Had a great time at the Emergent Theological Conversation at Yale. I'm skipping the final session this morning - not 'cuz it was bad, but 'cuz I'd rather be spending time with my family and working on getting our support together to get back to London.
So...here are a couple thoughts:
1. Miroslav Volf was great. It's refreshing and powerful to hear a theologian speak out of his personal experience. Volf's views on forgiveness, exclusion, and embrace have been worked out in the midst of his life in the conflict-torn Balkans, and he has experienced the real-life outworkings of his theological views. One of the most gripping aspects of oppression that he discussed was the fact that both victim and oppressor are in need of repentance and forgiveness. There are no "innocents" in the world. This doesn't mean that victims are to be blamed for the violence they suffer, but that violence has a way of creating and inciting sin, even in the heart of the victim. The desire to plan and enact revenge is but one example.
2. One of the strongest things he had to say in my mind was in response to a question from Brian McLaren about the nature of the atonement. He spoke of his understanding of an "inclusive atonement", as opposed to an "exclusive atonement". The idea is that inclusive atonement entails our inclusion in Christ in his death and resurrection. Our guilt is not simply transferred outside of us and into Jesus...but our very selves are included in Jesus on the cross and out of the grave. He freely admitted that this raises the question of "how were we present?" to which he doesn't have easy answers.
3. I went to a break-out group on Diversity within the Emergent Community. A lively discussion...but I'm still processing it, and I'm not sure how far we really got in the conversation. One interesting thing I discovered from the conversation is that Emergent is seen by some in the church who would call themselves "liberal" as being very conservative...funny, since some "conservatives" see Emergent as far too liberal.
2 comments:
Dan,
Glad you had a good time at the conversation. I really enjoyed myself too. I think Brian's comments on atonement intrigued many people's imagination.
Blessings,
Kevin
Kevin,
I'd be interested to hear your take on that stream of the conversation. It was interesting to me, because I spent the past year in London, where Steve Chalke's book The Lost Message of Jesus was a fairly hot topic. Steve argues that the violent atonement as commonly understood amounts to "cosmic child abuse" and seems to opt for a non-violent view of the atonement. It seemed to me that Miroslav put his finger on the heart of the matter: The view of the atonement that sees God pouring out his wrath on his Son ought to be rejected not because it is violent, but because it is based on a flawed understanding of the trinity. It appeared that Brian wanted him to go further than he did in exploring a non-violent atonement. What did you think?
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