Note: I sometimes struggle to follow the fine line between writing intimately and also with a professional air. I want to be insightful at some level, but I also know what affects me. I don’t tell stories about amazing lectures stunning articles; I speak passionately about the things that take the air out of me – the things that overwhelm me. So I apologize in advance if this is one of those moments where I stray too far in the one direction – if this sounds more like a rambling journal entry than an engaging article.

But Paul and I played music together on the first day we met.

We’ve seen each other shake from pain. There has been heartbreak, rejoicing, and fulfillment. There have been moments of cherished prayer, and too many 3AM evening conversations to count. There has been theological wrestling and raving lunatic cries over electronic football games. (Go Bills.)

When I heard the good news of tomorrow’s engagement, my chest welled up.

And I am not prone to be so exposed with my emotions. To steal a term from Al Gore, I put things in a lock box. I do well at hiding strong things deep inside of me. Even these words feel vulnerable. I second guess everything I write.

So expressing such authentic joy and feeling compelled to write about it is rare for me. I’m actually taken back by how much pleasure I take in hearing about Paul and his tomorrow-fiancée Julie. I think it’s because this is one of those exceptional times when I can point and say, “That is the way things should be.” And I feel it.

These moments are altogether too uncommon.

I’m already exceedingly familiar with humanity’s fallen condition. There is a brokenness that has become so intrinsically suffocating that on some days, it seems to permeate every breath I take. It’s overwhelming. So this is a breath of fresh air. But my delight in Paul and Julie’s relationship fills me for another reason, too.

It is because I realize how much more my God must pleasure in it – how much more the Bridegroom warms at the sight of beautiful, sincere, and dynamic relationships. It is what He longs to have with us. Relationally, we are jagged and damaged. My friend Mike remarked just the other day, “Everyone has secrets. Everyone has stuff we don’t know about them.”

It hurt to hear. I knew it was true.

So a union of two people is more than a ceremonial ritual. It’s more than bridal showers, and reception halls, and sparkling rings. It is a reflection (no matter how bright or dull) of our glorious inheritance. It is a muddled hint of the beauty yet to come. It is a taste of Heaven on earth.

And I think the comparisons are even sharper for me because I have known Paul for so long. I know the triumphs, but I also have seen the scars. So to me, I can distinguish fulfillment in his future wedding day.

In the gospel of John, Jesus has just finished washing the disciples’ feet and begins to speak of the days ahead. He tells them that one of them will betray Him. And then, immediately following, He tells Peter, “You will disown me three times!”

These men care about Jesus so much and Jesus has just thrown the reality of their human condition in their faces. Can you imagine how devastating that must have been?

But then Jesus says something beautiful. He says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled… In my Father’s house there are many rooms… I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

The Bridegroom has prepared rooms for us. He has no intentions of wasting them.

So as much as I am excited for Paul and Julie’s union in marriage, seeing them also reminds me of the fulfillment awaiting all of us – one that will make marriage feel like a high school fling. We will be refined and renewed into the people we were always meant to be.

Read this account in Revelations by John:

I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’

He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’

It nearly makes me tremble.

But it’s possible that this doesn’t mean anything to you right now. Maybe you can’t relate to my thoughts at all. It’s possible that right now, relationships bring connotations of anything but heaven.

Because sometimes we don’t speak well. Sometimes we don’t speak at all. And sometimes, the best thing we do is hurt.

But that’s why I think it is beautiful. It is because the Master of the Universe has made an unfaltering promise with me that He longs to be intimate. And He has never let me down.

So sometime tomorrow afternoon, one of my best friends will fall down on one knee. He will give a wonderful girl a ring and tell her intimate words they both already know to be true. Later this year, I will stand in a suit, watching them smile and nod.

And I will be welling up with joy.
Because it isn’t just Paul and Julie, or my best friend joining with an amazing woman. It is a reflection of immeasurable greatness – a taste of the final reparation with God.

God making us perfect.

And making us glorious.

And spending every waking moment making His love fully known.

Forever.

“I always knew you

In your mother’s arms

I have called your name

I’ve an idea

Placed in your mind

To be a better man

I’ve made a crown

For you.

Put it in your room.

And when the Bridegroom comes

There will be noise.

There will be glad.

And a perfect bed.”

-Vito’s Ordination, by Sufjan Stevens

Congratulations Paul and Julie on the engagement.

The world is mostly fair with us, my friends

And I. We pay to eat, we work for pay,

And true enough, we give our hearts away

In sidelong kisses, fragments at the ends

Of touch, a breath spilled for melodious

Adieus attenuated – and returned

Flat. Yes, my friends, we’ve been burned,

But we are envied by great Proteus

Who reinvents himself as he desires:

A tiger, a viper, a child, an echoed whisper;

Who does not bleed but has no blood to sense

The pulse of life on life. Your sordid respires

Will fall – let fall again – Our rooftop vespers

And dive bar vigils are ample recompense.

This is Man. He is debuting God’s “imago” line. While precisely fitted, his garment lends itself to Adam’s earthy tones… Baring the glitz, glam, and unnatural physiques incumbent to the fashion industry, Adam, naked in both form and purposeful existence, received all that he is from his Father, God and Sovereign Creator.

Rarely would it seem appropriate to speak of Genesis’s familiar, divine description in the language of a New York fashion-runway announcer, since most Christian scholars have attributed this divine likeness – the “image of God” – to be human spirituality rather than a visual image. Ancient Judaism considered it a designation of human dominion. Protestant reformers thought it was something compromised at Eden and revived in Christ.

“Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1.26) has elicited attention from Jewish and Christian thinkers over the millennia. But how can this divine impartation help Christians grapple with Western progressivism? What happens as God places His “likeness” on man? What is Genesis’s author seeking to express about his God? Simply, does the imago dei (“image of God”) only speak to a faithful few, or should we ask what this idea of being made in the very image of God means for all mankind? I am willing to suggest that God’s divine likeness clothes mankind, defining the sphere and practice of his authority.

Getting Dressed

The last few verses in Genesis chapter one signify that mankind will be different than earth’s other creatures. God proposes (1.26), accomplishes (vv. 27-28) and confirms (v. 29)

man’s distinctiveness. This indicates a distinct humanity and, considering the politico-religious culture of the Ancient Near East (ANE), it also helps to illuminate a distinguished humanity!

