Saved from Sacrifice // Chapter 8

This post is part of a review series for S. Mark Heim’s Saved from Sacrifice. To start at the beginning, click here.

S. Mark Heim – Saved from Sacrifice

We will be skipping over chapters 6 & 7 in Heim’s book. While I found those chapters informative, I did not think they served to move the arguments around the main thrust of the book forward. (Chapter 6 discussed some of the post-apostolic period of the early Christian church and its relation to sacrifice; chapter 7 was basically a summary chapter and also discussed two mistakes commonly made regarding discussions about the cross within Christianity: namely, Christian Gnosticism and anti-Semitism.)

Chapter 8 is the first chapter in the third and final section of the book, which is entitled “In Remembrance of Me: The Cross that Keeps Faith Empty.” This entire section focuses on the aftermath of how the Church is meant to respond to this theology of the cross within its communal setting. Also, the next post in the series will be the final one, as we will combine chapters 9 & 10.

Heim suggests that when we view the cross in this new way that is being discussed, three sides of the cross present themselves (the first two were presented in earlier chapters): 1) “We see first the hidden, mythic practice of scapegoating that it reveals” (244). While the practice of sacrificial scapegoating began to be revealed in the Hebrew scriptures, the practice wasn’t fully revealed (according to Heim) until the Passion narratives. 2) “Second… we see that God opposes scapegoating sacrifice and has acted to vindicate the scapegoat” (ibid.). Normally, when scapegoating occurs, the deity of the tribe is found to be against the victim – the Gospels flip this system on its head. In showing the system for what it is, Jesus is the victim and is vindicated in full view. 3) “Third, we see the cross and resurrection as a charter for a new way of life” (ibid.). This final part is what we will review and discuss today.

The New Community

According to Heim, it is a good thing that sacrificial scapegoating is completely revealed as unjust in the Gospels. Unfortunately, it is not good enough. The truth of the matter is, scapegoating (despite its inherent evil) actually does solve a community’s problems. Regardless of its injustice, the victimization and sacrifice of an individual or a minority serves to stave off conflict within communities.

So, what happens when a community is forced to rid itself of the most effective way of removing conflict from its midst? Surely we are all aware that we are still broken people – our faith does not simply cause us to lose our differences of opinion. We require a new way of dispelling conflict without victimization (which we so easily fall into).

Heim gives three distinct ways in which the new community, in light of Christ’s death and resurrection, is able to dispel conflict. The first is the sending of the Holy Spirit. For the author, the Holy Spirit plays (at least) a dual role in the world. First, the Spirit is the paraclete (or advocate) for scapegoats and victims. This was a part of an earlier chapter that we did not discuss.

The second – and, I believe, more important – role is “the inspiration and nurture of a new kind of community” (227). Take Acts 4:27-33 for example. The beginning of the passage talks about the collective violence used against Christ, but moves on to discuss the Holy Spirit in the role of the community:

When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness. Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common… and great grace was upon them all.

It is in the context of the falling of the Holy Spirit that the believers are able to do things like hold their possessions in common and live in grace – ways of life which would easily dispel conflict. Heim says “The notable work of the Holy Spirit… is to bring unity across difference and division” (228), in much the same way Paul says there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. The normal socio-economic barriers of the day, though the labels remain, are broken through in light of the end of scapegoating.

Along with the work of the Holy Spirit, the two major practices of the early Church – baptism and communion – were meant to be unifying for the community and a way to replace sacrificial scapegoating.

Baptism

While baptism existed before Jesus’ ministry (e.g., John the Baptist), baptism is one of the defining features of the early Christian community through the present day. This act is symbolic in several ways. In relation to scapegoating and baptism, Paul says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3, 4).

In baptism, we are able to participate in Christ’s sacrifice in a non-sacrificial way. Baptism helps to replace scapegoating via identification with Jesus’ death as a scapegoat. God’s intent is to establish reconciliation in a way that entirely avoids scapegoating to mitigate conflict. To this, Heim writes, “We were not actually killed with Jesus, but we associate ourselves with that death through baptism, aligning ourselves with the victim, not the persecutors” (229).

Communion

Along with baptism, communion serves as the other method of dispelling conflict without sacrifice in the life of the Christian community. Heim states:

God exalts and vindicates the crucified one. But God does not do so through retribution and violence. Instead a new community forms, built around the memory of a justified sacrifice. They gather for their central act not to ritually perform another sacrifice but rather through the simplest of meals to recall the one whose death is to be final, to deliver us from further violence (231).

