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LLU School of Religion Dean Compares Atonement Metaphors to Golf Clubs

22 April 2013 | David Larson

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In sermons at the Loma Linda University Church on Sabbath, April 20, Jon Paulien, dean of the School of Religion, compared the Bible’s metaphors for atonement to golf clubs.

He used this comparison to make three points:

(1) The Bible offers a wide range of metaphors in its interpretations of the execution of Jesus and, more generally, God’s reconciling endeavors;

(2) Although they are all valuable, some metaphors are more helpful in some settings than others;

(3) More than ordinary wisdom is needed when attempting to match alternative metaphors with different settings.

The sermon as a whole offered a third alternative to two common approaches. One of these is to make the penal- substitution metaphor the most important of all. The other is to reject it altogether. The metaphor in question pictures a legal transfer of guilt for human sinfulness and sins to the innocent Jesus such that in his suffering and death he experienced the punishment that others deserve.

Paulien contrasted the joyful proclamation of this metaphor by people such as Martin Luther in the sixteenth century and the harsh reviews it sometimes receives from those in the twenty-first who believe that it makes God look like a cosmic torturer. He also recounted an important point in his life when this metaphor was very helpful and how, as time went on, it became less so.

After explaining that the meaning of atonement to be “at-one-ment,” and surveying how many metaphors the Bible uses for it, he gave eight of them special attention. As I remember them, these are the (1) sacrifice, (2) ransom, (3) propitiation, (4) legal, (5) cosmic conflict, (6) revelation, (7) exemplary and (8) new covenant metaphors.

Paulien compared these metaphors to different clubs in his golf-bag. Emphasizing how important it is to use the right club in each setting, he told the story of a golfing companion who hugely overshot his target because he swung with the wrong club. Using the penal-substitution metaphor in a hospital setting might be a similar mistake, he suggested. He stated that he has provided much more material on this topic at http://www.thebattleofarmageddon.com.

Pauline preached these sermons parallel to “The Cross: A Symposium on Atonement” which the Adventist Theological Society had convened at the Loma Linda University Campus Hill Church since Thursday evening, April 18. A subsequent report will cover its activities throughout the same Sabbath.

Editor's note: The link to Paulien's blog, http://www.thebattleofarmageddon.com, has been corrected.

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To the Atonement Summit at Loma Linda

21 April 2013 | Sigve Tonstad

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Here is an outline of what I would like to say to the Adventist scholars gathered for the Atonement Summit at Loma Linda:

1. Discontent, distrust, and alienation were introduced to the universe by Lucifer’s malicious misrepresentation of God. That’s the first jarring note; that’s how the problem began.

2. For God to set this problem right, God set out on a course of revelation: God would be revealed in Christ to prove Satan’s misrepresentation false.

3. This means that the so-called ‘moral influence theory’ of the atonement does not capture God’s revelatory action in Christ. God’s aim was not to impress humans subjectively; it was to set the record straight objectively even if no one would be impressed. Cosmic conflict views of the atonement have been badly misrepresented on this point because it is not a ‘moral influence’ theory.

4. Indeed, God’s revelation of Godself in Christ might not even work as moral influence because it does not seem like the right action. There should be soldiers and swat teams in our streets; there should be crusaders; there should be divine retribution. Instead, there is a lamb slaughtered, a victim of violence, and a ‘solution’ to the problem of evil that on first sight seems more a statement of the problem than a solution to it.

5. A cosmic conflict view of the atonement does not take a milder measure of sin than the notion of ‘penal substitution.’ In the cosmic conflict view, the cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain sin has brought to the heart of God.