“In both Egypt and Mesopotamia ‘image of God’ can be seen as a royal title, indicating the King’s power and sovereignty.” The Egyptian sun-god Amon-Re addressed Amenophis III as “my beloved son… my image whom I have put on earth. I have given you to rule the earth in peace.”Invitation into son-ship was to name an inheritor, and naming exhibited supremacy. This inheritance covenant leaves mankind responsible to God’s directives and for any misrule. Without entering an extensive debate on the hotly contested authorship of Genesis, one must admit that if Moses wrote this text he would certainly have been able to tap his knowledge of Egyptian religion, most applicably their pantheism, when describing the supremacy and Lordship of his I AM. Scripture here is a fine example of St. Augustine’s exhortation to put even that which is outside our own religious language to a sacred use.

ANE texts show that the image-bearer has authority only at the sovereign’s behest, emphasizing the superior’s complete Lordship. Lords, or suzerains, often placed their image prominently in view, reminding a conquered region – either in the form of living vassal or sculptured stone – of their subservient position. There is no doubt as to who gave and who received. Psalm 8.6 affirms, “You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet.” One can imagine such a cosmic ceremony where God wraps humanity in His royal robe, presenting His appointed servants to all creation and reminding this kingdom by whom and for whom it exist.

Still, mans’ role does not end by adorning divine clothes. Rather, this garb defines humanity’s subsequent rule. Mankind will not occupy an ivory palace, but will remain intricately connected to its kingdom. For the man and woman are not incomplete, Platonic, shadow-replicas of transcendent reality. They actually wear the very dressing of divine sovereignty – imminently! The triune nature seeps onto earth through the engendered duplicity of both mankind, for “… male and female he created them” (Genesis 1.27, NIV) – and beast (cf. Genesis 6.19). The divine-human relationship and horizontal interdependence can be seen in this clothing image.

Some translate mankind’s commission not “and let them rule…”, but with grammatically-possible purpose – “so that they might rule…” (emphasis added). Receiving purpose from the divine likeness, the man and woman then go about filling the earth and ruling over it (1.28).

The human race has received its existence and task from God’s very image. As God is sovereign over every thing, mankind is His earthly emissary, robed in his likeness and, thus, charged to rule likewise.

Final Touch-Up

For man to be so covered by God symbolizes the very presence of divine glory. Jests relating nakedness to man’s “full glory” may beg more serious consideration because of whose glory man bears. Perhaps there is even divinely sanctioned identification in natural human appearance so that Adam proclaims “This is it!” when first glimpsing his wife (my translation, Genesis 2.23). Even their original, natural coverings seem to indicate their dependence, so that man, in his insubordinate attempt for autonomy, then finds his initial covering an unbearable reminder that He is not self-sufficient, or, as his sin realized, the slightest bit capable of autonomy (cf. Genesis 3.7; 2.18).

Nevertheless, after the man and woman sin, the Lord mercifully makes them garments (Genesis 3.21). He firmly demonstrates His commitment to mankind, not rescinding, but re-clothing them in His glorious image – not because the imago dei is corrupt, but a debilitating reminder for humanity. Therefore this new covering does not sanction sin as much as it strengthens an incapacitated humanity. God’s creation of mankind in His image gives no indication that they should see themselves, even after having sinned, outside the sphere of divine provision or heaven’s sanction. They are not unclad by the robes of divine likeness which convey both.

Wearing God’s likeness implies responsibility to God’s orders. The man and woman will subdue creation by taking “care of it” (Genesis 2.15). Consequently, sin takes on the appearance of seizing after that which God never gave, and neglecting the responsibility breathed into the core of their existence.

They had a duty. The man and woman did not fail in it as much as they moved on from it. The man and woman neglected their vassalage over creation, desiring instead that which was never given to them – original, authoring power. Rather than responsibly stewarding creation as a means for human flourishing, the man and woman succumbed to using it, or its forbidden fruit, to reject their very role as servants. Instead, they tried to enhance and extend it beyond the divinely ordained boundary. They no longer sought to subdue creation as their kingdom, but instead to extend their kingdom to their Suzerain’s heavenly gates. This is the repeated audacity of Babel (Genesis 11) and the collective fallen (Revelation 19.19-21).

Spotlights and Flashbulbs

The imago dei they wear has been defined, the style of their sin exposed, and the ensuing predicament has been brought to center stage. Mankind swiped at divine authority by reaching for more than it was originally allotted. The man and woman were entrusted with subduing the earth for their nourishment, but were conned by an inferior – a creature that “moved along the ground” (cf. Genesis 1.26) – to alleviate themselves of the ordinance God wove into their very vestments – He alone is God.

Ideological epicenters began shifting during the Enlightenment – from religion to science, Church to academy, soul to mind, revelation to rationale. These seem to flirt with mankind’s first transgression. Once again humanity seemed to be leaving its divinely appointed sphere, allowing inferiors – science, rationalism, etc. – to subdue faith, doctrine and creed. Although a worrisome prospect, these Enlightenment ideals encroach on divinely sanctioned human rule in no such way. In his City of God, St. Augustine admits that the sacred Scriptures leaves us hanging when it comes to understanding, for instance, how there was light, evening and morning, with solar markers of time, on the first three days of creation when the sun only arrives on day four (City of God, XI, vii).

So who wins? Do we hold to religion and excuse our astronomical error by claiming faith our truest stead? Or does our knowledge of the heavens help us to understand that Genesis’ creation narrative may speak to non-scientific truths? That Scripture should be supplemented, yet certainly not replaced, by other disciplines provides some assurance in approaching the Enlightenment’s seemingly shifting axioms.

However, while warming to benefits afforded through science, what lessons can we learn today from our mistaken reach toward unbridled enhancement or progress? This tendency exists as much today as it did in our original predecessor’s sin. With painful clarity, J.S. Mill pinpoints the initial sin of mankind at the core of Enlightenment ideals. He claims that “the only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way.” Even though he allows for consideration of others, he finds it more freeing for all mankind “to live as seems good to themselves than [to compel] each to live as seems good to the rest.”

The problem is a human race that believes itself disconnected from any outside author – one that does not have a defined sphere of influence or implied obligations for proper stewardship of its domain. Science, academia, intellect, and reason do not present an affront to human flourishing in and of themselves. We must respond, not when these are used, but abused. Furthermore, our plea will only be possible after exposing the mistaken illusion of autonomy. St. Augustine again lends support with his analogous realization that evil is the perversion of good, and no entity itself. Likewise, science and rationalism – and even religion – do not usurp divine authority, except as they are raised to relieve mankind of his and her divinely defined service: creation stewardship.