The purpose of communion, related to scapegoating, is twofold. First, it serves as an explicit reminder of the sacrifice made by Jesus. Just as the Passion narratives reveal the sacrificial system for what it is, so the elements in communion serve to remind the community that victims (and the Victim) are real, made of flesh and blood.

Second, and equally important, is the simple reality of sharing the table with the entire community in light of Christ’s antisacrificial death. “Just as bread and wine replace victims, so does this act become the unifying bond among the members, instead of a shared participation in killing… The crowd does not gather around a body; it gathers to become Christ’s body in the world, animated by the Holy Spirit of peace” (233).

Mimesis and Peace

Earlier in the book, Heim discusses the human tendency towards imitation (or mimesis). While it is quite common for our imitation of others to lead to rivalry, envy, and violence, it is also possible for mimesis to work in the opposite direction. In other words, we can either imitate the violence we see in others or we can imitate a model of peace for and in the community.

If one of Jesus’ primary missions was to help save us from redemptive violence (something that works, but shouldn’t happen), then Jesus must become our model for desire. Typically, our mimesis is directed towards the desires of an ‘other.’ This boils over into conflict and rivalry as we desire the object or person or profession (etc.) that we perceive our ‘model’ possesses or desires.

However, when Jesus becomes the model for the community, our mimetic desire is redeemed, because “what [Jesus] has designated as desirable is precisely nonrivalry itself. If people will contest with each other for this goal, they can attain it only be ceasing to contest with each other” (241).

This is the beauty of the new community, founded on an Event that in itself is against redemptive violence and sacrificial scapegoating. While these particular acts are generally a foundation for the structure of a community or society to survive amidst conflict, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection serve to reveal these founding acts as evil. Post-resurrection, the model of the Christ is used as a foundation of a new community that operates in direct contrast to the corrupt system of sacrificial scapegoating.

Saved from Sacrifice // Introduction: A Stumble to Start With

At the risk of adding too much to my plate, I’d like to start another series on the blog, mainly for my own purposes. Since I graduated back in December, I decided that I would spend my extra time reading books that I was unable to during my undergraduate career due to time constraints or whatever else. In keeping with the promise I made to myself, I have read six books up to this point this year (which may not be much to some, but with a toddler running around, I have to say I’m impressed with myself!), and plan to read about thirty to forty by year’s end.

S. Mark Heim – Saved from Sacrifice

While doing so, I would also like to start an intensive book reviewing series. I’m not sure how often, but the current plan will be weekly, and I would like to start with Mark Heim’s Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross (if you would like to see the other books I plan to read this year, click here).

Since the period of deep doubt and deconstruction of my faith began (it is by no means complete, nor do I think it ever will be), I have found my former understanding of the atonement as a penal substitution both untenable and – the more I read – unbiblical. This is where Saved from Sacrifice comes in. In his rethinking of the atonement, Heim is most strongly influenced by René Girard’s mimetic theory and sociological discoveries. These topics will be covered as we engage with Heim’s writing, chapter-by-chapter. Bear in mind that my primary reason for these reviews is for my own future reference. However, if you are reading and feel like you can contribute helpful dialogue and push-back, I will gladly welcome it!

So, let’s kick it off!

Heim starts the introduction with a recognition that any book about the atonement will be necessarily lacking. To reduce the work of Christ to simply the crucifixion and/or resurrection is always a mistake, and the author recognizes this from the start. However, this does not eliminate the need to talk about what happened at the cross, and why it’s important. Most of the current evangelical atonement theologies center around Christ as a sacrificial atonement for the sins of humanity. In other words, humanity has disobeyed God, and because of this, God’s sense of justice requires a blood sacrifice in repayment. Jesus, in this scenario, operates as the sacrifice that takes the punishment we ‘deserve,’ thereby allowing us to once again live in harmony with God (assuming we intellectually assent to this ‘truth’).

The problem is, in an increasingly modern culture, a God that demands a such a brutal punishment so that the ‘chasm’ between humanity and the divine could be crossed simply doesn’t make sense. Surely if God is ‘omnipotent,’ there had to be another way? (An idea Tony Jones discusses in one of his recent “Questions that Haunt Christianity” posts.) And if there was another way, we need to squarely come to grips with the fact that we believe in and worship a vengeful, violent deity. Heim says it this way:

This book is written because many find it hard to make sense of “Christ died for us.’ And it is written because others find it perfectly understandable and entirely objectionable, a dark brew of self-abnegation, violence, and abuse. They contend that belief in the redemptive power of Jesus’ death amounts to masochistic idealization of suffering. (3)

Of course, this is not to say that we need to scrap the atonement entirely for the sake of making Christianity somehow ‘relevant.’ Instead, we need to find an atonement that is both viable for the 21st century and takes biblical authority and tradition seriously (a point I agree with, even in spite of my disdain for ‘inerrancy’).