6. The cosmic conflict view offers a benefit to ethics where ‘penal substitution’ has nothing or worse than nothing to offer. According to the cosmic conflict view, as goes the lamb so go those who follow the lamb. “If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword, with the sword he will be killed” (Rev 13:9). Here, the narrator in Revelation exclaims, is a point where everyone should think long and hard about the meaning of pistis (Rev 13:10). To make my point clearer by way of example, consider this: Anselm of Canterbury presented what is perhaps the most developed view of ‘penal substitution’ to Pope Urban II precisely at the point when the first crusaders were wading knee-deep in blood and climbing over corpses in Jerusalem in an outpouring of violence that exceeded prior horrors in that city. If there could have been a remedy for this divinely inspired carnage, Anselm did not know what it was or didn’t care; if there could have been a remedy, it would not have been his theory of penal substitution.

7. If anything can rescue the doctrine of penal substitution so as to make it a deserving notion in atonement theology, it will be the hugely corrective features in the cosmic conflict story. I am not sure whether the cosmic conflict account ought to spend its energies on fixing a paradigm so badly broken and so much a party to making God seem arbitrary, vengeful, and severe, but if anything can rescue the notion of penal substitution as viable theology, it will be the cosmic conflict story.

8. Views of at-one-ment must have a context; they must resonate in the world in which we live. Ours is not the world after the Flood but the world after the Holocaust, not the world after decisive action against evil but absence of action. Which view of at-one-ment will resonate in this world? I say with my Lutheran clergy friends that it will not be the hallowed evangelical view of the atonement. If there is a resource for this challenge, it might be the story of the cosmic conflict, its view of horrors and super-human evil, and its story of how God defeats the cosmic foe. Perhaps even this won’t work, but at least cosmic conflict theology makes it a priority to understand the absence of divine action.

9. The recent strides in Pauline studies, the breakthrough for apocalyptic and the notion of the faithfulness of Christ to mention just two, confound the doctrine of penal substitution but add legitimacy to the cosmic conflict story and richness to the musical score of cosmic conflict theology.

10. One more thought on this point: Luther’s theology of atonement is doctrine, and all scripture is either law or gospel. Only he or she who masters this distinction deserves to be called a theologian. But the cosmic conflict story suffocates in the straitjacket of doctrine; it must remain story. Luther’s insistence of law vs. gospel is contrived; human reality is more complex and so is the Bible.

11. Despite efforts in the past to stigmatize cosmic conflict theology as liberal or as mere ‘moral influence’ there is nothing liberal about it, except, perhaps, that it is more tolerant of divergent views, recognizing as it must that God did not shut down divergent views in heaven even when they were malicious and false.

12. The cosmic conflict story ends in an image of at-one-ment. “They shall see his face and his name shall be on their foreheads” (Rev 22:4). Thus ends the conflict over the character of God in the Bible. My friends in the Adventist theological communities may have other priorities, but I know what mine will be. And so they remain, the cosmic conflict story and the other eight views of the atonement, and greatest of these is the story of God revealed in Jesus.

ATS Symposium Explores Arrogance, Abelard, Shame, Teilhard, Bates, Gethsemane, Apocalypse and Assurance

21 April 2013 | David Larson

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Although support for the “substitutionary” interpretation of the execution of Jesus of was always close at hand, on Friday, April 19, the presenters at “The Cross: A Symposium on the Atonement” addressed a wide range of topics. They did so under the heading of “Historical and Theological Studies on Atonement” at the Loma Linda University Campus Hill Church.

The meetings ran a full twelve hours, from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm with a 90-minute break for lunch and 105 minutes for supper. The 30 or so participants throughout the day were told that these meals were “on your own.” A greater number attended the evening meeting.

After a devotional by Clinton Wahlen, Associate Director of the Biblical Research Institute of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Ed Zinke offered a critique of human arrogance. He warned against giving more authority to human reason than to divine revelation. He also informed the audience that God does need human reason when it comes to running the universe and reconciling its estranged citizens. An independent theologian and businessman, Zinke represented the Adventist Review.

Denis Kaiser, a doctoral candidate in Adventist Studies at Andrews University, offered a detailed analysis of the writings of Abelard, a medieval philosopher and theologian who is often accused of rejecting the idea of substitutionary atonement. Kaiser demonstrated that the “father of moral influence theory of the atonement” actually didn’t sire it. Rather, out of what Abelard took to be either ignorance or malice, even during his lifetime others falsely accused him of teaching it.

