conforming and unquestioned loyalty. If Christianity is about more than me and my Bible and God, more than being good and more than my Decision, what do I do with my intense desire to learn and debate and question in a community that seems happy to float along on entertainment? I'd appreciate your thoughts.
Janine
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