Anabaptist Perspective: Did the early church teach penal substitutionary atonement?>

David Bercot: No, but..

Dean Taylor:Yes, but..

The real ending/epic epilogue of the 21 Pilots Lore/Saga/Storyline?

photo credit

The 21 Pilots ten-year, five-album (though I Could say twelve year, six  album) conceptual series /song cycle/concept album(s)/story/storyline ...often called "The Lore" (see this)....of Blurryface, Clancey, the  evil bishops  of Dema and company is apparently over..,.

                    ...or is it?

So much to say about this ten-year trip. Do check out a summary or two online if this is new territory,

Like many concept albums (or movie trilogies!), the last song didn't seem to end quite up to snuff or expectations. Satisfactory? Yes, but something seemed missing. 

 The task of finishing triumphantly, or shockingly, may be impossible, especially with long, dramatic, sometimes convoluted storylines

. The Who's "Tommy"  (by most accounts, the first rock opera/truly concept album) ended strong with the finale song.

 Genesis' "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" ended fairly well with "It", but it was  anticlimactic and generic ; as  Tony Banks recently  ) expressed (Who could top Supper's Ready's" return of Christ ?) 

  Though I have lamented abut U2 endings; I will not complain about the ending of U2's quasi-concept album, "No Line." It didn't end with a bang, but a whisper;  but what a holy hush!

And  I once wrote about Pink Floyd:

Even though the double "Wall" album, and concert, ended with a short piece, "Tear Down the Wall," and that seemed like a good thing; it is not so good. In the record’s scenario, once we tear down the walls that keep us from others and reality, instead of freedom, we find our worst nightmare: there’s nothing behind it! We are hopeless, and now to make matters worse, naked, and in front of an enemy. A careful listener will hear, after the sounds of the wall crumbling, the "real last song" of the Floyd record, which numbly  submits to circumstances , and coldy bends the arc full circle (literally in this case..I’ll explain) from fear to… fear. The last voice one hears at the end of side 4 (remember records? This was a double album; so four sides) is someone quietly saying something that gets cut off mid-sentence: "Isn’t this where…", and the sentence (as one discovered later) was "continued" at the beginning of side 1: "…we came in." "Isn’t "Isn’t this where we came in?" Clever tactic, depressing thesis: The record (literally) comes full circle (literally); life (spiritually) is endless circle; spiraling  through the grooves of the record, and life, into nothingnumbness. Even if we do tear down a wall, we’ll build another and another...link

And thought more at this link:  Gregory of Nyssa and Green Day: death/birth of the concept of the concept album)

Don't get me started on "well-ended songs that end well by not ending well"...
But I started that conversation here in honor of Ray Bradbury).

I love the "Clancy" series, no matter how it ends.

Note that several thought the storyline was over, though hanging, with the fourth installment
But everyone eventually agreed, and band seemed to confirm, it closes with the closer of the fifth, "Breach."

Or does it?

In typically  subtle, sneaky and  subversive  Pilots fashion, a few weeks after the final final album was released, out of nowhere, an epilogue, (coda? alternative ending?)  was dropped as a download on the deluxe album version, called the Digital Remains edition, and it's officially behind a paywall for now,,

Or is it?

This is the real, and really satisfying. ending.

Happier, even.

The devil loses. God wins, Christus Victor.

This amazing loaded video by a fan who started tracking and tracing the story when he was 14, and is now 24, should be watched and full, but today, watch from 1:35:52 to learn about the two closing songs.
Then test drive the two candidates for closing hymn below.

I like them both, but I think #2 wins.

Or does it?

Cast your vote. But know that my name is Blurryface ...and I care what you think. (:

--

Intentions lyrics:

=
I am starting it all over once again
Did I learn a thing?



Intentions are everything


Intentions will set you free


You will fail most every day and every way
Did you learn a thing?



Intentions lack memory


Intentions will set you free


Just try to be

===

Here is one review: of the other ending::

‘Drag Path’: The Meaning of Twenty One Pilots’ Epic Finale

14/09/2025 by Songs Discussion

“Drag Path” by Twenty One Pilots is a cinematic and deeply allegorical track that serves as a powerful narrative of capture, faith, and ultimate rescue. The song’s core meaning centers on a protagonist who, while being dragged away by a demonic, devil-like force, makes the conscious and courageous choice to deliberately leave a trail of clues—a “drag path”—as an act of profound faith that a loved one or a community will follow this evidence and save him. It is a triumphant story about finding salvation through unwavering trust in others, even in the absolute darkest of nights.