Kelvin Onongha, a doctoral student in missions at Andrews University, contrasted the differences between the individualism of many Western societies and the more communal ways of life elsewhere. He also differentiated between modern societies that emphasize “guilt” and others all over the world that stress “shame.” He contended that in some ways Biblical societies were more communal and shame-based, and that keeping this in mind can help in understanding the Old and New Testaments, particularly its ideas of bloody sacrifices. On the other hand, these differences often make it difficult for representatives of Christianity to be understood. Hence missionaries must listen as well as speak.

John Jovan Markovic, a professor of history at Andrews University who has special interests in the relations between Jews and Christians and current religious trends, presented an analysis of the contemporary emergence movement among Christians. According to the accounts of some of its most influential leaders, Teilhard Chardin is its philosophical resource as Aristotle was for Thomas Aquinas and Plato, or Neoplatonism, was for Augustine. As an expression of theistic evolution, the emergence movement has no need of any theory of atonement and it is often hostile to all of them. In a subsequent conversation, Markovic reported that it often endorses the kind of mysticism that most Jews, Christians and Muslims have long rejected because it fosters the “emptying” of the self.

Greg Howell, a pastor in the Washington Conference, presented a comparison of the published writings of Joseph Bates, a 19^th century follower of William Miller and one of the earliest Seventh-day Adventist leaders, and the notes he wrote in the margins of his personal Bible. Although these marginal notes differed theologically in some respects, in others they reinforce what Bates said and wrote in public. Among other things, Bates found, in the seven drops of blood the priests of Leviticus 16 liturgically offered in the traveling tabernacle of ancient Israel, seven additional years that stretched his expectation of the second coming of Jesus an extra seven years, from 1844-1851. James and Ellen disapproved of setting new dates and, when the second coming again did not occur when Bates had calculated it, he stopped as well. In a personal exchange, Larry Christoffel, one of the pastors of the Campus Hill Church, observed that the Whites gave up “shut door theology,” the ideas that only those who had gone through the Millerite movement could be part of their community of faith, in 1852. He wondered if the failure of Bates’ erroneous recalculation of the second coming of Jesus for 1851 was at all related. In any case, Bates’ thinking about the atonement was interwoven with his understanding of Biblical prophecy.

Adelina Alexe, a doctoral student in systematic theology at Andrews University, presented a narrative analysis of the prayers of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. By reviewing such things as the place, time, movements, words and characters depicted in Matthew 26: 36-56, as well as the one prop, which was the “cup” from which Jesus did not want to drink, she highlighted the intense struggle through which Jesus passed. Although she viewed the freedom and safety of the Garden, which was probably circled by a strong wall, as the last and decisive moments of his pre-execution life, she acknowledged in response to a question that it might have been the first step of Jesus toward His execution.

Larry Lichtenwalter, who serves as Dean of the School of Theology at Middle Eastern College, identified the personal and cosmological interpretations of the last book of the Bible. The first is that the theme of book is human sin and how God saves people from it. The second is that the book is about an attack on God’s character and about how the unending and longsuffering God is victorious ever it. Although he affirmed them both, Lichtenwalter argued that the personal, interpretation, which in his view includes a substitutionary interpretation of the execution of Jesus, is primary and that the cosmological one should be understood through it. When asked what difference it makes whether one starts with the personal or cosmological interpretation, providing that in the end one includes both, Lichtenwalter gave two answers. The first was that the Bible starts with the personal and so should we. The second was that, if we start from the cosmological one, we might never get to the personal one. This would mean that we would forfeit the forgiving and transforming gifts of God’s love.

