Author: Jonathan Blundell

I'm a husband, father of three, blogger, podcaster, author and media geek who is hoping to live a simple life and follow The Way.

Is Brian McLaren anti-Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement?

A few excerpts from the comments section of the blog:

You’d have a point about McLaren if it wasn’t for the fact that he has consistently attacks the doctrine of Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

In his book “a new kind of Christian” he likens it to cosmic child abuse. There is a recurring pattern and history with McLaren regarding Christ’s death on the cross and that patter is to re-imagine, redefine it and steer us away from what the scriptures clearly teach on it.

It bugs me when people take things out of context and don’t cite their sources.

You mean to tell me you don’t think the cross exposed “the cruelty and injustice of those in power?”
You don’t think it instilled “hope and confidence in the oppressed.”

Join in the fun and leave your own thoughts and comments in the comment section.

Three years…

I can’t believe it’s been three years already. It still seems like yesterday.

Amy we love you and miss you dearly.

Walk On – U2

And love
Is not the easy thing
The only baggage
That you can bring
Not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can’t leave behind

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it’s a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Walk on
Walk on
What you got, they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it

Walk on
Walk on
Stay safe tonight

You’re packing a suitcase for a place
None of us has been
A place that has to be believed
To be seen

You could have flown away
A singing bird
In an open cage
Who will only fly
Only fly for freedom

Walk on
Walk on
What you got
You can’t deny it
Can’t sell it or buy it

Walk on
Walk on
You stay safe tonight

And I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
You can only take so much

Walk on
Walk on

Home
Hard to know what it is
If you never had one

Home
I can’t say where it is
But I know I’m going

Home
That’s where the hurt is

And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
You can only take so much
Walk on

Leave it behind
You’ve got to leave it behind

All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break

All that you measure
All that you feel
All this you can leave behind

All that you reason
All that you care

It’s only time
And I’ll never fill up all my mind

All that you sense
All that you scheme
All you dress up
And all that you see

All you create
All that you wreck
All that you hate

Quote the whole dang thing!

Oh how I wish more people would have spent some time in a journalism class!

I’m so tired of people quoting only half of a statement because that’s all they chose to hear.

I’ve got the day off today (nice) and I woke up and read another section of “Jesus for President.” Bought it last night before going to the Dallas Museum of Art with Laurie.

I was good and ready to write a quick blog post about the what I had read before when my friend John forwards this to me from a site he forwards stuff from pretty constantly:

EXCERPT:

There is a word that describes John Dominic Crossan and that word is Heretic.

On a related note: Brian McLaren of the Emergent Church in his latest book Everything Must Change quotes favorably from Crossan’s latest book. McLaren and Crossan reinterpret the message of the gospel in such a way as to practically eliminate the doctrine of Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement (This is the Biblical teaching that tells us the Jesus was pierced for our transgressions and died as our substitute on the cross in order to propitiate God’s wrath against our sins). After quoting Crossan on pages 122 and 123, Brian McLaren concludes that rather than die for our sins, “Jesus will use his cross to expose the cruelty and injustice of those in power and instill hope and confidence in the oppressed.”

That is not the Biblical gospel!

That is a bunch of Emergent goblidy gook!

But here again the scriptures tell us plainly what the gospel is and so we ask who are you going to believe?
Mark 10:45 [Jesus said] “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Arrghh! I’ve read the book. I knew exactly when I read the email which portion of the book it came from. I had to jump up immediately. Head out to my truck and grab the book.

My response

again… taking one line out of an entire chapter.

McLaren NEVER says, “rather than die for our sins…” McLaren is making the point about Jesus’ framing story compared to that of Ceaser Augustus.

Now I’ve got to type this whole thing out to prove my point……. geeze….

The empires “good news” is a framing story of peace through domination, peace through redemptive violence, peace through centralized power and control, peace through elimination of enemies. (Sounds a lot like modern America doesn’t it*) It involves the gods legitimizing those in power so that resistance to their sacred regime becomes not only treason but also heresy. The imperial narrative that drives them to dominance often drives them to self-destruction. Jesus’ alternative framing story, as we’ve seen involves God bringing down those in power (Luke 1:52-53) so that the poor can be legitimized (Luke 4:18) and so that the religious collaboration with the empire can be exposed as hypocrisy. The empire uses crosses to punish rebels and instill fear and submission to the oppressed: Jesus will use a cross to expose the cruelty and injustice of those in power and instill hope and confidence in the oppressed.

*my note

I have to wonder – would we really have that much to talk about, blog about, write about, get angry about if we’d only quote the whole dang thing. Maybe if, rather than listening for a sound bite to put on YouTube we’d actually take a couple hours (or maybe minutes) and read the entire chapter or book, or listen to the entire message.

Example 2

I have to share this from Kevin Hendricks re: the recent hub-bub about Jeremiah Wright:

Wow. The craziness is flying over comments made by Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright. I’ve read reactions from people stronly opposed to Wright, and from people defending Wright (or at least giving some helpful context — Knightopia links to several more).

Some of what Wright says is clearly off the deep end (i.e., the government invented AIDS to wipe out people of color). But I think some of his comments are right on. Like the “God Damn America” comments:

“The government gives them the drugs [referring to the Iran-Contra Affair], builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people — God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” (Seattle Times)

The ABC News story left out the last sentence, which I think helps give some context. Wright is preaching prophetically, like the prophets of old, who spoke out against injustice. I love America and the freedoms we have, but it’s not anti-American to speak out against injustice committed by America. That’s patriotic. (I wish Obama would have made that point.)

And America has some injustice going on when there are more black men in prison than in college.

re: anti-human = anti-God

Eric shared his thoughts on Jewish view of heaven and hell…

Obviously, there are a lot of different views, but I think the basic view of the afterlife in Judaism is that heaven and hell are fluid. I’ll try to explain.

One phrase used in Hebrew to describe heaven is “Gan Eden,” which literally means “The Garden of Eden.” It’s even become slang, as in “This cake is Gan Eden.” The idea is that heaven is a return to perfection on earth, not some otherworldly place.

Another phrase is “Olam Haba,” meaning “the world to come.” As in, this is the world we have here, but there is another world that mirrors this one, but created spiritually instead of physically.

I remember in high school one of my Rabbis said heaven and hell looked exactly the same. In both, people sit around a pot of delicious stew and have spoons with long handles; they can reach the pot, but they can’t bring the spoon back to their mouths. He said that in hell, everyone simply starves, but in heaven they realize they can eat if they feed each other. Again, the idea is that heaven is created in the interaction among people.

My Rabbis often described “hell” — called gehenom — as more of a dry-cleaner than a place of eternal punishment. After life on the physical earth, all souls — except those belonging to the holiest people — need to go through a period of cleansing before they are appropriate for heaven.

Hope that helps.

(re)Quote for the day

I was looking through some old blog posts of mine this morning and came across this quote:

“Consider the possibility that a church should own no property at all”
Larson, Osborne, The Emerging Church (1970), p51

Posted March 24, 2006. Almost one month before Phil and I walked into encounter for the first time. Funny how God works things out.

animoto

Have you checked out animoto.com yet?

Very cool. They take your photos (you can upload them yourself or import them from another online service like Flickr), add music and make an impressive looking video. No more lame picture slideshows for you. You’ll have the coolest slideshow on the block.

You can build a 30-sec video for free, or pay for their premium service that gives you unlimited time.