Stop, Pose

It is for precisely this reason that the President’s council on bioethics describes the excesses and abuses of biotechnology as bearing on both the “nature and meaning of human freedom and human flourishing” as they attempt “superhumanization.” In sin, humanity reaches for liberation it never received in order to progress contrarily to divinely defined growth. God sanctions human “fruitfulness” and “multiplication,” stewardship of the world, and supremacy over all of earth’s living beings, but He alone established this construct. God defines, man is defined. If humanity cannot define its meaning, then for mankind to redefine human freedom is to compromise human flourishing.
But what was God’s intention for human flourishing? Did man have to seize freedom, or was it offered to him from the start?

Walking the Runway

After having finished making the “earth and heavens,” “there was no man to work the ground.” Coincidentally there was no plant growth before man (cf. Genesis 2.4,5). Although God had “planted a Garden,” no discussion of His causing plant growth occurs until after he places the man in the garden (2.8,9). However, the earth did not need man to quench its thirst for life (Genesis 2.6); God created it to need mankind’s stewardship! God left cultivation to mankind (Psalm 104.14). And this dominion extended beyond humanity’s dietary sustenance. Wine gladdened the heart of man, oil made his face shine, and bread sustained his heart (Psalm 104.15). “The corn and wine have been freely dealt,” and, as Emerson continues, “one is constrained to respect the perfection of this world in which our senses converse.” God gave to mankind the responsibility of working the ground as an ultimate call to produce growth and utilize this kingdom for their every need!

Indeed there is solace within God’s order. Noticing that extreme exertion befalls mankind with ironic ease while effortless relaxation eludes him, Josef Pieper posits with Aristotle, that man cannot attain leisure as a mere man, “but only insofar as something divine dwells in him.”

Leisure remains unattainable by all man’s scurrying effort. Pieper defines it as consideration of things with a celebrant’s spirit, and as made possible “in the assumption that man is not only in harmony with himself, but… with the world and its meaning.” Freedom from the cluttered meaninglessness of life comes to man not through escape to a work-less paradise, but honest identification with the world and its defined meaning. By dressing humanity in His image, God requires that man and woman both perceive themselves in reference to the divine authority which has clothed them. Ultimate harmony with themselves realizes both their divine dresser and the kingdom before them – and into which they are robed. Mankind is inextricably linked to his divinely received appointment, and its proper implementation. It would therefore seem that humanity is most free when receiving, and not conjuring its own self-definition. Furthermore, in realizing who defines him, mankind more readily prepares to flourish and not decay.

Le Finis!

I have no unique perspective on what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil signifies, but can gather that its fruit was not permitted to mankind. That tree belonged to God, was outside man’s sphere of authority, and the trite – yet final – rationale for enjoying it was because it looked pretty (3.6). Just like our struggle with sin, our response to progressivism will require proper orientation.

It seems odd that our role involves filling, ruling and subduing – tell-tale traits of progressivism. For, as mankind cultivated the ground he learned how to do it better and better so that today we have agricultural science and are not stuck toiling with one plant for miniscule yield.

Yet people go hungry.
Likewise, in his pursuit of water, mankind learned irrigation and damning to satiate land, animal and fellow man.

Yet many thirst.

We progress, yet have failed to flourish.

The divine guise draped about our earthy shoulders requires not just use of creation, but divine use of creation. Humanity can only access the love and wisdom required to do so in their Author. The salvific lesson is that we could not and cannot remove our sin. Rather we must clothe ourselves in Christ’s sacrifice, reorienting ourselves outside of ourselves (Galatians 3.27). That we wear God’s image does not remove us from earth, but does orient us outside of earth, science, rationales, and pop culture.

We do not ask how to progress before asking in, for, and by whom? Progress remains motionless without reflective consideration of God’s authoritative statutes and our fellow man. When properly oriented, mankind’s wearing of the imago dei is a heavenly fashion statement declaring who we are through exhibiting who He is.

Now that is something for a camera to capture.

Sure, I’m in my twenties, so there’s always the lingering possibility that I’ll be lured away from the canonical text and the rest of my faith, in favor of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll”, in all of its luster and wild haircuts. But as someone who is trucking through biblical studies on his way toward pastoral ministry, it would seem that I have an appreciation for the “Good Book”.

Nope.

I have a low view of the canonical text. And if you’re wondering how long I’ve known about my sappy spiritual condition, the answer would be six months or so.

In the past half year, I’ve found myself in conversations or reading things in books and blogs, surprised as I listen to some describe a “high view of Scripture” versus a “low view of Scripture”.

Sounds like a dramatic division. So which side of that divide do I fall on?

I mean, sure, there are Christians – many of whom are in mainline Protestant communities – who have a less authoritative view of the Bible than I do. And I certainly see their approach to the Bible as a bit paradoxical; you can’t ignore the fact that Jesus, in his teachings, used the Hebrew Scriptures as a special resource. I find it difficult to view Jesus as authoritative if I view the Bible in the same literary breath as George Orwell’s 1984 or Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. That’s a disagreement with Jesus that I do not see a way around.

That approach to the Bible is a little more to the left than I’m willing to go. So I must be safe, right? I’m not calling the Bible “just another book”, or saying it’s generally full of myths and cute tales. That said, I’m probably on the right, the conservative side, of this issue. A high view over here, I might have thought.

And according to the group making this line in the sand, I thought wrong.

As I’m hearing these words about high and low views of Scripture, the people drawing the lines and making the grand statements are pretty much always those who believe the only proper esteem of Scripture is “Sola Scriptura”, or “Scripture only”.

What does such a statement mean? To quickly put it out there, the phrase means that the 66 canonical books in one collection are the only holy document, completely authoritative – the sole authority in the life of the believer. To the Sola Scripturians, this view is the only appropriate view – the sola view, if you will.

To be clear: I believe high and low views exist (remember my point about some classic liberal approaches to Scripture); I just don’t believe the line is drawn where or how those who are so eager to make such statements see it.

Regardless of the way I use and treasure the Bible, because I do not view the Bible as the only document, the only guide (or even the main guide), I am (manipulatively) grouped in with those who believe the miracles in Scripture are adorable tales that didn’t happen.

So as certain Evangelicals learn to be combative, er… conversant with an emergent/postmodern Church that loves Scripture without using the acclaim of “sola”, these terms are popping up more and more (usually as an affront to emergent folks), so it’s good that we take a look at such language (“high” and “low”) and attempt to discover its motivation and purpose.

There’s a lot to this issue that infuriates me, but this is my first (and foremost) question: is the most elevated view of something always the highest view?

And then… um… he wrestled… a lion!

A quick example on this point: my father, Laurence, is a wonderful man. He is compassionate and cheerful and loyal. He’s worked long hours to support his family for as long as I’ve been alive to see it. A bit of a baseball fan, my father is usually up for a good sports talk. When I was young, he would help me with my paper route on the snowy or rainy mornings.

