Archive for April, 2007

Several weeks ago, I posted some reflections on the meaning of Good Friday. In this post, I suggested that the "goodness" of Christ's death (which is commemorated on this day) is not located within the violence of the cross, but rather in the ultimate victory which Christ acheived over the powers of human sinfulness and hatred even in the face of the collected history and force of evil which was gathered therein against him. That Christ did not capitulate to the cycles of human violence and sinfulness, but rather resisted them even to the point of death, I argued, is truly where the "goodness" of this day is located.

Although there were some very generous comments left, other readers were not impressed. Two in particular argued that I had "missed the point," the "point" being that the violence enacted upon the cross against Christ was not borne out of human sinfulness and hatred, but rather had its primal origin in the very ontology of God.

This kind of thinking very much in keeping with Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory which, in a nutshell, locates the crisis of atonement in the satisfaction of divine wrath through the punishment of sin. This theory suggests More >