New Highs in Difficult Christian Scholarship

Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders, editors, Locating Atonement: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics

Atonement holds an ambiguous position within Christian systematic theology. For Temple-era Jews, atonement bought expiation for particular sins, through participation in Levitical ritual. But Christians believe true atonement forgives all sins, including Original Sin, through Christ’s death on the cross. Ordinary Christians in Sunday pews may find that explanation satisfying. But what, realistically, does that mean? High-minded working theologians have sought a self-contained definition of atonement for two millennia, coming no closer to finding it.

This book reproduces the proceedings of the third annual Los Angeles Theological Conference, January 2015. Twelve scholarly monographs by fourteen authors explore different avenues of what “atonement” means at the transcendent level. These seminarians present copious evidence, marshaled from both Scripture and prior theologians, describing some theory of how Christ’s death and resurrection change us. And though I’ve sometimes written that “this book isn’t for everybody,” this book sets a bold standard in intellectual exclusivity.

Reviewing the twelve individual papers seems daunting, particularly since I, a purely amateur theologian, don’t really understand several. This from a guy who reads Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Alvin Plantinga before bed. But many of these scholarly discursions address prior writers, or rely on terminology non-specialists won’t recognize (“dyothelitism”?). Be prepared, in reading this collection, to fetch your smartphone for cross-references. I can only recommend this book to ambitious, intellectually minded Christian audiences who read cautiously

We can, without parsing each article, deduce some broad generalizations. For instance, these scholars pretty uniformly reject “penal substitutionary atonement,” the belief that Christ, in dying, took humanity’s sin upon himself. Christ died for our sins, as your evangelical cousin hollers, but Christ didn’t die in our sins. However, after reading this book, I cannot make more specific statements: we have twelve reasons why penal substitutionary atonement doesn’t work, and twelve theories postulating what does.

I encounter some problem when, upon finding something enlightening or problematic within certain articles, cross-check the authors’ credentials. This book collects a mostly male, entirely Protestant, preponderantly Calvinist roster of seminary scholars and classroom intellectuals. Of the fourteen authors, only three have MDiv degrees, that is, pulpit minister credentials. All currently work as professors or lecturers, a tendency that comes across in their dense prose. This reads like professional scholars writing for other professional scholars.

Therefore, this book lends itself primarily to people who find themselves in teaching positions: scholars, ministers, Sunday School teachers. Because people who professionally serve to guide others’ development need to understand beyond the merely ordinary level, this level of deeper understanding gives them tools to address difficult topics from multiple angles. Anyone who has taught children and other newbies has encountered the dreaded question: “But why?” Having multiple answers helps address and diffuse others’ incomprehension.

Not that purely curious readers, like myself, shouldn’t read this book.I shouldn’t say I “enjoyed” it, because it isn’t fun-time reading; it requires reserving hours for dedicated reading and, where necessary, research. But having done so, I do feel more capacious in my understanding, better equipped to discuss difficult topics. And with this book’s thoroughly footnoted (yes, footnoted, a rarity anymore) sources, I also feel I have more options for more inclusive future study.

I feel obliged to note, before anybody can derail the discussion, that knowledge isn’t necessarily faith. Somebody reading this book without prior faith will find its principles confusing and frustrating, especially as it speculates on Platonic ideals rather than concrete precepts that researchers could investigate in the lab. Theologically open readers may finish this book better informed, but not saved. Remember, Christ himself got most frustrated with the chief priests and scholars of his day.

Despite getting flummoxed by the authors’ respective erudition, I find plenty within these monographs that challenges my thinking. Though I feel no closer to achieving real answers, my Socratic wrestling with deep theological matters can perhaps proceed with more informed, refined tools. I now have names for principles that seemed merely airy-fairy before, helping me compress higher theological concepts into mentally comprehensible concepts. Of course, intellectual comprehension doesn’t hasten salvation. But it helps prevent errors.

As someone who’s complained volubly at times about Christian writing’s tendency toward soft thinking and anti-intellectualism, books like this energize my trust in fellow-travelers. It reminds me that the Christian scholarly tradition, often neglected today behind feeling-oriented bromides and low-impact sermonizing, retains its foundations behind the glittering television facade. Though knowing the answers to hard questions won’t save my soul, caring enough to investigate certainly contributes to a heart open to the Spirit’s sanctifying action.