Richard Davidson, J. N. Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Andrews University, offered the assurance of salvation to contemporary Seventh-day Adventists who are fearful of what will happen when their names come up in the Investigative or Pre-Advent Judgment that is now going on in heaven. Confessing that he was also once very anxious about this, he emphasized that the Bible portrays Jesus Christ as the sinner’s substitute, lawyer, star witness, judge, purifier and vindicator. In addition, he stated, that this process is also about God vindicating God’s own character. In view of these seven considerations, one need not fear the currently ongoing heavenly judgment. With that he led the audience in the singing of a hymn that celebrates the assurance of salvation. Tom Shepherd, the President of the Adventist Theological Society, offered the benediction and the day, which had long since died in the West was over.

Sabbath Sermon: Jesus Christ the Home of God, Part 1—by Alex Bryan

19 April 2013 | Alexander Carpenter

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Alex Bryan preached this sermon, "Jesus Christ the Home of God, Part 1," at the Walla Walla University Church on March 30, 2013. He begins speaking about 43 minutes into the recording.

Alex Bryan Named President of Kettering College

19 April 2013 | Kettering College

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From the Kettering College press release:

Kettering, Ohio (April 18) – Alex Bryan, D.Min., has been named the sixth president of Kettering College, effective June 1, 2013. He replaces Charles Scriven, Ph.D., who retires this spring after a 12-year tenure at the college.

Bryan has been senior pastor at Walla Walla University Church in College Place, Wash., for the last four years. In addition to teaching on the faculty in both the School of Business and the School of Theology at Walla Walla, he is a member of the President’s Cabinet, where he acts as advisor for vision and strategy for the university.

Bryan has traveled widely as a public speaker and is the author of a recent book, The Green Cord Dream, which explores a fresh vision for Seventh-day Adventist Christianity. He also is co-founder and co-chair of “the ONE project,” a grassroots organization exploring Christ-centered service in the 21st century. He served as lead pastor at New Community Church in Atlanta, Ga., for 11 years before becoming pastoral director for mission and ministry at Collegedale (Tenn.) Adventist Church from 2007-2009.

“We are delighted to have the Bryan family join our community,” said Roy Chew, chair of the Kettering College board of directors and president of Kettering Medical Center, which owns and operates the school. “Alex has a passion for education, learning and leadership. He will work with the Kettering College faculty and staff to continue to grow and improve the already excellent educational opportunities, making for an exciting future.”

“It is an honor to join such a wonderful team of educators and health care professionals,” said Bryan. “I am passionate about learning institutions like Kettering College, which trains its students in both professional excellence and meaningful Christian service. I look forward to contributing to a rich spirit of innovation as Kettering College pursues its unique and important mission in the days ahead. Adventist higher education has a long history of preparing men and women to make a rich, Christ-centered difference in the world. I am thrilled to be a part of this work.”

A graduate of Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tenn., Bryan received his bachelor’s degree in 1993 with a dual major of history and religion. He went on to obtain a Master of Divinity, with an emphasis in young adult ministry, from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich., in 1996. Bryan earned a Doctor of Ministry from George Fox University in Newberg, Ore., in 2009. His dissertation was entitled “The Role of Human Emotion in Christian Discipleship.”

The son of a pediatrician and a nurse, Bryan was raised in the mountains of western North Carolina. He is married to Nicole Ward Bryan, a high school counselor, and the couple has two children, Audrey (7) and William (2).

About Kettering College 
Kettering College is a fully accredited, coeducational college that specializes in health science education. A division of Kettering Medical Center, the College is located on the KMC campus in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, and is chartered by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Kettering College offers certificate programs, Associate and Bachelor of Science degrees, and a Master of Physician Assistant Studies degree.
Born out of Adventist faith and upholding Christ, Kettering College educates students to make service a life calling and to view health as harmony with God in body, mind, and spirit.