I believe what I’m describing is the picture of a great man. We might all agree that those are beautiful characteristics, and they’re true to my father’s humanity.

But say I described my father differently. Say I went around telling people that he rescues Chinese orphans on a weekly basis, that he fights forest fires on his downtime, and that his six Super Bowl rings look really good next to his four Olympic golds.

More elevated: yes.

More accurate: no.

More beautiful: not at all.

If the second description is not based on who my father is, then my inflammation toward grandness is really rendered obsolete. People who approach him under the pretense of my folklore will end up confused when they meet the man (that is, if they ever recognize him while searching for a superhero). It’s not an issue of disappointment; they’ll simply be confused.

Making him bigger is not making him better or more beautiful.

Who is my father, really? Well if you were to approach him, you’d find out that he’s the father of two boys (neither of whom are Chinese orphans), and that, although he’s not combating forest fires, he is working long and hard to support his family.

And if I have any love for him at all, then I should point my efforts toward learning who he actually is, and describe him as such. I should describe the man who exists. The most respectful view of my father– the most esteem I can place on him – is the accurate one.

If I cherish him, that’s the story I’m going to tell.

The same mindset might – just might – apply to the Bible. If God’s purpose for Scripture is for it to be the narrative that guides us and reveals the character of God historically, why are we on the defensive when it comes to letting the Bible be just that – which is, in fact, saying quite a bit – without all of this “Sola Scriptura”, or, “the Bible that fights forest fires”.

My own high view

If we’re going to put things into categories of “high” and “low”- joining the Sola Scripturians in their delineations – than I’d like to extend the terms beyond the conversation of Scripture, and say that I probably have a high view of the Holy Spirit of God.

Why do I hold such a view?

Maybe it’s because I root for underdogs. The Holy Spirit is often the component of the Triune God people love to ignore or dismiss. Whether it’s in the construction of theology and teaching, conversations about the Deity, church practice, the prayer life of believers, etcetera: the Holy Spirit is being ignored, cold-shouldered, and grieved. And yet when I’ve seen the Holy Spirit given the chance to “perform”, per se, I have been astonished time in and time out, as the Spirit has worked in incredible ways and truly been a friend to the spiritual believer.

In addition to that, I see the rest of the Trinity as having a high view of the Spirit.

If I take Jesus’ teachings as authoritative (taking all of his Messianic Savior claims quite seriously) – because of my trust in the reliability and validity of the gospels’ recordings – I hear Jesus esteeming the Spirit.

I hear him telling his disciples that this world would be better off if he ascended – so that we could have the Spirit.

Not the Scriptures, the Spirit.

As a matter of fact, Jesus (as I read in Scripture, ironically) said that as his followers received the Spirit, they would do even greater things than he did. In the book of John, the Spirit is referred to as our Helper.

“Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father… I will ask the Father and He will give another Helper, that He may be with you forever… But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that I said to you.” (John 14:12, 16, 26 NASB)

Scripture, like Jesus, is pointing people toward the Spirit as the means of building a Church and a Kingdom, as the empowerment to live an endless pursuit of Jesus Christ.

If I love Scripture enough to listen and obey, I am directed to the Spirit.

The biblical role of the Bible

What sets Scripture apart? Earlier I mentioned that I place the Bible in a different category of literature than 1984 or Catch 22. I believe there is something potentially holy about Scripture, and that’s where the Spirit comes in. Christians see the Bible as being inspired, but what does that mean? Is inspiration a forced document of sorts, or is it the Spirit who worked to encourage human writers?

And even if the Bible were robotically dictated – with God speaking James Earl Jones-style to the strong right wrists of biblical writers – what good does it even do if the readers of Scripture are lacking the same robotic treatment? If God doesn’t apply the same holy martial law to the process of reading Scripture, then even the most conservative view of inspiration leaves us with a text that would of course be lost in translation.

Think about it: if it takes God’s robotic control to write Scripture, then we’re obviously dealing with humanity incapable of properly hearing it.

When’s the last time you heard a low rumble from the clouds telling you how to digest that trouble passage in First Corinthians?

Now if we see Scripture as the result of human writers being guided by the Spirit, we would fairly conclude that humans need the Spirit’s guidance to read and receive the inspired message. (See Neo-orthodox theologian Karl Barth for details.)

Not only does Scripture need the Spirit, but the Spirit doesn’t necessarily need Scripture. The Spirit can use the image of a boy with Down’s Syndrome playing in his front lawn, an elderly couple holding hands on their sidewalk parade, the look in a preacher’s eyes (let alone his or her words), a masterpiece film, or the point in the chorus of that one song when the third guitar comes in and things reach pure, infectious ecstasy… it all has Truth in it.

The Spirit doesn’t need Scripture so much as Scripture needs the Spirit. And if you need proof of that, look at cultures that haven’t had access to the Bible, or the many, many believers in this culture who can’t make sense of most of the Bible – and yet they still believe in the God who moves (in a boy with Down’s Syndrome, the preacher’s eyes, and the booming chorus of that one song).

I think we’re in for a difficult “What is Truth” conversation with some of these Sola Scriptura believers. To be quite honest, I believe they’re in for a rude awakening.

There is no Scriptural backing for the Sola Scripturians’ Scripture. It’s all a bit Sola Scridiculous.

My Bible doesn’t fight forest fires

The Bible is beautiful and wonderful. It presents the earliest and climactic parts of the narrative God is (still) writing in this world. Because of the Bible, I can read recordings of Jesus’ teachings, as well as the thoughts of disciples and key figures in the faith. I learn through Scripture (as the Spirit reveals to me) what it means to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

With the Spirit’s help, the Bible points me toward Christ.

Without the Spirit, the Bible has pointed some toward atrocities. Included in that harmful list are the promotion of slavery, the exclusion of women from ministry (or full humanity, for that matter), an eternal Elect, and the persecution (and eventually the Holocaust) of the Jews.

We’re dealing with a book that is only as good as the Spirit makes it. My prayer is that we would be protected from the Bible, from the conclusions some have drawn from the canonical text.

And I pray that we’d be protected from the idea that we’re holding the Bible that fights forest fires – the one and only authoritative word for our life.

There’s no reason for the Spirit not to use Scripture – it’s wonderful, and useful for teaching and correcting and training, among other things – and I don’t want to pit the Spirit against Scripture when the Spirit has a history of using Scripture for glorious things.

We just need to remember that God continues to speak – using all sorts of writings and sounds and images to scream Truth at a humanity He’s returning to Himself. And so long as God is still speaking, there will never be a “one and only” in His communication dialogue with humanity.