The Politics of "No Politics"

Andy Griffith as Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “politics” as “Public life and affairs involving matters of authority and government.” This may shock many who, like me, have long associated politics with strict partisan behavior, and the divisive consequences of party membership. But if we take Oxford’s definition, politics is much more inclusive than we’d ordinarily believe, and much more inescapable. We’re all under somebody’s authority; therefore, we’re all subject to politics.

This fact struck me this week, when a Los Angeles-based TV producer Paul Papanek shared a Facebook edit of quotes taken from Elia Kazan’s controversial 1957 classic A Face in the Crowd. The movie, about a poor Southern swindler launched to fame by television, attracts opinions as divided today as sixty years ago, when then-unknown star Andy Griffith openly disparaged and humiliated his audience. It also perfectly predicts this year’s presidential contest.

Papanek precedes this clip with the disclaimer: “I try to stay as far away from politics on Facebook as possible.” It seems we have two basic attitudes about politics this year. Either people, like me, unabashedly take sides and attempt to peddle their beliefs in the way they believe morally and intellectually right; or like Papanek, they declare their apolitical tendencies… right before launching into politics without naming names.

I understand the desire to avoid taking sides politically. Standard public etiquette has long insisted that polite people should always avoid talking politics and religion in civilized company, lest somebody take such umbrage at having their position maligned that all conventional civility gets abandoned. There’s little more appalling than watching a respected friend or colleague flipping their shit because they feel obliged to defend God or Party against heathens and blasphemers.

Yet even the etiquette professionals don’t buy that argument, not really. Judith Martin, the columnist known as Miss Manners, first became notorious in fan communities when, in her former capacity as Washington Post media critic, she wrote several columns on the theme that Star Wars is garbage. This began with her observation, about the first movie, that George Lucas had crafted a science fiction universe completely void of non-white people.

If that ain’t political, tell me what is.

So if even etiquette professionals don’t mind stirring the pot occasionally, why do we accept that having political opinions in public is something awful? A writer friend I know desperately tries to avoid crafting anything “political,” an effort to avoid ginning strong negative feelings in readers. I appreciate and understand her motivations. This being the Internet, I’ve received personal insults, though not yet threats, for daring to have, and express, an opinion on controversial topics.

We can probably agree that political partisanship, that is, strong and outspoken allegiance to an organized party and its candidates, leads to some pretty ugly behavior. In response to Donald Trump’s newly uncovered comments praising outright sexual assault, I myself have engaged in name-calling (though I don’t believe I was wrong). Having strong, party-friendly political opinions can often bring out the worst in people. We’ve all seen it.

However. When confronted with a situation where choosing between Column A, the bigot, and Column B, the prevaricator, we cannot really retreat into Column C, neither. (Yeah, I know Gary Johnson and Jill Stein exist. Let’s keep the conversation streamlined.) If we accept Oxford’s definition, that “politics” is the relationship between people and power, then there is no option of having no political affiliation. The only question is, what affiliation we’ll have.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both want to change the American social landscape. Clinton wants to use government authority to defend the powerless in society, while Trump believes giving society’s best tools to the already powerful will lift everyone else up, too. We may publicly avoid endorsing either candidate, lest we start fights, but that isn’t the same as avoiding politics. Because “no change” endorses the present, which is also political.

Industrialized agriculture, carbon-burning technology, the spewing of invisible toxins into America’s air, soil, and water—“no change” means letting these conditions continue. And since these trends are peddled, not by ordinary farmers, drivers, and workers, but by monied interests who profit from the status quo, the people-to-power dynamic persists, regardless of partisan allegiance. “No change” is the party of right now. Which is political.

So yeah, you can avoid choosing the elephants or the jackasses. But that doesn’t make you righteous. That just gives your vote to “Lonesome” Rhodes, the Andy Griffith character above, the guy who profits from you not thinking about things. If that lets you keep the peace at dinner parties, God bless you. But don’t think you’re escaping the political trap by giving your vote to that guy.

