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A🧵on why Good Friday and the Atonement kept me from theological liberalism.
In my undergrad, I majored in theology. Being a renegade toward the Scripture was an undercurrent of the program. Had to break free from that stodgy SBC fundamentalism, you know? That was the vibe.
In my undergrad, I majored in theology. Being a renegade toward the Scripture was an undercurrent of the program. Had to break free from that stodgy SBC fundamentalism, you know? That was the vibe.
In the course of my studies, I was embarrassed by inerrancy, attracted to the Emergent Church, trending egalitarian, and fundamentally, committed to ideological pacifism. Why does that last thing matter so much?
Well, when you become captive to an ideology, it becomes the chief gloss or lens through which you interpret everything else. It was the opposite of exegesis; it was eisegesis. I had to read Scripture in light of my ideological pre-commitments.
I loved studying the atonement. I still do; it's probably my favorite systematic category despite focusing on ethics. To study the atonement as a pacifist meant one must not allow penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) to see the light of day. How could the Father punish the Son?
So I went about in my free time reading every atonement theory I could that dispensed with penal substitutionary atonement. Because it couldn't be true. I had to explain away clear teaching of Scripture in order to twist it into compliance with a non-violent reading of the text.
I was blatantly intellectually dishonest. I refused to let Scripture speak clearly or authoritatively. I became the chief interpretive arbiter of Scripture, not Scripture itself or the commentaries of evangelical scholars that showed, overwhelmingly, PSA's presence in the text.
It wasn't until I read a new book at that time "Pierced for Our Transgression"(2007) that I became undone. I was confronted with my intellectual dishonesty and overwhelmed by the beauty and ubiquity of PSA's logic running throughout Scripture.
I was faced with a choice: I could persist in my ideological pre-commitment or accept what the Bible says, even if I still had questions. I chose the latter. I'm glad I did. I think it saved me from shipwrecking my faith given the logic, pressures, and principles involved.
I now see PSA at the heart of the gospel. It's not the *only* valid theory of the atonement, but I think it's the chief rationale for the atonement. I think it shows God's holiness, love, mercy, judgment, and justice in one event. Jesus paid the price for my sin. Hallelujah.
It was quite literally being confronted with the text of Scripture that I had to ask myself: What are you going to do? Submit to it or run the play of theological liberalism that purports to honor the text, but plays fast and loose with it?
I've been on the wrong side of hermeneutics. It offers a theological wasteland with no stopping point. That same spirit pervades evangelicalism today, as it does in every generation. As I teach in my classes: What you do when confronted by Scripture will color, well, everything.
The sad thing is that I see this play being run by influencers on unsuspecting voices. It all goes by the same game with a different name. Those with an iota of theological training know the chess game involved and we know where it leads.
I was deconstructing before deconstruction was cool or fueled by cynicism and flavor-of-the-day scholarship. If you are wrestling with Scripture, wrestle with it and study, but examine the posture of your heart and conscience toward it. Are you or Scripture the authority?
(Also, because this is Twitter and I should clarify: I'm, uh, not an egalitarian, think the Emergent Church proved to be heretical, an advocate for Just War ethics, and would stake my theological life on inerrancy).
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