There’s a conversation happening.

Between God and His Church.

Between God and you.

And until we manage to not only close the canon but also clamp shut the mouth of God, there will never be room for any language of “sola”.

Holy Gutenburg

We need to be careful about becoming a printing press religion – bound to a document that discusses God rather than God Himself.

The invention of the printing press, which came hand in hand with the time of the Reformation, set believers free from a misuse of power that was limiting their ability to love and follow God.

The funny thing is that, here we are, five centuries later, needing to be set free from a misuse of power that is limiting our ability to love and follow God. I suppose it all comes around; the printing press has become our curse. We read the Bible any which way, and justify our opinions by saying “the Bible says”, and we’re off the hook because, after all, the Bible is a tangible, real thing – something you can get your hands on. You can’t argue with that.

Yes you can. And you should.

We need the Spirit of God – something (or someone) we certainly can’t get our hands on, or ever completely ascertain – to guide us toward Truth. We need to revere the Spirit, and trust Jesus when He called the Spirit our Helper.

I have a feeling we should be making better resource of our Helper.

It takes a little more faith (and more spirituality, to be quite honest) to trust a Helper we cannot see, but I see no way around it – not if it’s Truth we’re after.

That the former option provides a choice more reasonable and surmountable cannot be denied. Furthermore, within a multi-denominational world only a theological Einstein would want to tackle the question of truth and non-truth within the already truth-imbibed arena of contemporary Christianity. I often feel that I would be left with only one option—the lens of charismatic and traditional—if I were to choose from such a vast diversity of churches.

And yet it all just seems too easy. If I go to a music store I can browse for hours through different genres and artists, and often find that I am equally attracted to different kinds of music. In the same way, I can go to the grocery store and easily buy plenty of food, depending on what I am in the mood for at the time. I can do the same thing while looking for a church. Whether it is extremely charismatic, extremely liturgical, or an amorphous mix, I can often choose one form or the other based on my impression (and often on a very whimsical level).

But choosing a church is a far cry from choosing a great album, or a delicious steak. While I need to feel enriched and fulfilled in whatever worship ‘experience’ I choose, should I not look deeper? My worship should be true. Indeed, what if my worship was true, and yet I was still not ‘interested?’ This seems to be more the fault of my fallen nature, than that of the particular form of worship. Indeed, I should bend myself to the worship and not the worship to me.

I am sure you have heard the common phrase “I went to ______ Church and felt that there was no life or faith in the service.” While this could be true in many cases, should I always rule out the possibility that the person needed to be corrected, and not the church? The question that follows is, of course, how am I to know whether I need to bend or whether the worship does. Is there a worship ‘measuring stick’ by which I can measure my own insufficiency or must I measure worship by the faulty measuring stick of my own life? The answer is certainly not an easy one, but I believe that it starts with switching lenses.

Once I do, I realize that life becomes more complex. Immediately I see that more time, prayer, and (dare I say) education is needed when deciding where I should worship, and what church I should call home. Do not think for a moment that I am advocating for an impression-less decision, made strictly on the basis of stoic intellectualism and research, but a certain amount of objectivity can always shed new and important light on a seemingly equally balanced choice. From this point, I will begin to see a church’s past, riddled with schism and confusion; yet I must accept that past, that historical reality, if I decide to worship at that church. Through the search, I might even remember the hope of Christ, which is “for those who will believe in [him] through their message, that all of them may be one … just as [the Father is in him] and [he is in the Father]” (John 17:20-21). The prayer is clear, and yet the reality is not. Determining the lens through which I will view a church, a place of worship, however, will not only help in my day-to-day worship of God, but may even draw me closer towards shaping my view of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

A year ago I was diagnosed with a rapidly progressing kidney disease that was unique to me. Since then I’ve had the worst year of my life full of specialists, surgical procedures, needles, and pills with horrible side-affects, but the most irritating part hasn’t been my disease at all.

It’s been people.

An old friend of the family came down to visit last fall. He had obviously heard of my condition. I greeted him with smiles and a hug, "Good to see you," what you might expect.

The first thing he said to me was, "How are you doing?"

"I’m great," I responded honestly. I was having a good day.

"No you’re not," his answer barged in on the heels of mine.

What was I supposed to say to this man? Not only did he just kill the conversation, he reminded me of my disease at the same time – interjecting with assumptions of his own, mainly: 1) He fully understands the levity of my particular situation better than I do or will admit to. 2) If I’m diseased I can’t possibly be doing well in any moment.

I know these assumptions aren’t intentional. I understand that people like this man do not know what to think about someone like me. I know this because before I got sick I was the same way. What do you say to a person that you know is suffering more than you are?

There are people who seem to understand how to talk to someone like me without diving the conversation. It’s not so much avoiding the topic as it is the way the topic is approached. I am more than happy to talk with someone about how I’m feeling as long as I don’t think that they are approaching me as if I am incredibly fragile. No one likes to feel weak. Reminding someone of their weakness (and in this case a weakness that wasn’t chosen and can’t be changed) is horrible way to get them to open up. So I find myself almost rating my friends. The lowest spots are reserved for those who are constantly reminding me that I am, indeed, sick.

While being treated like glass is obnoxious, it’s not the worst thing. The worst treatment comes from fellow Christians, and often with the best of intentions. I have never believed that I would be miraculously healed. It is a setup for disappointment. A woman in my church tried to give me a book one Sunday called Faith and Healing. I kindly refused, saying that I simply wouldn’t have time to read it. That was a lie. The truth is that I simply wouldn’t read it because I already know what it would say: that true faith would cure my disease.

It’s not that I don’t believe in the miraculous, but I do believe that the very thing that makes something miraculous is that it rarely happens. For me to believe that believing hard enough will cure me puts the will of God in my hands. Furthermore if we’re to believe that blessing comes from fervency it would seem to imply that those who are blessed are so because of their faith. It’s just not true.

Many Sundays when I go to church, I’m asked if I want prayer. I usually shrug. This is my way of saying no without saying it, but I’m the only one who gets it. I always get prayed for. It’s not prayer I don’t want; it’s the type of prayer. Inevitably someone begins asking for a miraculous healing.

I think as Christians many of us think that prayer for healing is an appropriate response to sickness, and perhaps for some people it is. For me it’s the opposite because if God doesn’t heal me after I’ve put faith in him doing so, the only logical answer is that something is either wrong with me or God. For both there is a crisis of faith. In a way, I don’t have faith in healing so that I can have faith in God. Perhaps others can cope with the disappointment of asking, believing, and most likely not receiving, but I can’t. I am settled knowing that I will not be healed. I will still thrive.