Kettering College Presidential History 
William C. Sandborn, Ph.D.                1966-69 
Winton H. Beaven, Ph.D.                   1970-83
 Robert A. Williams, Ph.D.                 1983-90 
Peter D. H. Bath, D.Min.                   1990-00 
Charles Scriven, Ph.D.                        2000-13 
Alexander Bryan, D.Min.                   2013-

Andrews University’s New Seminary Dean Unfolds His Interpretation of the Death of Jesus at Loma Linda

19 April 2013 | David Larson

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On Thursday evening, April 18, at Loma Linda, California, the incoming Dean of the Andrews University Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary offered an interpretation of the death of Jesus. A native of the Czech Republic, something that became important toward the end of his presentation, his name is Jiri Moskala. The occasion was the first session of “The Cross: A Symposium on Atonement” which the Adventist Theological Society organized and the place was the Campus Hill Church.

Moskala unfolded his interpretation in three steps. In the first, he emphasized the significance of the topic, the need to approach it with a humble attitude and the importance of an inclusive theory today. He stressed the danger of allowing contemporary sensibilities to distort current interpretations.

In his second step, Mosksala reviewed eight of the theories which Christians have developed over the centuries. These are the ransom, satisfaction, moral influence, Socinian, governmental, Christus Victor, penal substitutionary and nonviolent atonement alternatives. He identified weaknesses of each; however, in keeping with his inclusive approach, he put more emphasis upon the positive contributions each one makes to our understanding of God’s character. He reviewed the contributions of several contemporary Seventh-day Adventists in the same way. These were A. Graham Maxwell, Jack Provonsha, George Knight and Dan Smith. He expressed special appreciation for the work of Norman Gulley of Southern Adventist University

Although he highlighted positive features of all eight, Moskala’s greatest sympathies were with the penal substitutionary interpretations of sixteenth century Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin. He agreed with what they wrote about the seriousness of sin, the wrath of God and the contribution of Jesus in accepting the punishment that we deserve. But he explicitly rejected the doctrines of predestination and limited atonement that say that the positive consequences of the death of Jesus apply only to those whom God has chosen in advance. He didn’t say anything one way or another about the idea of original sin or about the Anabaptist or Roman Catholic Reformations views of the time.

In his third step Moskala outlined his own “Cosmic, Substituionary, Great Controversy Atonement Theory” and expounded it by appealing to a number of Biblical texts. This theory is “cosmic” in that it thinks of the battles with sin as more than the struggles within individuals, “substitutinary” because it says that Jesus accepted the punishment that humans deserve and part of the “Great Controversy” because of its focus on the universe-wide conflict about the character of God.. He described the atoning or reconciling accomplishments of the death of Jesus as “complete but not completed.” Only at the very end of the “Great Controversy” and the final elimination of sin will God be fully vindicated.

Centuries ago the Czeck Jon Hus declared that “The Truth of God will Prevail!” Moskala reported. During the “Velvet Revolution” Vaclav Havel proclaimed that “Truth and Love will Prevail!” Moskala’s own proclamation: “Truth, Love and Justice will Prevail!”

The Most Interesting Adventist in the World

18 April 2013 | Alexander Carpenter

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From the Florida Hospital Church team that brought us the pastors' wives singing "Before He Speaks," here's "The Most Interesting Adventist in the World."

Adventist Theological Society Convenes “The Cross: A Symposium on Atonement” at Loma Linda University

17 April 2013 | David Larson

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Although all Christians believe that the Roman Empire’s execution of Jesus of Nazareth more than two thousand years ago was an important event, they have somewhat different explanations as to why this is so. As they are everywhere else, these differences are present among the world’s eighteen million Seventh-day Adventists.

Giving them special attention, the Adventist Theological Society will launch “The Cross: A Symposium on Atonement” at the Loma Linda University Campus Hill Church at 7:00 pm on Thursday, April 18. The meetings will continue the whole of Friday, April 19, and the entirety of Sabbath, April 20.

In addition, as separate events, at the two worship services on Sabbath morning in the nearby Loma Linda University Church, Jon Paulien’s sermons will address the same topic. He is the Dean of the LLU School of Religion.

The symposium will begin on Thursday evening with a “Welcome and Orientation” by Felix Cortez of University of Montemorelos. A presentation titled “The Death of Christ and Theodicy: Main Theories of the Atonement and their Impact on Understanding the Character of God” will follow. It will be given by Jiri Moskala incoming dean of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University.