Introduction to the Song

Released on September 12, 2025, “Drag Path” is the fourteenth and final track on Twenty One Pilots’ fictional new album, Breach. As the album’s closer, the song provides an epic and emotionally satisfying conclusion to the tumultuous journey of the entire project. Musically, “Drag Path” is likely a dynamic and cinematic alternative rock anthem, building from tense, narrative-driven verses to a powerful, pleading chorus, and finally resolving into a continued here

--

and this:

 

For now (it may well get removed), here is "Drag Path (Devil's Eyes)"

Drag Path lyrics:

When I see the devil's eyes
A current travels down my spine
He found me
Seems as though I've lost again
A story told ad nauseam
He found me
Maybe once or twice or three
He's tried his hand at drowning me
But I'm still on fire
At least, I'm pretty sure

When I see the devil's eyes
I'll look away and smile wide
You found me
'Cause then I'll know you're also there
'Cause proof is in the adversere
You found me

A drag path etched in the surface
As evidence I left there on purpose
A sad sack, laying on the surface 
Can you find me?
I dug my heels into the gravel
As evidence for you to unravel
A drag path, etched in the surface 
Can you find me?

Would you 
Please, please hurry
Would you
Please, please hurry

Can you, can you, can you, can you?

A drag path, etched in the surface
As evidence I left there on purpose
A sad sack, laying on the surface
Can you find me? (Can you, can you find me?)
I dug my heels into the gravel
As evidence for you to unravel
A drag path, etched in the surface
Can you find me?

Can you find me? (Can you find me?)
Can you find me? (Can you find me?)
Can you find me? (Can you find me?)
Can you find me? (Can you find me?)

Then the sun begins to rise
We made it through the darkest night
You found me

The Gospel in Chairs

Steve Robinson:
Brad Jersak:
 
Brian Zahnd:
 
 Bruxy Cavey:

"every time the culture changes, the church becomes unfaithful..."

"Which Atonement? How Scripture Speaks Anew to Each Generation" by Len Hjalmarson
(excerpts):


....The dominant view of atonement for the first 300 years of the Church was not Penal Substitution, but Christus Victor. Jesus death and resurrection made him Lord, and established him as sole victor over the forces of death and destruction. Jesus death was a ransom paid to the devil. The Penal Substitution view was there in Scripture, but the early church was less interested in that view. Under Anselm in the 11th century the Church changed position, and began to put its weight on the other foot. It was the legal and forensic climate of those times that provoked the switch.

In other words, it was a cultural shift that provoked a theological shift. That’s a pretty important point, because we are in a time when culture is changing dramatically, and here we are having a lot of theological debates.

We could conclude from this that every time the culture changes, the church becomes unfaithful. Or, more wisely, we could conclude that when the culture shifts God speaks in new language..

.....Scot McKnight expands on the meaning of reconciliation by listing the atonement metaphors.
 He writes:

"Atonement language includes several evocative metaphors: there is a sacrificial metaphor (offering), and a legal metaphor (justification), and an interpersonal metaphor (reconciliation), and a commercial metaphor (redemption) and a military metaphor (ransom). Each is designed to carry us to the thing. But the metaphor is not the thing. The metaphor gives the reader or hearer an imagination of the thing, a vision of the thing, a window onto the thing, a lens through which to look in order to see the thing. Metaphors take us there, but they are not the 'there.'"

Well said! We are prone, when we don't recognize the way language and symbols work, to mistake the menu for the meal. It then becomes nearly impossible to actually talk about how and why we do theological work, because we are too busy defending our symbols. And atonement debate is mostly theology – not Scripture, but language that interprets what we read in the Scripture, and language that represents the dominant understanding in our faith communities.

And what do you know? Both major views – the early and the late -- can be found in a single New Testament passage in Colossians.

Penal Substitutionary: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-15)

 Christus Victor: “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (This is the next verse, Colossians 2:16)

 The dominant view of atonement for the first 300 years of the Church was Christus Victor. In the 11th century, and in the legal and forensic climate of theological thought, the Church began to put its weight on the other foot. Cultural shift provoked a theological shift. But God is the Lord of both culture and theology. When the culture shifts, old questions are asked in new ways. In response, God speaks in new language. God speaks to a new culture in new ways through the Scripture because a new culture HEARS in new ways.

To be more provocative, the voice of the Holy Spirit did not highlight the penal-substitution (PS) view for the early church. What was it about the context of the church in those days that required one approach (Christus Victor) more than the other? And is there something about our own changing world that now requires a return, or at least a much greater emphasis, on the earlier view? Might it even be possible to hold the two views side by side, like a pair of glasses, and see in 3D? Or to ask the question in reverse, why are western evangelicals so stuck on one view, to the extent that holding other views as equal provokes an emotional reaction?  ...
 continued here 

Christus Victor>Risus Paschalis>Bawdy Sermons>Bright Sunday/Holy Humor Sunday

Tracing the trajectory..


