Accidental hipsters, the church, and making new history.

I have become a hipster, quite accidentally mind you. Apparently it's cool now to dye hair grey, to grow a big beard, and to wear clothes which were cool in the 90s. I tick all those boxes. Alas, I don't need to dye my hair, had a beard before it was cool (the most hipster thing ever), and I still own clothes from the 90's, although I no longer fit in them.
My wife was showing old holiday photos a while back, naturally aged so no need for Instagram filters, and a friend who was with us couldn't believe that there was a time before I had grey hair. A time before my midriff had drifted to a muffin-top, and when I didn't have to wear glasses to know who it is I'm talking too. I didn't always used to be a hipster, accidental or otherwise.

And this is often how it is with church. We assume that because is a certain way now, that's how it's always been. And today I want to look at something so many churches take for granted and assume has always been: Penal Substitution. It's the belief that Jesus' death on the cross somehow (because I'm not getting into theological semantics) paid a price to God to redeem humankind. This is the go to, default position for many churches the world over, even to the point that there are books on systematic theology published which list this as the only model of God having a closeness to humanity. I've no doubt that many of you are reading this and wondering where I'm going to go next since, according to your church, this IS the only way God can have a relationship with humanity. And then there's the other side of Christianity who are reading this and scratching their head because they've never heard this teaching before.

Models of atonement, the way God can be at one with humanity, is much like the toilet paper debate: Some scrunch, some fold, and it's something no one ever talks about so they assume that everyone does it the same way as they do. And just like my hipster approved grey hair, it didn't always used to be this way.

While today, most (almost all) Evangelical churches teach Penal Substitution, the number of adherents to this idea before 1500 were approximately zero. It just hadn't been invented until after the Reformation. There had been other theologies based on the crucifixion: One was 'ransom', that Satan had somehow captured the souls of humanity and God paid Jesus as a ransom fee to win them back. Of course, this is problematic. It implies that God doesn't have any rights to reclaim humanity.
Another is that Jesus was a great trick, that Satan was allowed to claim the souls of humans and that Jesus being both fully human and fully God meant that Satan overstepped his boundaries by claiming the soul of a God and so God could change the deal and start reclaiming human souls.

These ideas are, of course, problematic, which is why we don't hear much of them these days. Historically, these are the building blocks of Penal Substitution, and it's questionable just how popular they were with the church historically.
What was popular was Moral Influence. That Jesus lived the perfect life, and is the perfect example for God followers to follow.

Today we associate this teaching with Abelard in the tenth century (he of putting his pecker where it didn't belong and having it cut off fame, so maybe penile substitution there), but again, it's much, much older. Abelard says that he read it from Augustine. And it does seem, historically, to be a popular teaching. Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Iranaeus, Origen, Polycarp, and many many more all seem to agree that this is the model of atonement. As we've already seen, Augustine was a fan. He also taught the Ransom theory mind, and these two ideas seemed to live happily together until about the eleventh century when Anselm of Canterbury came up with an all new idea to replace Ransom: That Jesus was the Satisfactory sacrifice to bring atonement. This is probably the closest idea to Penal Substitution we've had until this point, but we aren't there yet.

So what about all of those Christians who died before hearing the teaching of Penal Substitution? And what about all those churches outside of the Evangelical tradition who still haven't heard it (remember when I said that it's closely linked to the Reformation)? Are they still good Christians? Will God have mercy on their souls? After all, these are the churches and Christians who didn't get on board with the current hipster trends and, instead, kept to the teachings of their ancestors.

All this is to say, just because this is how it is now, that doesn't mean that this is how it's always been. I didn't always have grey hair and a beard, and the church didn't always major on the death of Jesus.
Quite the opposite. Church used to focus far more on life. Jesus Himself said that He is life, and life in abundance. Paul says that the live is Christ. My fear is, that with all of the emphasis church has placed on death, that we are in danger of becoming a death cult. That the whole point to Christianity is that it only offers us a security when we die.

