“I see so much in the life and death of Jesus, but I’ve always had difficulty seeing an angry God that needed appeasing, and so I try (in tiny little ways) to live by those things. But because I’ve questioned that cornerstone theology, I’ve have had my faith and in fact my God questioned, been told it’s a different God I pray to, and been asked why I would even want to call myself a Christian if I can’t accept that most basic premise of the faith.”
The task for all of us is to, ahem, “Grow Mercy”. (The web site with the verb, as my brother-in-law pointed out.) Forgive that.
But not this: Only in learning mercy, which is nothing short of a walk in the wilderness, can it be shown that the so-called basic premise of faith (propitiative atonement theory) is the same thing as our basic (premise) structure of human culture and religion.
What I mean is that the parable of the murderous labourers in the vinyard, (remember them?) and their collective expulsion of the victim, is at the root of culture and religion. This is what Christ blows up. But half blind and ears ringing, we Christians still cling to atonement theory (sacrificial ways of being and understanding) because it’s all we know. (This is as good a definition of original sin as you’ll likely get from me.) Perhaps it’s just taking this long for the right concussive ripples to hit.
The first sentence you quoted in your post today is SUCH a bad one (written, as so often with me, in an emotional hurry)! But……let me make sure I understood your response correctly: Our need to victimize is universal, and at the root of all culture and religion, including atonement theology, even though Christ came down hard on that kind of thinking and behaving? What do you mean about the right concussive ripples though? That we’re only beginning to “get” Jesus now? That’s what I think, but what sobers me how difficult it can be not to play by those rules, not to victimize in exchange for having been victimized.