For Christus Victor, see posts tagged with that phrase and 

Christus Victor - Wikipedia

Christus Victor texts:

• Matthew 12:28/ Luke 11:20
• Mark 10:45
• Luke 4: 1-21
•  John 1:4-5
• John 12:31-33
• Romans 5:15-21
• Romans 8:31-39
• Romans 16:19 
• 1 Corinthians 2:6-7 
• 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
• Galatians 4: 3-9
• Ephesians 1: 19-23
• Ephesians 3:9-10
• Ephesians 4: 7-10 
• Ephesians 6:12
• Colossians 1:13-14
• Colossians 2:8-19
• Hebrews 2:14
• 1 Peter 3:21-22
• I John 3:8 

-=

Robert Darden:

The biggest joke of all, of course, is on Satan. That would be Easter, the day the bad guys thought they'd won—but didn't. The ancients have a long tradition of understanding Easter Sunday in terms of humor.
Early church fathers such as Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and even John of Chrysostom mused that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the grave. The Greek Orthodox Church even gave the joke the theological name of "risus paschalis"— Easter laughter (Segal 2001, 24).  link

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Risus PaschalisThis strange custom originated in Bavaria in the fifteenth century. The priest inserted in his sermon funny stories which would cause his hearers to laugh (Ostermärlein), e.g. a description of how the devil tries to keep the doors of hell locked against the descending Christ. Then the speaker would draw the moral from the story. This Easter laughter, giving rise to grave abuses of the word of God, was prohibited by Clement X (1670_1676) and in the eighteenth century by Maximilian III and the bishops of Bavaria (Wagner, De Risu Paschali, Königsberg, 1705; Linsemeier, Predigt in Deutschland, Munich, 1886). FREDERICK G. HOLWECK  link

--
From Irenic Thoughts"

Risus Paschalis means "the Easter Laugh" and refers to God playing a trick on Satan by letting him kill Jesus, thereby letting him think he had won, only to raise Jesus back to life on the third day. Since 1988, The Fellowship of Merry Christianshas been working to bring back the laughter following Easter with what it calls Holy Humor Sunday on one of the two Sundays following Easter. There are churches that call it Bright Sunday and encourage wearing Hawaiian shirts and the like. 
Our Episcopal neighbors down at St. Peter's, Fernandina are celebrating this today. The idea is new on me, though I like it. I've tried to do some research and I find quoted widely this exact phrase from the Merry Christian website,
I did also find a reference in the Catholic Encyclopedia which notes the much more solid background for the tradition:
I also found this reference in an 1898 book Curiosities of Popular Customs and of Rites, Ceremonies, Observances, and Miscellaneous Antiquities by William Shepard Walsh
It was a time of exuberant joy. Gregory of Nyssa draws a vivid picture of the joyous crowds who by their dress, a feature still preserved and their devout attendance at church, sought to do honor to the festival. All labor ceased all trades were suspended. It was a favorite time for baptism, the law courts were closed, alms were given to the poor slaves were freed. Easter Sunday became known as Dominica gaudii "Sunday of Joy." In the reaction from the austerities of Lent, people gave themselves up to enjoyment popular sports dances and farcical entertainments. In some places the clergy to increase the mirth recited from the pulpit humorous stories and legends for the purpose of exciting the Risus Paschalis or "Easter smile."
 

The custom was rooted in the musings of early church theologians (like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom) that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead.

This strange custom originated in Bavaria in the fifteenth century. The priest inserted in his sermon funny stories which would cause his hearers to laugh, e.g. a description of how the devil tries to keep the doors of hell locked against the descending Christ. Then the speaker would draw the moral from the story. This Easter laughter, giving rise to grave abuses of the word of God, was prohibited by Clement X (1670-1676) and in the eighteenth century by Maximilian III and the bishops of Bavaria. link

---------
From Salem UCC

For centuries, in Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant countries, Easter Monday and “Bright Sunday” (the Sunday after Easter) were observed by the faithful as “days of joy and laughter” with parties and picnics to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.Parishioners and pastors played practical jokes on each other, drenched each other with water, sang, and danced. It was a time for clergy and people to tell jokes and to have fun.The custom of Easter Monday and Bright Sunday celebrations were rooted in the musings of early church theologians (like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom) that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead. Easter was “God’s supreme joke played on death.” “ Risus paschalis ?~ the Easter laugh,” the early theologians called it.In 1988, observing that the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection has been sorely neglected by 20th-century Christianity, the Fellowship of Merry Christians began encouraging member churches and prayer groups to resurrect the old Christian custom of Easter Monday or “Bright Sunday” celebrations, as the early Greek Christians called it.At a time when Jesus’ resurrection has been subjected to an onslaught of ridicule and disbelief, the Fellowship sought to shore up belief through ongoing resurrection celebrations. link

