The gods must be angry
When we go way back before there was Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we have good evidence that ancient peoples believed that whatever happened was the result of the actions of gods who controlled the vicissitudes of Nature. Were there not enough animals to be hunted? The gods must be angry. Did the crops fail for lack of rain? The gods must be angry. Did a neighbouring tribe beat us in a skirmish? The gods must be angry. In these pre-scientific times the gods got blamed for a lot of things, but there was one thing that dominated this pre-scientific era; that was the spectre of angry gods.
There were, of course, no angry gods. But in their anthropomorphic projections of their minds into the sky, or the trees, or the rocks, these ancient peoples considered that these angry gods must be placated; and the most common methodology was to make a sacrifice – of an animal, or part of a crop, or even the sacrifice of a person or people.
These kind of ignorant ideas persisted for millennia. So there is nothing surprising to find that it permeates the mindset of the authors of the Old Testament. A good example is found in Genesis 8:20-22. Noah, arriving on dry land, decides to offer an animal sacrifice to God. God, according to Genessis, decides never to again annihilate most human beings. The reason: the smell of the sacrifice being cooked on the alter has placated his anger over the sins of mankind. Now let’s not try to avoid the implications of this theology by turning this into a metaphor or a future reference. Let’s take the text at its word. God makes his decision on the smell of the animal sacrifice. What a relief. Humanity is saved by a barbeque! Let’s hope the smell of the barbeque was matched by its taste.
Now some will say this theology comes from a very early stage in the history of Israel and we have to allow for developments since that time. But there is a problem with that argument. The oldest manuscripts we have of Genesis have the Hebrew written in the square Aramaic script; a phenomenon that dates it to the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon just a few centuries before Jesus. If the scribes who wrote this had wanted to edit that bit, they missed their opportunity.
An Angry God and the death of Jesus
I am not sure how long it took for placation of an angry God to become the interpretative framework for the death of Jesus. However, it became quite common and is known as the penal substitution theory of the atonement. It had a precursor in a theory which explained the salvific power of the death of Jesus as arising from the restoration of God’s honour – a theory which appears to draw upon a medieval concept of honour and the anthropomorphic projection of such medieval concepts onto the person of God. It appears to have disappeared with the fading of medieval ideas as a useful framework for the understanding of anything.
The Teachings of Jesus
One of my main objections to the penal substitution theory of Jesus’ death is that I cannot seem to find it in the teachings of Jesus. Jesus spoke frequently of his forthcoming death, but as far as I can see, he almost without exception spoke at the same time of his resurrection. In his teachings, these two things were inseparably bound.
In the late 19th century, two opposing movements ironically led to a similar separation of the death of Christ from his resurrection. The first was 19th century Liberalism, which shunned all explanations that appeared to depend on anything supernatural. Not only were there no miracles according to this stance, there was no resurrection. So the resurrection was diluted into some kind of moral transcendency that rose above the only true fact of death. Its opposing movement was 19th Century Fundamentalism, which made belief in the penal substitution explanation of Jesus’ death as one of its five Fundamentals. The resurrection was tacked on a something of less significance. Some have sought resort in Jesus’ teaching that he gave his life as a ransom for many. But a ransom is something paid to a jailer, which is the devil in the mythology of the New Testament. It is not a penalty paid to an angry God.
Spirituality as Seasonal
One of the characteristics of pagan theology was its seasonal foundation. After all, it was the seasons themselves which were the objects of worship. The relationship between summer and winter, autumn and spring served not only as the guide book for sowing and reaping, but for the worship of seasonal gods who represented the forces of Nature.
I recently listened to a sermon from a priest from an Eastern Church who simply asserted that Christian worship was seasonal. I don’t think that this would be much different from churches in the West. He explained that this was the reason that marriages could not be celebrated during Lent because marriages were happy celebrations and Lent was supposed to be a time of sorrow and repentance.
This was problematic for me theologically, because of something called the dialectical theology of the cross and resurrection. Rather than attempt a theological explanation, let me simply quote from that passage from St Francis of Assisi: “… it is in dying that we are born to eternal life”. Eternal life is not just pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die, it is a quality of life that can be experienced now and extends into the afterlife. When the Spirit puts to death a part of our old selves, the creation of the new self at the hands of the Spirit takes place simultaneously. There can be no seasonal separation of the dying and rising. So is the idea of a seasonal spirituality just a hangover from the days of Nature worship?
So I post this item for the purposes of stimulating discussion. Note that I am asking for what Jesus taught, not Paul, or someone else. It would appear to me that in Jesus’ teaching we experience repentance, forgiveness, and resurrection to newness of life simultaneously as we follow him in dying and rising simultaneously in the power of the Holy Spirit.
I have no illusions about being infallible, so I offer this in all humility.