The people who have blessed me most have done so on a personal level. The work of being a good friend is far more valuable than a prayer shotgunned up to heaven on my behalf. It is friendship that fellowship is all about.

At the beginning of a parade, you’ll often find someone carrying a large banner that boisterously announces the beginning of the day’s festivities. Small towns have banners that stretch over their main streets, letting drivers know when to attend the 14th Annual Apple Picking Fair, or PumpkinFest 2007. New businesses have banners over their storefronts, letting potential consumers know who they are, what they do, and when everyone’s welcome in for business.

Just the other day, I saw a teenage boy standing on a street corner, holding a banner that advertised five-dollar cheese pizzas at his place of employment. I didn’t buy a cheese pizza from him, but I certainly noticed his banner.

We’re thankful for banners. They define and explain things, tell us what we need to know. (They’re effective media in that regard, getting the word out, straight to the point.)

So here’s where I’m going with all this talk about banners: I don’t think small storefronts and apple picking fairs are the only things with banners. I think people have banners too, hovering over them, defining and explaining them.

I think there is a banner over you.

And while you have a choice as to what that banner says, I don’t believe you can escape having one. Something is over you, explaining and defining you. (Not in a deterministic sense, but as a descriptive.) And no matter how much you want to modify truth to the individual through subjective rationale, it’s still there – that banner – sitting atop your existence.

I’m curious as to what it says. How your banner reads (and what is said on mine, for that matter). If you had to guess, what does yours say? What is the banner over your life?

Homosexuality is a hot-button issue in the Church and greater society these days (now there’s a segway…). And while this article is going to unpack very little to do with homosexuality, I think the issue serves as an interesting example for this topic of banners.

In the Church, there are many people involved with practicing homosexuality who say that they do not wish for that to be the case, who wish to be free from a pattern of behavior they believe is wrong. And there are all kinds of arguments as to whether they’re predisposed to such behavior, but it doesn’t really matter to me, not here.

What I am interested in is the connection between a person struggling with homosexuality, and a person defining him or herself as “homosexual”, and how that choice influences their place in the Church.

My biggest dispute with someone in the Church practicing homosexuality is not his or her feelings of attraction to a person of the same sex. No, my biggest concern is a willingness to define him or herself as “homosexual” in a way that precedes (and often supersedes) other definitions. They have no right to do so, not if they are committed members of the Church – the Body, the Kingdom of God.

They have the right to struggle with homosexuality (and yes, I am calling it a “struggle” because I see the teaching of the Bible, Church history, and the Spirit as leading away from such a lifestyle) as much as the rest of us struggle with everything else under the sun. But there is no excuse for living under the definition of “homosexual” if the person is a Christian. That person has given away the liberty to do so.

Homosexuality is just one example. I think the same issue of titles can be seen in our culture of hyper diagnoses. Why are people so eager to become “clinically depressed”? Why are parents so eager to officially declare their child as “hyper-active”? For many people, Option A is to defeat their problem/obstacle/issue/etc. Option B is to find a definition for it, and grab hold of it – place it over themselves and call it their own.

It really is a freakish phenomenon in today’s culture, and I believe it is an issue of identity: we want to fit in, be categorized, slide into a demographic, and be called something that 40,504 people or 3 people are also called.

We just don’t want to be alone, the only one who is going through a certain battle. This is a staple characteristic of Gen Y folks (born 1976-2000), this desire for community above all else, even in hardship. In community is (hopefully) authenticity, and the best part of having 47 diseases and 413 disorders is that it ties you to some quasi-community.

There’s safety in numbers.

We really do like anything that brings us in with other people. And there’s tons of good news attached to this tendency, but first I’ll need to address the ways it’s misused.

You have the right to struggle. As a Christian, you are allowed to make mistakes and transgress – grace covers that. What you do not have the right to do is identify yourself with other things, to be a something else before you are a Christian. Whether it’s being a member of the Green Party, being addicted to pornography or gambling, being a musician or painter… it’s not a discussion of how “good” your other definition is. The covenant of salvation does not allow you to centrally define yourself as being anything besides a member of the Kingdom of God.

Salvation itself is an exchange with God that gives you a place in the Kingdom, and your job is to admit that you’re in the Kingdom, admit that He gave you belonging.

All things considered, this is not much for God to ask of you (a complete understatement, of course).

If you’ve made an agreement with Christ to belong to the Kingdom, but then let someone or something else lead you as it becomes your central identity (even if it’s only your central identity for a few moments of a day, an hour in the evening…), you are like the woman who has a husband, but runs off and treats another man as though she belongs to him. It is disgusting, repulsive adultery. If you are a married woman, but let another man touch you in the way that is supposed to be reserved for your husband, haven’t you prostituted yourself?

Attention reader: You are not allowed to prostitute yourself – not to pornography, the Green Party, homosexuality, clinical depression, or electric guitar.

This is a big, big deal.

There are some issues in this life that the Bible just briefly visits, and it’s not always entirely clear what God’s direction for us really is regarding a given issue. And then there are the big themes of the biblical narrative, those issues that are developed and revisited through the whole of the Bible. You see them playing out in the large plot as well as the smaller sub-plots. They are the things that God is obviously communicating to humanity. We know what He thinks regarding these matters.

One of these clear and consistent messages is certainly identity. Time and time again in Scripture, God is basically screaming at humanity, asking the question, “Whose are you?”

It’s the sort of thing you hear parents tell their high-school-age children quite often. “Remember who you are [while you’re out of our supervision].” When a person leaves the place where they grew up to travel to a different environment - especially one that is a rougher, more intimidating one - that person is told to “remember where you came from.”

What is the point of all that dialect? At its core, it is language of identity. And God has been hitting humanity hard over this topic for quite some time.

In God’s relationship with Israel, time and time again it comes up: the fact that Israel is God’s people, and that they were not to identify themselves as belonging to anyone or anything but God and God alone. They were to be holy. And while the Israelites of course would stumble, mess up, and transgress, their mistakes were not what brought out the wrath of God. It was when their identity was marred, when their devotion was toward things besides God, when they failed to carry the banner over their people that read “Israel, the holy people of God”.

It was in those moments that God’s face turned red.

It’s an image that can be conceived through our experiences with a family structure. As a parent, your son might be trouble – he might make all sorts of dumb choices – but he is your son. That is a non-negotiable. No one else is allowed to have your dumb-decision-making son. He is yours, and you’ll fight for him.

He might forget to wash the dishes, and he might borrow the car when he’s not supposed to, but he’s your son, dammit. And as much as you care about dishes and your car, it is absolutely nothing compared to the way you would be fuming if he tried to not be your son, or your wrath toward someone else who tried to make him their son instead.