-------------

From UMC website:

Many American churches are resurrecting an old Easter custom begun by the early Greek Christians --- "Bright Sunday" or "Holy Humor Sunday" celebrations on the Sunday after Easter. For centuries in all Christian faith traditions, the week following Easter Sunday was observed by the faithful as "days of joy and laughter" with parties and picnics to celebrate Jesus' resurrection. Visit the Holy Humor Website athttp://www.joyfulnoiseletter.com/hhsunday.asp.

Pail Hiebert: An Anabaptist, Christus Victor perspective on spiritual warfare

There are a wealth of resources (lecture notes, articles, audio, video) from respected missionary anthropologist Paul Hiebert on the Hiebert Global Center website.  You'll have to email the curator of rhe site to get the passwords for many items (including the video seminar below).

This  below is Hiebert on spiritual warfare; a course I enjoted with him many years ago at Overseas Ministry Center on the Yale campus.

Copyright2015, Hiebert Global Center. All rights reserved. www.hiebertglobalcenter.org

Austin Farrrer on "probable tracks" of Jesus' temptations: subversion of Paethon and temple tantrum connections

hotel in Israel

Austin Farrrer , though apparently "one of the most profound and prophetic theologians of the twentieth century"  (so back cover says!) was new to me....but the price was right on one of his books (1.50):  "The Triple Victory: Christ's Temptation According to St. Matthew."

As one with a special interest in the temptations of Jesus, literary structure of Matthew, I wouldn't have resisted the testation to buy it at double the price (:

Come on..NO reviews on Amazon US or Amazon UK (He was British)?!...

"His activity in philosophy, theology, and spirituality led many to consider him the outstanding figure of 20th century Anglicanism. -Wikipedia

Turns out he was  well-respected by C.S. Lewis,and had an intriguing solution for the synoptic problem.  Wiki calls him a "maverick."

 I like him already...even if/especially if he is sometimes wrong (:

Even in the preface,  Frederick Borsh partly agrees with accusations  of  Farrer's sometimes fanciful flights into literary structural analysis, midrash and typology.  But he defends him as being  very thoughtful, creative..and ahead of his time as far as redaction/compositional criticism etc.  "He may have seen too many typologies, but he was not wrong in understanding that biblical writers often thought in typological categories.  This keen awareness pays particularly rich dividends in his study of Christ's temptations." (p. 2)

He does well, as does Donald Kraybill, in seeing many links from the temptations  to the rest of Matthew's gospel.

I haven't read enough for a review yet, so I'll  just

1)ask if any are familiar with this work

2)quote this:

Satan's insinuation...contains a hidden poison: "If you are the Son of God..If you cannot or dare not, what sort of divine Son are you?"...

Jesus declines..not because it is wicked..but because it is wicked to make a willful use of spiritual power...

"throw yourself down"...The suggested action is so utterly useless in itself, it can have one purpose only:.."Jump and find out; if you won't jump you can't really believe it."

...Christ refused to do what Phaethon did [doubt his paternity].  But could he have even thought in those terms? We may give a double reply.  First, though Christ did not think that God was an inhabitant of Jerusalem, he took the sanctity of the holy place with complete seriousness  He can, indeed, be  said to have pulled his own death on his head, by taking the law into his own hands and cleansing the temple from trade.  Second, we must say that in dreams or visions symbols become realities...

..It would be absurd to claim any sort of certainty for the suggestions we have advanced.  We cannot be sure what paths of association Christ's visionary thoughts, as St Matthew represents them, follow out.  Yet our guesses are not valueless.  They were the sort of lines along which a devout Jewish imagination ran; and the exercise of working out probable tracks and junctions in the movement of such a mind puts us in sympathy with the author we are trying to understand..  Chapter IV

atonement and Christus Victor: Luther hugely misunderstood?...or covered up?

Aulen:

Luther's teaching on the atonement [the "classical' or Christus Victor idea/motif] was not followed either by his contemporaries or by his successors...Without hesitation or delay they reverted to the Latin  [legal,  traditional, Latin model; penal substitution] doctrine....his idea of the atonement formed one organic whole with the central proclamation of the Reformation..
Obviously, Luther's contemporaries failed to understand his teaching on the subject, and they never grasped his deeper thoughts.  They interpreted him from the first in light of the traditional belief, inherited from the Middle Ages.  Either they failed to see the gulf...or in so far as they had some inkling of it, they did their best to cover it up..