Atonement in Tradition

Before discussing what he notes as three or four major atonement theories throughout history that have dominated (at least western) Christianity, Heim briefly notes something very important. Theories of how the atonement work have NEVER been universally agreed-upon. Not only that, but they have also never been a part of creeds or statements of (‘little o’) orthodoxy. In other words, throughout history, Christians as a whole have never said that in order to be ‘saved,’ one must understand the atonement in a particular way. This includes the understanding of the Christ’s sacrifice as a substitution for our sins so humanity would not be punished and God’s wrath could be appeased. This – I think – should give us pause, especially those of us who, either currently or in the past, think (or thought) the only real way to be ‘saved’ is to believe in and accept what Jesus did on the cross as a substitution. That being said, here are the four major atonement theories:

1. Penal Substitution – We’ve already discussed this one somewhat, so I’m not going to rehash. Plus, if you’re Evangelical or have Evangelical friends, you have no doubt heard this theory in one way or another.
   
2. Moral Influence (or ‘Exemplarist’) – This theory suggests that Christ’s death “is meant to save us by making such a moving exhibition of God’s love that we are inwardly stirred to gratitude and service in return” (5). Though I could be wrong here, it seems to me that most of those who adhere to the ‘exemplarist’ model don’t (or at least don’t need to) take the divinity of Christ seriously. Heim also notes that it is best to understand Christ’s death within this theory not as “a transaction, but an inspiration” (5).
3. Christus Victor – If you are at all familiar with The Chronicles of Narnia, particularly The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, then you may have a pretty good idea of how this theory works. Essentially, the cross is seen as God’s victory over some kind of power or third party (e.g., Satan, sin, etc.). God’s victory comes about by either paying a ransom (as if God is powerless to save humanity any other way) or “some form of trickery” — (think about how shocked the White Witch was that Aslan came back, despite their ‘deal’ to save Edmund).
4. The Incarnational Model – Rather than focusing on the crucifixion as the crux to God’s saving work, the incarnational model views the divine incarnation in Jesus as the saving work. “God retraces the whole pattern of human life… transforming from within what has gone wrong with sinful humanity” (6). This theory/model focuses on God’s solidarity with humanity, up until and even through death.
   

Heim also notes at the end of this section that Christians most often understand the atonement as a combination of two or three of these theories to address different aspects of life. Although Heim and Scot McKnight seem to think that penal substitution can be combined with other theories, I disagree. If one accepts penal substitution as true, at best, other theories must take a backseat to substitution. (Tad DeLay has some thoughts on this here.)

The problem, for most people, is the notion of Christ as ‘sacrifice.’ Not only is the language archaic (i.e., some of its meaning is lost on us as modern westerners), but – to put it bluntly – it just sounds sort of sadistic. If we are going to take both Scripture and tradition seriously, we cannot simply get rid of the sacrificial language. However, what we can do is re-imagine it – hopefully in a way that gets closer to what Scripture was saying and more closely relates to Jesus’ peaceful, non-violent mission.

The Argument, in a Nutshell (The Anthropology of the Cross)

As Heim re-imagines the sacrificial language, he writes that the Gospels (and particularly the passion accounts) turn sacrificial language on its head. Normally, in ancient sacrificial scapegoating cultures (which is common to nearly every society, according to Girard), “communities solve their internal conflicts by uniting against a chosen victim… [which] staves off more generalized factional or retributive violence” (15). Not only that, but generally, the victim in these cultures generally stayed ‘invisible.’ Their story was unimportant; they were simply a means to an end. The Gospels, however, not only show God entering into our broken system of ‘justice’ – they tell the story from Christ’s (the victim’s!) perspective. The victim is no longer invisible, but is put on display for all to see.

The Hebrew scriptures, as Heim and others have noted, actually already point to the inherent injustice in the sacrificial scapegoating system. Nevertheless, the ultimate portrayal of its injustice is found and shown directly in the murder of Jesus as the ‘victim on display.’

This is where Heim will continue his writing, and where we will begin next time.