I can feel it as I write it, and hopefully you’re feeling it as you read: the most overtaking parental rage just by the depiction of such a scene. No one – no one – is taking my son.

Punches would fly.

And here’s the good news (I promised some a while back – I hope you haven’t forgotten – and so here it is): punches have been.

This is the wrath of God! What’s His is His; His family is not going to be stolen by someone else! Christ is not going to sit and watch as His spouse is wooed into adultery! How passive, how much of a victim, do you think the Living God is? Again, this is a big, big deal. It’s written clearly in the Ten Commandments, considered one of the most foundational points in the biblical narrative.

“6I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 7you shall have no other gods before me. 8You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…” (Deuteronomy 5.6-9, NRSV)

These commandments aren’t restrictions, they are claims over your life. They are God saying that He wants you too much to share you. There is a clear connection between identity and idolatry, and the Bible makes it obvious that God is offering identity. Something is going to define you, and God wants it to be Himself.

There is a banner over your life, and God wants it to read “Member of the Kingdom of God”. Regardless of whether you’ve never had anything to do with God or are someone who is nominally Christian but doesn’t belong to Christ categorically any more than you belong to vegetarianism or sexual addiction, it is entirely true that this is God’s desire for you. The fact that you exist – that you are created humanity – attests to this.

For Generation Y, which so desperately wants to belong to something – to fit into a people group with some trace of authentic connection – this is the best news ever. You can stop searching and reaching and sort-of-kind-of grasping and failing. God invites you into community.

And it’s not just a you-and-Him party, either. God is too grand of a host for that (though personal intimacy does exist in this party); this party brings you into a Kingdom with a group of co-creating, missional folks who are connected by the fact that – first and foremost – their membership in God’s kingdom defines them. Some of them are vegetarians. Some of them cheer for the Seattle Mariners. Some of them struggle with depression and/or their sexuality. Some of them play piano. A lot of things can be said of them, but their definition – the banner over each of them – reads “Member of the Kingdom of God”.

And the only thing that their standing in the Kingdom hinges on is a willingness to admit this foremost definition. That’s the agreement, the contract for entrance. These people make mistakes and have insanely difficult trials in their lives, yet no one gets kicked out for it. (Don’t get me wrong: there are clear expectations and guidelines, but they aren’t what determine membership. And it’s interesting how much behavior contrary to God’s instruction subsides when we see this issue of identity for what it really is.) But it is when they make something other than the Kingdom central to their definition – when they vandalize the banner over themselves – that the King’s face turns red.

It’s because they are desired.

And you are desired. We have that in common.

This is ultimate acceptance and belonging. In the Kingdom of God we find the most terrific demographic, the greatest people group with whom we can align – not because the members always do things we’re proud of, but because they are working toward the most meaningful end in the history of ends.

Why let anything else define you? Why be athletic, homosexual, heterosexual, left-wing, right-handed, Hispanic, skinny, likeable, or cool? At least in terms of central definition – the banner over you – those things lead to futility, meaninglessness, and toward no truly lasting, authentic community.

So may you no longer see the sin in your life as being that banner.

May everything else about you – your struggles, your passions, your dreams, your disorders, your relationships – stand subject to your banner, the essence of you, who you truly are.

May that banner be tattered by the long and arduous haul of the people of God – from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to the members of the Church today.

And may it be stained with blood and draped over Christ’s shoulders – beaming, victorious, final.

And may you be proud to stand beneath it, and to live authentically with others whose banner makes the same bold claim:

“Member of the Kingdom of God”.

I didn’t sign up for the Christian Doctrine course expecting my faith to be deconstructed. Rather the opposite.

But there I was, considering the essay prompt on atonement and finding myself thrown out of my theological comfort zone.

The question, on first glance, didn’t seem quite as outrageous as some of the previous assignments (such as “Explain the Christian doctrine of the Trinity” – which was indeed supposed to be answered in one week). My tutor simply asked, “How should we understand the idea that Jesus Christ died for humankind?”

There’s a good Sunday School answer to that question. It’s best explained in a common metaphor:

We’ve sinned and God – easily provoked and just waiting for a chance to pour out His infamous wrath – now has the chance to condemn us to fire and brimstone. We are “sinners in the hands of an angry God”; the noose is around our throats; we’re strapped to the electric chair. We are in the courtroom and God is both plaintiff and judge.

This metaphor hinges on the definition of sin as our breaking some rules that the angry God has capriciously created. He’s also declared that the punishment for breaking these rules is death. We knew this when we sinned; we have no excuse. (Not that it would matter if we didn’t have the rulebook.) The result of this trial is not looking good.

Enter Jesus into the Sunday School theological system. It’s like a murderer is on trial and about to get the death penalty. In comes some innocent fellow who says, “Hey, now. We know that guy’s guilty and I’m innocent. So how about this: set him free and kill me instead.” God, who really only wants blood, thinks this is a great idea. So Jesus dies in our place; we’re set free; the wrath of God is appeased.

As soon as I answered my essay question with the above picture which I’d been hearing in various forms all my life, I knew something was wrong.

That was not justice. That was not mercy. That was not grace. That was not the gospel.

I certainly don’t want innocent people going into courtrooms and taking the death penalty for murderers. Why do we think that’s what Jesus did? Why do we think that serves God’s justice, if it clearly wouldn’t work for ours?

I’d been hearing “Jesus is the answer” for so long that I’d forgotten I didn’t really know what the question was. Or how Jesus answered it.

If Jesus is the answer, what is the question? (And how is it answered?)

I don’t mean to imply that soteriology is a calculus formula or a simple Q-and-A logic game. I’m not certain that the cross can be explained by anything but metaphor. The Biblical metaphors describing the Christ-event are richly varied: Jesus as sacrifice, as propitiation, as payment of debt, as ransom, as victor. It must be understood, therefore, that as I here offer some thoughts on what it means that Jesus is “savior,” this is hardly an exhaustive article. I’d like to meditate on the idea of Jesus’s action as cancelling debt and how that changes our “courtroom metaphor” – but I’m not also casting aside the other images of Jesus’s work.

Even metaphors need to be true, particularly when they are trying to explain problem and solution. When my wrathful-God-courtroom-scene-metaphor understanding of salvation was exposed as rather less than just and merciful (and hardly even Biblical), I found that I had to question the truth of the Christ-event itself. In order for me to believe that Christ saves us by the cross, I need to know why and how the cross was necessary. Contrary to popular evangelical assumptions, it’s not intuitively obvious that the death of someone else saves you.