 ..The inner tensions within Luther's theology, the vigour and force of his thoughts, and his sharply paradoxical language, Melancthon wholly lacked the power to understand."  -Gustaf Aulen, Christus Victor, p. 124

golf clubs or violin strings...or..

Sometimes Scot McKnight's image of "atonement theories"  as golf clubs belonging to a golf bag, from which we choose the proper club for the shot has seemed a bit cheesy/down home/utilitarian.  (Also, Tad DeLay makes the case that the analogy breaks down, see this). I was delighted to find he also offered another image: violin strings.  Also, his  suggestion of "identification for incorporation" as end to theory wars, and his  work on making atonement practical are wonderful:

"What we are most in need of today is not a continuance of the atonement wars for a privileged metaphor, but a vigorous discussion of the value of each of the metaphors so that each image is invited to the table. And I contend that identification for incorporation is such an invitation and.. ... Lest it be charged that I am simply turning the tide back a notch in arguing for one . . . I'm arguing instead for an embrasive category, one that includes each metaphor in a larger, rounded whole. We need to use all the clubs in our bag and we need a bag that can hold them all.

Let me try another image. The magic of a violin is the capacity for the violinist to make each string work in harmony with the others to create the appropriate sound. If a violinist somehow managed to play only one string on the violin, the sound could never be complete. Some theories of atonement ask violinists either to pluck all but one string or to play gospel music as though only one string really mattered. I want to contend that we need each of the strings, and that we need to seek for a violinist with a bow that can stroke the strings so well that the potency of each string creates a harmonious composition that puts our hearts at rest." (p. 114)

At this point many discussions of atonement end. But there is more ground to cover. We are now ready to explore atonement not only as the act of God but,as is the case with all emerging theology, as something we are invited to perform  perform with God in this world. Atonement is praxis..


I stand here on the threshold of a doorway that few enter: atonement is something done not only by God for us, but also something we do with God for others. This door opens to those who are learning that atonement is also praxis. That we suggest that atonement is also praxis is not an attack on the view that atonement is something God does for us. Instead, it is the conviction that atonement is embodied in what  God does for us in such a way that we are summoned to participate with God in his redemptive work.."But lest I be accused of something worse than heresy, let me make it clear up front: I do not believe humans atone for others and I do not believe humans can atone for themselves. Atonement is the work of God---in Christ, through the Spirit---but God has chosen to summon us to participate in God's work, even though we are cracked Eikons or, to use Paul's words, 'clay jars,' (2 Cor. 4:7)...We are a community called atonement"  A Community Called Atonement
pp  114,  117-188, 156

Scot McKnight video: Gospel and Atonement

Gospel and Atonement from Fuller Seminary on Vimeo.
----
The other three videos in the series here

Bach's subversive, chiastic and non Joel-Osteen-y golf club: Where's the Christus Victor in THIS?

Bono once (in)famously asked (about terrorism),
"Where's the glory in that?"

I'll come back to that.



One day after asking about possible  new liturgical uses of a Christus Victor theme,


I have an answer:


Forget new.
Get back to Bach.

Like any theological golfer, what Bach did..

Okay, I know.  I need to unpack that Bach as golfer image.
I love Scot McKnight's work, especially on the atonement.
Yet I have sometimes felt his "golf club" metaphor for theories of atonement seemed--even though making a very profound and accurate point--seemed a bit crude:

Scot McKnight wants you to have your golf bag fully equipped—theologically speaking. That's the controlling metaphor of McKnight's 2007 study of soteriology, A Community Called Atonement (4 stars).

Here's how the metaphor works. Each "theory" of the Atonement is, like a particular golf club, better suited to some situations than others. Ministering the gospel is like playing a round of golf. Just as a golfer knows when to use a driver, a wedge, or a putter, the way we proclaim, teach, or share the Good News should be adapted to the situation. You can hit the ball out of a sand trap with your driver, but why would you if you had a wedge available?

The strength of the golf-bag metaphor is that it asks us to stop being partisan toward one particular theory of the Atonement and to minister with the best tools at hand. McKnight is a peacemaker and a bridge builder, which makes his book welcome.  link

But I have come to  agree with Frank Viola; and see that it works well.

I sometimes use Baker and Green's language of a  "constellation of images" of the atonement being needed.
 I sometimes apply NT Wright's language  (in different context) of four speakers with adjusted volumes to the atonement.

