"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world" (KJV). This is not only Paul’s declaration but that of many persons in the Anabaptist tradition. To paraphrase similar words central to Anabaptist faith from Ephesians 2:14-16: "He is our peace who has made both one new humanity, so making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both to God through the cross." Reading this amazing festchrift with its diverse chapters, I have been impressed first with the references to the person and emphases of J. Denny Weaver. This volume makes me wish to have had opportunity to know Denny as more than an acquaintance. But it is good to come to know him more fully in these pages. I thank God for his keen mind and his deliberate challenge to theologians to seek consistency with the "truth as it is in Jesus." Given the vigor of Weaver’s thought as well as the diversity with which his perspectives are engaged in this volume, it is likely inevitable that any commentator will find areas both of affirmation and creative tension. The value of this book is not in offering unassailable theology but in plunging us into vigorous engagement with important issues, whether or not we always agree. Let me offer examples. Weaver’s interpretation of theology from the perspective of nonviolence is a commitment to God’s plan of peace, a conviction I share. In scores of evangelistic missions in presenting the message of Christ, I have related the gospel and its call to nonviolence. As to the atonement, frequently addressed by Weaver and in these pages, with Weaver I have long rejected the perspective of a violent God pouring out judgment on his son. However, I have interpreted "satisfaction" more relationally. When Paul writes, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself," this says to me that God was suffering in and with Jesus in paying the price of forgiveness. He did so with the integrity that defeats all enemies forever. Much of what Denny Weaver teaches on Christ and nonviolence could, and in fact I think should, be shared on the basis of an interpretation of the incarnation—God’s expression of true humanness in the life of Jesus. Here we have the word and will of God personified, nonviolence being expressed through his life and teaching, ultimately on the cross in bearing the full intensity of human hostility. A basic division of theories of atonement is whether its meaning is objective or subjective. For St. Anselm, the atonement is primarily objective; its effect is primarily on God. Meanwhile in Abelard, the atonement is primarily subjective; its effect is primarily on us. But as H. E. W. Turner says of these approaches in The Meaning of the Cross (Mowbray, 1959), "Both are needed for any interpretation of the atonement. The objective view maintains that ‘He did it for me,’ while the subjective theories assure that ‘He died to make us good’" (7). Several chapter writers who deal with Anabaptist history and thought do not emphasize any one view of the atonement but rather the new community. From my studies under John Howard Yoder and Harold S. Bender, especially in my own theological work, I see the central focus of the Anabaptists to be, in fact, on our being new creatures in Christ. Emphasizing transforming grace, the Anabaptists then called people to a new life of discipleship shaped in love, freedom, justice, and nonviolence. There are numerous references to the subjective meanings of being crucified with Christ to be found in Anabaptist writings, often in letters from prison. In the 1527 Schleitheim confession and in the thought of early Anabaptist Michael Sattler, the emphasis is on the new life in covenant of those who are reconciled citizens of the kingdom, called into a community of faith as a presence for Christ in society. Various chapters, perhaps especially those of Huebner and Marshall, express the dynamics of grace in the salvific work of Christ as basic to the meaning of at-one-ment in the cross. I affirm Marshall’s point that as there was no violence in creation, so we should see this as significant in our interpretation of the new creation. Meanwhile Marshall’s expression of a hermeneutic relating Old Testament and New Testament as "promise to fulfillment" presents God as meeting people at their level of understanding. This suggests answers to concerns with the use of law and the presence of war in the Old Testament order. Further we need to distinguish between the descriptive and the prescriptive in biblical passages to discern what God is ordering. For those who fail to see this progress of revelation, I would point to the doctrine of resurrection, regarding which we have only limited Old Testament statements so need to turn to Christ for the fuller word. There are references in these pages to the sovereignty of God and his justice in relation to the problem of our sin. I believe sovereignty is best understood as God’s self-determination: God always acts consistently with himself. Therefore in his love God will not violate the human person but in sovereign patience respects our choices. God judges sin by exposing it in the cross for what it is even while being sovereignly present in love. As we turn to the judgment passages in the book of the Revelation, it seems we are shown that evil self-destructs, that its future is the nothingness of the "bottomless pit" in which evil moves farther and farther from God forever. This deserves to be placed in conversation with the perspective of at least one author whose treatment of nonviolent eschatology can be read as a restatement of universalism. Further, the last chapters, in section V, leave me wanting to pursue more clarity regarding how we present the "Good News" as a transforming power that can in turn call persons to the experience of salvation, discipleship, and the way of nonviolence. In viewing the cross and thinking of the atonement, with all of the mystery of its meaning so evident in these pages, we become aware that here is the center of our being reconciled to God. This reconciliation, this forgiveness in self-giving, is central to our redemption. As my friend J. Lawrence Burkholder commented to me at a conference on Christology, "Some want a Christology for ethics, but I still need a savior." Good people need a savior because merely being "good" is not enough; being good or religious does not in itself earn God’s acceptance. The basic need is for relationship with the Lord himself. In simple faith response to the gospel, we recognize that we cannot explain all of this mystery but can still find at the cross God’s amazing grace. I thank all involved with this book for inviting us to think about that cross. There is risk here of shrouding the cross in abstraction and contention. There is also the possibility of hearing God anew. Thank God for the cross! —Myron S. Augsburger |
|
||||||||||||||
