By Rudy Barnes, Jr., September 21, 2024
The Apostle Paul promulgated the doctrine of atonement, asserting that God sent Jesus Christ into the world as a blood sacrifice to die for the sins of all believers (Romans 3:9-31); and it remains at the heart of Christian doctrine to this day. As a retired UMC pastor I never believed that God ordained the crucifixion of Jesus as a blood sacrifice to save believers from sin.
Paul was a Jewish religious zealot who believed that Mosaic Law was God’s standard of righteousness, and that it required a blood sacrifice to atone for sin. The Gospel of John introduces Jesus as the Logos, or God’s Word (John 1:1-2), and includes the new command to love one another (John 13:34) as God’s moral imperative for humankind.
Jesus taught that God preferred mercy over sacrifice (see Matthew 9:10-13; Hosea 6:6 and Amos 5:21); and he never taught that salvation depended on belief in a blood atonement to forgive sins. The crucifixion was an act of human depravity orchestrated by Roman authorities and Jewish religious leaders, yet the church has never questioned the doctrine.
I reject the atonement doctrine as a Christian myth, but I believe that the resurrection was God’s promise that His Word would never die. A loving and merciful God would never limit salvation to those who believe in a human sacrifice as the only means of salvation; and it’s ironic that Christianity became the world’s largest religion with such a barbaric doctrine.
Emphasis on exclusivist Christian doctrines that ignore the altruistic and universal teachings of Jesus have caused the decline of Christianity with its increasing irrelevance in a troubled world of growing religious pluralism. To save Jesus from a church that emphasizes exclusivist beliefs, Christians should emphasize the teachings of Jesus to love one another.
In Judaism and Islam the moral imperatives of atonement are similar to those of social justice and repentance for harming others, and more consistent with following Jesus than belief in blood atonement to forgive sin. The Enlightenment ended the sovereignty of God in politics, and ushered in democracy that made humans the master of their political destiny.
The Christian doctrine of blood atonement has promoted standards that conflict with modern moral and legal standards of justice. Blood atonement has its focus on saving sinners who have harmed others, and ignores justice for those harmed. Such disparities between the Christian concept of atonement and modern concepts of justice should be rectified.
Exclusivist Christian beliefs that ignore moral and legal standards of justice should be reconciled with universal forms of justice based on the altruistic moral teachings of Jesus, rather than promoting ancient barbaric beliefs like blood atonement that were never taught by Jesus. Christianity is overdue for reforms that conform to reason and modern forms of justice.
Notes:
On Seeing the Resurrection in a New Light and The Cross as a barbaric instrument of death, see Question & Answer, Progressive Christianity, March 21, 2024: Question: The Cross, an instrument of death, repels me as a barbaric way to symbolize Christianity. Were a modern-day Jesus or a female equivalent to die from gunfire, would it be appropriate for the resulting places of worship to feature guns on top of their buildings and for religious leaders to wear guns around their necks, all for honoring the new messiah? Answer: Thank you, Barry, for questioning the cross! There are so many ways we can symbolize, uphold, and remember Jesus' life and actions, so why boil it down to the moment of his death? The era of Constantine (4th century) marks a point in history where the church went in a very different direction from what Jesus taught. Constantine, a Christian convert, claimed the cross as an official symbol. Crucifixion scenes were popularized as late as the 11th century to support theories of atonement and the crusades which served politics and power. For Christ followers today, the cross is over-simplified and most certainly misunderstood, and it can also be one symbol in a host of others that invites us to connect more deeply with the teachings of a man and his steady invitation for us all to choose Life.~ Rev. Lauren Van Ham
https://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2024/03/.
Atonement, atoning, or making amends is the concept of a person taking action to correct previous wrongdoing on their part, either through direct action to undo the consequences of that act, equivalent action to do good for others, or some other expression of feelings of remorse. Atonement "is closely associated to forgiveness, reconciliation, sorrow, remorse, repentance, reparation, and guilt".[1] It can be seen as a necessary step on a path to redemption.[2] Expiation is the related concept of removing guilt, particularly the undoing of sin or other transgressions in religious contexts. In the legal systems, the concept of atonement plays an important role with respect to criminal justice, where it is considered one of the primary goals of criminal rehabilitation.[4] In religion, atonement is "a spiritual concept which has been studied since time immemorial in Biblical and Kabbalistic texts",[1] while "[s]tories of atonement are ubiquitous in religious discourse and the language of atonement fundamentally reveals a redemptive turn".[5 Concepts in religion include: Atonement in Judaism - the process of causing a transgression to be forgiven or pardoned. In Rabbinic Judaism, people achieve atonement through repentance, sometimes followed by some combination of confession, restitution, tribulations (unpleasant life experiences), the experience of dying, or other factors. Another aspect of atonement is the occurrence of Yom Kippur (the day itself, as distinct from the Temple service performed on it), also known as "the Day of Atonement", which is a biblical/Jewish observance. Atonement in Christianity, in western Christian theology, describes beliefs that human beings can [only] be reconciled to God through Christ's sacrificial suffering and death.[6] Atonement refers to the forgiving or pardoning of sin in general and original sin in particular through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus,[7][8] Throughout the centuries, Christians have used different metaphors and given differing explanations of atonement to express how atonement might work. Churches and denominations may vary in which metaphor or explanation they consider most accurately fits into their theological perspective; however all Christians emphasize that Jesus is the Saviour of the world and through his death the sins of humanity have been forgiven,[9] enabling the reconciliation between God and his creation. For different concepts of atonement, see Wikipedia, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement#In_religion_and_behavior.
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