 But it just may be that as down-home,  utilitarian and Joel-Osteen-y as it sounds, choosing the right "golf club" might be one of most helpful ways of making the point that multiple (multiplex) "views" are in Scripture, and that the "theories" are indeed practical" (See  "God loves donkeys, sweat, entrails and menstruation" )and "Nothing is more practical than theory, and nothing is more theoretical than practice)")

Having said that, I must also say:

--In light of the fact that McKnight's point in the very title, and throughout the book, is that the community needs to interpret atonement, not just individuals, one is disappointed that there was no  team sport that would work better than the individual player nature of golf..Hmmm..

--I also wonder how best to communicate that atonement theories inevitably overlap and constellate/cluster/Venn--unlike use of a golf club for a particular shot, which rules out  simultaneous use of another. (Or does it?? Creative golf, hmm...)

SO..Bach.

Bach apparently wrote five passions, including one for each gospel.
Matthew's was based on a satisfaction theory of atonement; John's steeped in Christus Victor imagery.  Mark's survived only in text; and two were lost.

Wow, makes one wonder what we lost by not having inherited all of Bach's golf clubs.




In an article analyzing the underpinnings of CV in  Bach's St. John's Passion, Calvin Stapert notes that Jesus' words "It is finished," if indeed interpreted as Chistus Victor, should obviously be a victory  cry. Yet..

Bach set these words to a descending line that fittingly depicts the expiration of a dying man. 
But where, then, is Christus victor in this? 

Full article PDF here

Well, read the article to see how Bach--no theological and musical slouch-- brilliantly  and musically subverted desencion and death into ascension and joy.  (It's kind of a  holy hemistiche.  Note also that Bach weaves together three chiastic structures!  What a rock star.).

Music itself may be the only medium to liturgize our message.
As Happy Lee  and James Allison remind us, "theories of atonement" are better yet "liturgies."
Even though  in our day, we have forgotten that "worship is not music," 
music ..especially corporate worship music...can sure be worship. 
There's glory in that!

Ryan Schellenberg:

The actuality of the atonement exceeds our theologizing:

....people are more than the sum of their conscious ideas, and therefore any account of atonement in the New Testament should be curious about how the message of the cross connected with the rest of what makes up a human being. Surely it is instructive here that the earliest evidence we have for atonement piety is not theological discourse at all but rather ritual practice, specifically, baptism and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, both of which predate any extant Christian text by nearly twenty years. ¹⁷ We don’t know what the earliest followers of Jesus were saying about the atonement, but we do know that they participated ritually in his death and resurrection—they shared in his body and blood; they joined in his death and resurrection—and thus experienced themselves as redeemed people.

Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: A ‘Redaction-Critical’ Reflection, Direction, Spring 2012  ·  Vol. 41 No. 1

Where the leitourgia has no shame: Christus Victor/ trickster calls to worship?

photo credit

Hat tip to Beth for my title; and my apologies to her for my twisting it.
Her wonderful chapter on "Where the Leitourgua has No Name: U2 Live" should be read well by the well-read   (it's in this book; for more on  leitourgia, see this),

Actually, the way I nodded to her title and tweaked it is itself perhaps a cheap example of the liturgical experimentation I am encouraging below.  Hopefully you will get the reference.
(As Beth herself has confessed about me, I can be "ever-prolix"  (:..)

Paul Ryan blogs:

One ordinary Sunday morning, I sat in my pew praying customary words of confession and hearing familiar words of assurance. My pastor announced, as he did every Sunday, “God assures us with these words of pardon . . .” But at that moment, the words surprised me. Immediately, I turned to my wife and whispered excitedly, “Pardon! That’s an image of the atonement!”
I had been studying notes outlining five images of the atonement: Christus Victor, ransom, penal substitution, sacrifice, and moral example. My professor, John Witvliet, had encouraged us to consider how we might balance these images in worship. That morning, I realized that the word pardon is a courtroom image (penal substitution). And I realized that we had been introducing our words of assurance with this image exclusively.
Since that day, I’ve been reflecting on how we might enrich and balance our confession through attention to other images of the atonement... LINK

SOO..what would it sound/look like to  shamelessly incorporate into corporate worship/leitourgia a shameless 

• Christus Victor view of atonement  (Ryan's article offers examples)
•  prophetic trickster motif (leitmotif?)
• "holy fool- ishness"
• subversion of empire (Let's ask Brueggemann for ideas)
• culture jamming/adbusting

I don't know what it would look ;ike..maybe a high church Zoo TV? (:
Think of ...and suggest below...some practical examples of  such creative calls to worship, collects etc..