In Praise of Staring At Screens

An observation: when I'm bored, I spend a lot of time staring at my phone, tablet, or other networked technology.

A related observation: when I have something meaningful to do, I ignore my technology.

I thought about this recently when someone close to me trotted out the old canard about how screen-staring drives wedges into polite society. Classic images of hundreds of people gazing, oracle-like, into their tiny networked do-funnies have become the iconic image of our age. I've read professional talking heads complain (mostly online, ironically enough) that such behavior propels isolation, social anxiety, job dissatisfaction, divorce, and worse.

Such claims have long bothered me, for multiple reasons. First, they mix correlation with causation. People on tech are dissatisfied, but are they dissatisfied because of their tech? Or are they on their tech because they're dissatisfied? Which introduces my main point: that I know which of those, for me, drives the other.

At work, when I get foisted onto menial, second-tier jobs, like sweeping floors, I have a hard time not checking social media on my phone every fifteen minutes. Jobs like sweeping, where even visible progress is transient, and I know I'll have to re-sweep the same floor tomorrow, leave me restless, with little to do with my brain, and a nagging desire for contact. Tasks where I have a measure of autonomy and benchmarks for accomplishment, like carpentry, don't make me want to check my phone.

And it isn't just at work. In my private life, if I spend Saturday among friends who lift me up, talking about shared interests, I feel no desire to check my phone. I discovered this when I spent one day this summer with a friend, and realized I hadn't even thought about my phone for six hours. Self-paced days spent writing, working with my hands, or even watching clouds at the park, leave my brain too peaceful to worry about my tech.

Saturdays spent trapped doing nothing, or something that bores me, have the opposite effect. Tedious activities, like scrubbing the toilet, or unpleasant activities, like going into Wal-Mart, have me reaching for my phone before I even intend to. When my family visits, time spent talking invigorates me. But they inevitably, at least once during each visit, want to hit the craft shop. I see everything I want there inside ten minutes, and spend the rest of the time thumbing listlessly at my phone.

The human brain, when presented with no reward, searches for future reward. We instinctively know this if we think about it: the hope of future reward is what makes gambling casinos such a profitable industry. It also fuels certain religious organizations, the ones that promise Heaven, eventually, to believers who don't make waves on Earth. Future rewards can be more powerful motivation than the present before our eyes.

Social media promise that, if we wait long enough, someone we like will say something meaningful. But ten years ago, we had to boot up our computers, at home or work, to access that promise. Now, thanks to mobile technology, that promise travels with us. We now, at all times, experience the nagging fear that someone, somewhere, is saying something interesting... without us.

Sometimes, we have motivation enough to ignore that nagging. Sometimes we don't. Which times are which probably has detectable patterns. Recall the images of phone-staring you've seen recently. If they resemble the ones I've seen, they've been taken on buses, in waiting rooms, and other places people sit silently in groups. Places that thwart the human desire for community.

I suggest people spend hours daily browsing their technology, not because they're morally weak, but because they're bored, and possibly lonely. Even today's "social" activities, noisy events in crowded spaces, leave eager, curious minds bereft. People want human contact, a positive reward, and they'll chase it, whether directly or online.

I realize I'm generalizing outward from my personal experience. I believe my experience is typical, but I have no proof of this. Perhaps I'm an outlier, and don't even realize it. But I truly think, if we consider our experiences, we've all felt the feeling I'm describing, at least occasionally.

If we think people spend too much time staring at their tech, scolding them won't do much good. We already know it hasn't yet, and probably won't start now. Instead, to keep people from getting lost in future expectations, it might help to ask: why do so many people see the present as something to escape?

Irish Blood on Irish Hands

1001 Movies To Watch Before Your Netflix Subscription Dies, Part 13
Neil Jordan (writer/director), Michael Collins

“War is murder,” Michael Collins (Liam Neeson) barks in the movie titled after him. “Sheer bloody murder! Had you been here the past year, you’d know that.” Collins directs this at Eamon de Valera (Alan Rickman), leader of the 1919 Irish Rising, and eventual founding President of the Irish Republic. This represents the tension throughout this film, between the diplomat and public face of the Irish War of Independence, and the soldier who commanded that war.