(Not all sacrifice is saving. Sometimes it looks rather more like suicide.)

What was it about Jesus’s death that made it more than just Jesus’s death – what happened on the cross which transformed the way God relates to humanity, which tore the curtain of the temple in two, from top to bottom?

Without my “system”, I was thoroughly muddled. Then, Colossians. And Anselm. And Ayn Rand. And some clarity.

I moved from Hebrews to Paul, sifting through metaphor and furrowing my brows at terms I thought I understood. Grace. Forgiveness. Mercy. Transgression. Suddenly, truth jumped out in Colossians – a legal scene, but one rather different from the Angry God version I’d been taught.

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (Col 2:13-14, emphasis mine)

What does it mean that we are “in debt” to God? What do we owe God?

Enter my stumbling across a medieval theologian, Anselm. Anselm lived in a world rather different from ours: the concepts of honor and tribute were still very much alive in the feudal society. A knight owed homage to the feudal lord; his life was literally devoted to the lord and was consequently lived for the lord rather than for the knight himself.

Likewise, said Anselm, God is our lord and by virtue of his identity, we owe him our lives, our complete honor and tribute. Sin is trying to wrest our lives from the hands of God, trying to be gods ourselves. Sin is missing a payment of homage. The consequence of sin is death because the only way we can pay the debt is with our life.

Anselm’s understanding of sin may in fact be a bit too colored by medieval social structure. But I think he was on to something.

“Atonement,” from the phrase “at-one-ment”, is basically synonymous with “reconciliation,” a term indicating that a shattered relationship has been made whole – the disparate parties are again “at one.”  Here, then, is the first clue in understanding “the question,” the elemental problem of mankind: something relational has gone wrong and man is not at peace.

Man is estranged from God.  Christians through the centuries have taught that the reason for this estrangement is “sin,” but what is sin?  Certainly, sin is breaking God’s commands, but as Paul’s letters make clear, all have sinned, even those Gentiles who did not receive the Law.  The key to grasping the full definition of sin is partially expressed in Romans 1:21: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.”

Sinning is not honoring God as God; it is disregarding his identity and setting something else – something mortal, something less than God – up as “the ultimate principle of coherence and meaning” (Fiddes, Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement, 12).

Sin is blasphemy and idolatry. 

Nothing, however, can be done without consequences.  Breaking a human relationship often means the end of the joys of friendship; breaking a relationship with the Almighty means the end of life itself.  The wages of sin is death not because God is vindictive or spiteful, but because he is Creator and Sustainer.  It is “natural” that cutting oneself off from God through sin results in death – to sin is to turn away from Life himself.  “Death is the summation of all the dark consequences that flow from enmity with God” (Spence, “A Unified Theory of the Atonement”, 418).

Back to Anselm. We “owe” God our lives because of who he is – not because he’s some medieval feudal lord, but because he is Creator. We are contingent. Like a caring Artist and Author, God wants good things for his creation.

It’s dangerous, then, to deny this divine Artist.

Good artwork (perhaps a bit like Anselm’s good medieval knight whose status has been “created” by the lord) is glorious and noble in and of itself – it is communication and inspiration to others – but it ultimately points back to its Creator (or Lord). The life of the artwork belongs to the artist. This is particularly true when thinking of the artwork as work in progress, as clay still on the wheel or novel still being written.

We owe our lives to God because he is working on us, sculpting us, writing us – and working against him leads to our own destruction.

Another way to think of our createdness is to consider being made “in the image of God.” If nothing else, our purpose is to reflect the Creator in our selves - or to be knightly emissaries of the Lord, bringing him honor in all our actions.

In Anselm-ian terms, sin (blasphemy and idolatry) is refusing to “pay homage” and is therefore accruing a debt of honor owed to God.

This understanding of sin creates a different “legal” picture than the one described at the beginning of this article. Our relationship with God is broken, but it’s not because we’ve disobeyed number one or six of his list of rules and the law codes declare that the punishment is death. Rather, the relationship is broken because in our disobedience, we’ve accrued a debt which can only be paid by life.

A major difference between the two pictures is the conception of God. There’s first the Sunday School God whose primary purpose is to write legal codes and punish people. This God doesn’t care about his people, only about his rules. This God likes the electric chair. This God likes watching Mel Gibson movies.

Then there’s Anselm’s God. This God’s priority is maintaining a proper relationship with his people. Their sin and debt to him is not cause for him to get excited about exerting his wrath; it’s instead cause for him to show them his mercy.

We’re back to the beginning question: Why the cross?

Insight came in Atlas Shrugged, a book I was reading by Ayn Rand espousing “objectivism”, the “moral theory” which places the individual at its center. An interesting read, however much I disagreed with its conclusions.

There’s a point at which a character in the book is asked by his family to forgive them.  They’ve basically hurt him, mooched off him, and used him financially throughout the story. They’re now coming to him destitute and asking for his forgiveness – and his continued support. He replies, “…here’s what’s wrong with your idea of forgiveness: You regret that you’ve hurt me and, as your atonement for it, you ask that I offer myself to total immolation.”

Forgiveness is an utter scandal. This is Rand’s point, this is her argument for non-forgiveness.

Forgiveness means absorbing a debt within oneself. This is why the character in the book refuses to do it – he knows that it’s illogical, that he can’t afford it, that he’ll end up dying if he forgives the huge debt his family owes him (and especially if he continues to support them).

Forgiveness is violent to oneself. “A stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks.” Yes, yes indeed. The cross is a scandal. The Christian’s sign of strength and triumph is the sign of torture, failure, and defeat - of death. This is why Christians are (read: ought to be) joyful; God is far bigger than logic. 

Justice, in Anselm’s legal metaphor, demands that the debt of honor we owe God be paid by our lives. Instead, God forgives. He absorbs the debt himself – by dying.

Our sovereign, incarnate Lord – incarnate in his creation, continually misunderstood, offering himself to total immolation. And now – now the debt is paid, now we are forgiven. And now, now the Lord is vindicated: through death he has paid the debt and through resurrection he has destroyed death itself. There is nothing more to fear – not even our forgiveness of others, hard as it may seem.

The cross is necessary not because God is vengeful, but because forgiveness is scandalously violent. The cross is necessary not because God’s primary attribute is wrath, but because God is merciful.

My Sunday School faith was deconstructed, but for the good, for the sake of knowing God more truthfully. We are meant to fear God out of reverence for his holiness, not out of terror of his Edwardian wrath. If we accept his forgiveness and return to be reconciled to our Creator and Lord, we must live atoned, “at-one-ed”. We are free, we are forgiven, we are people of a scandalous and merciful God.