The meetings will conclude late on Sabbath afternoon with a panel consisting of Jiri Moskala, JoAnn Davidson, Richard Davidson, Roy Gane, John Jovan Markovic and Tom Shepherd of Andrews University. Ross Winkle from Pacific Union College will also join them.

The majority of the symposium’s presenters will be professors and students at Andrews University; however, there will be some from other places too. These will include one from the University of Montemorelos, one from the General Conference Biblical Research Institute, one from Middle East College, one from Pacific Union College, one from the Washington Conference and one from the world of business and the Adventist Review.

The Seventh-day Adventist colleges and universities in North America that will not have presenters in the symposium include the Adventist University of Health Sciences (formerly Florida Hospital College of Health Sciences), Canadian University College, Kettering College, La Sierra University, Loma Linda University, Union College, Southern Adventist University, Southwestern Adventist University, Walla Walla University and Washington Adventist University.

Some might view the symposium as an Andrews University event that is co-sponsored by Loma Linda University. This is not so. Andrews University and the Adventist Theological Society are organizationally distinct. Also, the Andrews University professors who will participate in the symposium constitute a small proportion of the approximately 50 faculty at its theological seminary and the 10 or so in its Department of Religion and Biblical Languages. As is the case everywhere else, AU’s religion professors don’t all agree about everything and they don’t all share the same understanding of atonement.” The symposium will therefore be an activity of the Adventist Theological Society and not Andrews University, even though there is considerable overlap in their personnel. Also, it will take place on the campus of LLU without being sponsored by it.

The Adventist Theological Society is one of two independent associations that serve Seventh-day Adventist college and university religion teachers. It sprouted from the earlier association, now called the Adventist Society for Religious Studies, for several related reasons. One of these was theological. Many of those who formed the ATS believed that the ASRS was insufficiently supportive of the denomination’s doctrinal positions. A second factor was logistical. Although the ASRS grew in numbers, it was reluctant to schedule concurrent sessions at its annual meetings. The result was that the opportunities to present papers and so forth were limited and some felt that even these were not distributed equitably. A third factor was cultural. Differences in how people dressed, talked, ate, read, worshipped and respected authority became increasingly uncomfortable for many. A fourth factor was professional. The ASRS has held its annual meetings in conjunction with those of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion whereas the ATS has aligned itself with the Evangelical Theological Society which often meets at the same time. A fifth factor was psychological. Those who formed the ATS often felt that the greatest danger facing the denomination is that it will not be true it its past. Many of those in the ASRS were equally anxious that it might forfeit its future.

All members of the ATS can be members of the ASRS and many are; however, the opposite is not true. This is because the ATS requires its members to adhere to a very specific list of theological positions whereas the ASRS doesn’t. The two societies often meet around the time of other professional meetings for one meal and scholarly papers by the two presidents.

Paragraph “a” in Section 2 of Article III in the Constitution of the Adventist Theological Society reads as follows:

The Society affirms that Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross was both the supreme revelation of God’s love for humankind and atoning sacrifice for sin and that his life provided a perfect example for His people to imitate. His substitutionary death pays the penalty for sin, provides forgiveness, and creates gratitude and saving faith in all who receive Him. The cross is central to every aspect of life and work, of witness and outreach, of research and doctrine.

This statement, with its emphasis on “substitution,” will strike many as an unusually focused understanding of atonement. It is more common to be reminded that the Biblical writers used many different analogies to explain the meaning and importance of the execution of Jesus. Because each of these analogies illumines some features of God’s reconciling or atoning endeavors and obscures others, we need them all and we need them to interact in mutually informing and mutually correcting ways. One analogy is not sufficient, most people in all denominations hold. Neither is a plurality of analogies that are controlled by any one of them as though it trumps all the others.

It will be interesting to hear what the presenters at the ATS symposium will say this weekend.