Diametrically the opposite of films like Gandhi and Selma, which selectively celebrate peaceful rebels against unjust governments, Michael Collins unabashedly praises a man willing to kill people, burn buildings, and smash items, to achieve his people’s independence. Though auteur director Neil Jordan makes Collins a hero, he doesn’t prettify him, or his struggles. Wars are won, this movie makes plain, by people who have no place in the peace. In fighting, Michael Collins loses everything.

The story unfolds against the background of British occupation in Ireland. The Irish people mainly speak English, and London-style rowhouses pack close against Dublin’s sooty streets. Like Rome and other empires before, Britain has brought Ireland stability, but at the cost of crushing the occupied people’s identity, usually through violence. Ireland remains peaceful if the Irish stop being Irish. But one peep of demand for equality, justice, or freedom, and leaders meet flying British lead.

Born working-class and hungry in West Cork, Michael Collins rose through Sinn Fein ranks by a combination of strategic insight and public eloquence. But when the Easter Rising of 1916 ends in disaster, and a massive, violent purge of Sinn Fein leadership, Collins survives through sheer luck: the British don’t realize who he is. They turn him loose on Dublin’s foggy streets to resume agitating for independence. He doesn’t take long to develop a following.

With de Valera, Sinn Fein’s intellectual head, imprisoned in Dartmoor, Collins inaugurates a second violent uprising. Where “Dev” prefers direct military confrontations, which untrained, undersupplied Irish cannot possibly win, Collins issues a public warning that collaborators will henceforth be shot on sight. “There’s just one problem,” Collins’ aide Harry Boland (Aidan Quinn) says. “We’ll have to do it.” And so, in public daylit streets, they do. (This movie’s unsentimental depictions of violence may disturb some viewers.)

Alan Rickman (left) and Liam Neeson in Michael Collins

De Valera finds Collins’ tactics appalling. Even when they work to Dev’s favor, boosting him from prison and helping him re-establish his underground government, Dev attempts to constrain Collins. Dev wants the world to recognize Ireland’s legitimate independence, and fears Collins’ assassination campaign makes the Irish look depraved and psychopathic. New York-born Dev spends a year in America, wheedling uselessly for Woodrow Wilson’s recognition. Collins spends that year killing quislings. Only one man makes any progress.

Throughout, Collins attempts to retain a normal Irish existence. He tries playing football with the boys, singing at craics, and maintaining a relationship with his love, Kitty Kiernan, played by Julia Roberts. (Roberts, a blatant nod to American markets, has the worst fake Irish accent since that prancing ninny from the Lucky Charms commercials.) But the longer the story continues, the clearer it becomes he can’t be normal. Wartime makes him choose: life, or nation?

We already know Collins wins. But Dev’s last gambit pays huge dividends: rather than negotiating the peace treaty himself, Dev sends Michael Collins, nobody’s idea of a diplomat. This produces a treaty that grants Ireland incomplete independence, partitions the North, and gives Churchill control over Ireland’s military affairs. Overnight, Collins descends from national hero to villain, and civil war erupts. Collins, who spent years fighting for Irish independence, is forced to fight against Irish partisans.

This movie has garnered criticism for historical inaccuracies, particularly lionizing Collins at de Valera’s expense. Some important events are combined despite happening years and miles apart. Soldiers’ fates are presented in ways that didn’t necessarily happen, but make a better screen picture. Even Neil Jordan has admitted fictionalizing the story for better comprehensibility, especially for international markets. For historical purists, I recommend Tim Pat Coogan’s engaging, but huge, Michael Collins: the Man Who Made Ireland.

Americans like to worship heroes who supposedly achieve political ends through non-violent means. We make saints of Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi, despite our own seven-year Revolution. This movie clarifies that, in global affairs, sometimes victory really matters more than the means. But this doesn’t make Michael Collins an unmixed hero. He gained his people a nation, but lost everything for himself. Neil Jordan stresses that war isn’t glorious, it’s just the price we pay.