I know this next example is taking it too far; but I remember Shawn Rabon and I thinking out loud how to gently satirize   (Yes, I know "gently satirize" is oxymoronic, but...) the tendency of some Christians to, during prayer meetings, address Satan more than God.  We wondered if opening a meeting with "Dear Satan"  would make the point. (:

CS Lewis, Christus Victor and the 'deeper magic'

Greg Boyd video: --

feliz locura and "life as the bullring writ large"

From Silent Music:  The Life, Work, and Thought of St. John of the Cross by R. A. Herrera

" No life can be understood in a vacuum. Individuals are known only in relation to their backgrounds. A life must be viewed within a framework that exhibits a multiplicity of factors: the historical, the religious, the sociological. The life of St. John of the Cross presents special difficulties as its backdrop is (to contemporary readers) both captivating and strangely alien. In words that were uttered during the Spanish Civil War, García Morente observed that the Spanish conception of life is grounded on the superiority of the concrete over the abstract, the individual over the species, and the private over the public. This was no less true for the sixteenth century than it is for today.

Spanish mysticism tilts to action rather than speculation, experience rather than abstraction. One recalls Hilaire Belloc's astonishment at hearing the Salve Regina sung in a small Spanish village: harsh, full of battle and agony, strikingly different from anything he previously experienced. The same attitude is reflected in Miguel de Unamuno's preference for the "Spanish Christ," livid, squalid, bruised, bloody, and ferocious:

Yes, there is a triumphant, glorious, celestial Christ: the Christ of the transfiguration, the ascension, the Christ who sits at the right hand of the Father ... this is when we have triumphed.... But here ... in this life which is nothing but a tragic spectacle, here the other Christ, the livid, the bruised, the bloody. 

This notion of life as a tragic spectacle, life as the bullring writ large, is etched indelibly on the Spanish psyche. This taste for high drama, exaggeration, extremism in all its forms, is found in a heightened form in the monarchs, warriors, poets, and mystics of Spain's Edad de Oro (Golden Age). Its mysticism is ardent and militant, an affirmation of the power of a will that surrenders only to a higher, transcendent will. This irascible Christianity displaced knighthood from the military battlefield to the higher battlefield of the spirit prodded by that "divina extravagancia" and "feliz locura" which persuaded humankind to forget the world and live completely for God. 

This enthusiasm for divine chivalry inspired works such as La Caballería Celeste and La Caballería Cristiana. Combined with the strong attraction exercised by both the New World and the "Indies of the Spirit," this fervor blunted the impact on Spain of the hermetic aspect of the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. The cultural explosion of the Golden Age marched to the beat of a different drummer. Though perhaps rightly accused of being the only region in Europe choosing the past over the present, Spain kept the colorful brilliance of the Catholic festival and did not succumb to the lure either of the classical past or of the cold and denuded churches of the north.  full chapter

a photo of me with Moses on Masada, and a theology of farting in the general direction of empire

For many reasons (including the memorable nuclear power plant field trips that Rev. @Scott Allred took me on), I will never forget our first trip to Israel.

One highlight of course was Masada ( מצדה , only reachable by cable car), where Moses (tour guide, OK?) asked me to read/reenact Elazar ben Yair’s 73 AD speech given  before

Moses and me, and some folk from Scott Allred's church

 the stalwart Jews committed mass suicide  as Masada inevitably fell to the Romans .  So there atop the historic fortress...with wind whipping through my hair for dramatic effect (see video here)...and with the Roman attack ramp (amazingly) still in place and in view, I read/preached:

“Since we long ago resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God Himself, Who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice...We were the very first that revolted, and we are the last to fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God has granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom.”

It was stunning and moving.
But of course, as good tourists, we soon came down the mountain and had a snack and visit to a souvenir shop (see "Holy Hamburgers").







In a maddening but entertaining book, Scott Korb (p 173) relates a pivotal event as things came to a head, and the Masada standoff loomed:

Some blame even has to fall on an unnamed Roman soldier,who in the spirit of Monty Python, farted in the general direction of a crowd of Jews.  [Josephus relates the following]:
'The people had assembled in Jerusalem for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Roman chort stood on guard over the Temple Colonnade.armed men always being on duty at the feasts to forestall any rioting by the vast crowds. One of the soldiers pulled up his garment and bent

          over indecently, turning his backside towards the Jews and

          making a noise as indecent as his attitude. 

Some would even attribute this..uh, shot.... heard around the world as the catalyst for the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of Rome.

If you imagine the roles reversed, and the Jewish freedom fighters offering a similar noise and attitude towards the Romans....maybe such is  a model for prophetic spiritual warfare against empire.

Jk....?

Beats violence.
If you didn't get the Monty Python reference, check this out,and consider reenacting this response the next time someone/something pressures you to cave into empire:

Most have never heard of the Sicarii,, theradical Jewish sect )Often confused with the Zealots) that Josephhus credits as staging the resistance at Masada...but they were pretty much a terrorist cell of freedom fighters.
Why not subvert violence, not with violence...but with a radical, peacefully violent "noise and attitude"?