Imagine a Workplace Built on Trust

Jonathan Raymond, Good Authority: How To Become the Leader Your Team is Waiting For

The common expression “work-life balance” assumes we compartmentalize whatever we do for pay from whatever gives our lives meaning. Jonathan Raymond, former attorney, tech CEO, and spiritual seeker, believes that’s a false division. Good leaders, in Raymond’s field-tested opinion, don’t manage human resources; they uplift people, a process that emboldens employees’ private lives as it improves their work output. But how, in a business climate of swinging machismo, can real leaders distinguish themselves from managers?

I applaud Raymond for avoiding chintzy buzzwords and trademarked Paths To Success. His approach involves self-scrutiny, human understanding, and professional mutuality. Though he uses occasional handy acronyms, and pinches liberally from simplified Jungian psychology, Raymond fundamentally calls managers to know themselves, and their subordinates, a slow, sloppy process that yields abundant rewards. Admittedly, this book is a billboard for Raymond’s management consultancy. But it exceeds other such books I’ve read by being grounded in facts.

For Raymond, leadership involves neither issuing orders and cracking the whip, nor heroically fixing others’ problems. Heroes, he writes, ensure their own job security by keeping subordinates dependent on frequent rescue. Instead, he encourages leaders to be “Less Superman, More Yoda”—that is, to give employees latitude enough to develop into the fully fledged individuals we already know they are. Leaders should avoid “company culture,” a buzzword that apparently offends Raymond, instead mentoring capable workers.

In pursuit of this goal, Raymond cites certain portable tools like the OWNER chart and the Accountability Dial. Accountability looms large in Raymond’s thinking, though he reserves it for fairly late in the book, since “accountability” often devolves into punishments and rewards. Instead, he systematically encourages workers to own their job performance, while demanding managers exercise good (rather than “borrowed”) authority over their charges. His system is portable enough to implement without necessarily hiring consultants.

As Raymond writes early, “the health of a [company’s] culture is equal to the collective ability of the people who work there to feel the impacts of their actions on others.” This requires employees to engage one another as fully human. Not necessarily equal: employees will resist improving their performance if they don’t anticipate consequences for their actions, and your buddy can’t sack you. Instead, when managers and employees consider their relationship mutual, outputs improve.

Jonathan Raymond

This creates certain tensions. Leaders guide and mentor their subordinates, do so without necessarily prying into workers’ personal lives. (Raymond uses the term “therapist” early, but ambiguously, and doesn’t harp on the concept.) This means meeting workers where they are, rather than bullying or chivvying them into an inferior relationship. This doesn’t mean exempting workers from fallout for their more egregious mistakes; Raymond makes clear that healthy culture requires setting firm boundaries and terminal limits.

Perhaps most important, in Raymond’s less-Superman-more Yoda model, leaders must relinquish the ideal of invulnerability. They cannot deny their own mistakes or weaknesses while simultaneously requiring workers to come to grips with theirs. Raymond’s OWNER chart, which is so good I’d rather let him explain it, does include “Name the Challenge” and “Embrace Mistakes.” Though he doesn’t use the term, his model relies on mutual honesty, too often a missing quality in today’s workplace environment.

Raymond’s model, and the examples he uses, draw from the white-collar technical world. A former tech CEO, Raymond’s experiences involve office work and skilled professional employees. However, with limited fine-tuning, his model, based on straightforward structures of group dynamics and social psychology, should translate into blue-collar work, like factories or construction. Having done both these categories, I’ve seen the importance of a firm but uplifting hand on the tiller, something frequently missing from manual trades.

Much as I appreciate Raymond’s model, he frequently misses his own assumptions. For instance, he assumes management and labor share mutual goals, and simply need to reconcile means. His three leadership archetypes—Fixer, Fighter, and Friend—miss one equally important model, the Foe, who threatens and insults workers into compliance, often preemptively. Similarly, his five employee archetypes overlook the Foe’s favorite self-justification, the Slacker. Maybe a management theory predicated on mutuality can’t accommodate these unilateralists.

So, for organizational leaders who want strong members on resilient teams, Jonathan Raymond offers a structural approach that rewards everyone together. Mutatis mutandis, Raymond’s business approaches could empower schoolteachers, religious and political leaders, activists, and others who would bring out the best in others. Having faced multiple workplaces where management and labor had essentially adversarial relationships, I find Raymond’s vision energizing. Despite its challenges, it needs leaders generous enough to implement it in real life.