Heck,, Eugene Peterson (suh a distinguished Presbyterian I bet he's never farted) might approve.  Do read  Eugene Peterson on loud farts

A later saint  (Francis no less_once suggested a similar strategy for spiritual warfare.
(I am not making this up):

But when the devil says to you again: ‘You are damned’,  you answer him confidently: ‘Open your mouth and I will shit in it’, and let it be a sign to you that he is the devil that when you say those words, he will immediately go away…

             -St Francis, Little Flowers, Part 1, Section 1. chapter 29 

Amos Young on Spirit/logos Christologies and atonement

Great post from Morgan Guyton:; excerpt:

I’ve been reading The Spirit Poured Out On All Flesh, a book by Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong, who could hardly be called “nascent.” He’s kind of like the Pentecostal Scot McKnight, well within the bounds of what evangelical sensibilities call “orthodox” while very sympathetic to postmodern concerns and critiques. And he offers a pneumatological account of atonement that seems to address a lot of the issues the emergents have with the traditional evangelical account of atonement, so he’s somebody that emergents like Tony really ought to read and learn from.

One of the things that Yong names which I had never heard articulated in quite the same way before is the coexistence of two Christologies in the New Testament. Yong calls the Christology of the synoptic gospels a Spirit Christology, which emphasizes the concrete account of Jesus’ humanity, while the Christology of John’s gospel is a logos Christology, which emphasizes the abstract account of Jesus’ divinity. Yong says that post-Chalcedon, the Western church has been left with a predominantly logos Christology because “the Synoptic Gospels were reduced to present what Jesus did, even as John’s gospel was understood to provide the definitive account of who Jesus really was” (110).

The result of a predominantly logos Christology is that the Spirit’s role in Christ’s atonement is minimized even though the Spirit is responsible for raising Jesus from the dead and “also remains present with Jesus through the passion, which ultimately separates the Father from the Son” (112). When atonement is understood in logos Christology terms, the result is an abstract transactional account (such as Anselm’s) in which the soteriological work of the cross is reduced to a math problem (e.g. infinite dishonor of sin + infinite sacrifice of Jesus’ blood = 0 debt owed).

So Yong seeks to show how a pneumatological soteriology is able to combine the best of the big three atonement theories: ransom/Christus victor, substitutionary, and moral influence. Here’s what he says about ransom theory:

How can the ransom theory remain plausible to the modern mindset, which has demythologized the idea of the devil? The pneumatological soteriology defended here not only reinvigorates the idea of the demonic… but reorients it according to contemporary sensibilities. Insofar as Satan represents the sum total of all evil and sin is thereby understood in cosmic and social terms, the ransom theory empowers a redemptive, nonviolent resistance against evil, following the example of Jesus… And insofar as the liberation of the captives accomplished by Jesus included the exorcism of demons from those held in bondage by destructive forces, so also does full salvation need to account for the triumph of Christ over the rulers and authorities of this present world. [113]

A pneumatological soteriology recognizes the power of the demonic and the need for salvation to involve the exorcism of demons from people’s lives, all of which affirms the ransom theory’s account of a need for captives to have their freedom “bought” by the blood of Jesus. This does not require believing in a literal anthropomorphic devil, only using Satan as short-hand for the evil to which we experience ourselves being enslaved.

Here’s what Yong does with satisfaction or penal substitutionary atonement:
Instead of being an outmoded notion limited to the feudal and penitential context of Anselm’s medieval period or a piece of legalistic speculation amidst the emerging Protestant city-states, I suggest that the satisfaction and substitutionary theories remain pertinent for our time. Given our increasing awareness of the web of interconnectedness that binds all life forms together to the point that human survival is always at the expense of other forms of life, including other human life, the blood guilt that is upon our own heads as survivors requires the atoning sacrifice of Jesus in order for us to engage each other, the earth, and the divine in good conscience… Insofar as the Spirit, who raised Jesus for our justification, also gives life to us, the experience of forgiveness of sins deals not merely with the covering of our past failures but also with the empowering of our future actions so that they retain their full moral and ethical significance. [115]
The key here, as I have argued before, is that Jesus is punished for the sake of our wholeness (Isaiah 53:5) and ability to act “in good conscience,” not for the sake of God’s need to spew wrath on His Son. Instead of bifurcating salvation into justification through the Son and sanctification through the Spirit, Yong understands justification and sanctification both in perichoretic trinitarian terms. The Spirit’s role in justification makes it more than a forensic legal fiction and binitarian Father/Son transaction; it is our empowerment to “go and sin no more,” knowing our forgiveness....  Full Post here