This reduces to life to merely a staging ground until our 'real' life begins once we shuffle off this mortal coil. It can potentially cheapen life and lead us away from social justice issues and towards a heavenly mindedness which is only concerned with the hereafter and not the here and now.

Maybe the church needs to reign it in on being hipsters, maybe we shouldn't always just to the cult of the new. Perhaps it's time we looked beyond what IS and towards what used to be and a new way of living in Jesus, not just hurtling towards our inevitable demise. Because life, that's something special.

This is a huge subject and there's a part two here. Please do come back.

Do The Right Thing: Psalm 72:1-8

Justice is one of the main themes in this reading, and justice is one of the main themes of God in the Bible.
We find two words in the Old Testament to represent justice: sedaqa and mispat. These words represent both the legal and ethical stance of justice. Legal because it is the process of deciding a case in civil or religious government, and ethical because justice is the standard of equality in all people before the law.
Interestingly, in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, many of the laws presented there deal differently with different classes of people. We find the phrase 'elite male' repeated to possibly represent their different standing with the law. The Mosaic laws are one of the few, in theory, which holds all people in equality. It's important here to say 'in theory'.

The terms used for justice are also linked with judgement. While we might want to shy away from the idea of judgement because, well, it conjures up images of people judging us, this isn't the best way to understand how the judgement of God is usually represented. The best examples would be the Minor Prophets.
Judgement was the acts of restoration, of righting past wrongs. That those who rob others would return what they have taken and that the wronged party would receive recompense.

Justice is part of the very nature of God.
In Isaiah we are told that whole communities will be judged on their treatment of the poor and oppressed (Isa 1:16-17; 3:15) and is the chief requirement of Gods people according to Micah: What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Mic 6:8)

We're all good Christians, until it comes to that Jesus stuff.

We're all good Christians, until it comes to that Jesus stuff. At least that's how I see things at the moment. We're great at learning the scriptures and arguing about what they might mean, we're fantastic at interpreting Jesus in a way which suits us. And even though we might not always get it right, I've got no problem with that. If I didn't like close reading, different perspectives, and interpreting the Bible, I don't think I'd have bothered getting a degree in all this stuff. Indeed, many of us would make very good Pharisees, good enough to make St Paul blush. And that's why I used a provocative title about being a Christian and not really being good like Jesus asked us to be. And I was quite deliberate in the words I chose.

It would have been very easy to have said that 'they're' good Christians except for the Jesus stuff, and had I said that, who would have come to mind? Would you be picturing the Evangelical right wing with their 'turn or burn' doctrine? Would you be thinking of those very high Papists who have replaced Jesus with Mary and the Bible with tradition? Maybe you're in that camp that all those happy clappy types have missed the real message? Or that a gay Christian is an oxymoron and has to pick one side or the other? Hopefully I've offended everyone with that list, if not please do let me know and I'll happily add you to it, I don't want anyone feeling left out. Every side believes that they're the right side and that everyone else has got it wrong, that the other side might even be very good at looking like Christians, but they've not got the Jesus stuff right.

I've noticed that many people feel this way, and that's why I want to personalise this and say 'we'. I'm making this inclusive, and I'm including myself first.

I hate it when I see people misuse Jesus, to co-opt Him for their own agenda. Have you ever heard the expression that the Christian right is neither? It's a clever turn of phrase but it's wholly incorrect. Those people you disagree with, they are Christians, every bit as much as you are. The same goes for gay Christians who the right call an oxymoron.
If we were having this discussion in the First Century we might be looking at the Pauline Circle and the Circumcision Party having a ding-dong over who were the real followers of the way, the real believers. The truth is, they all were. I'd like to think that by the time we reach the pearly gates, St Peter and St Paul have put away their boxing gloves and are enjoying a nice pint together, just waiting for the rest of us to turn up and tell us: That wasn't what we meant at all.
It might be hard for me to sometimes accept it, but those Christians who do things which I really hate, they are still Christians, and I have to love them.

And that's why we might be good Christians, but we aren't good when it comes to that Jesus stuff, because Jesus gives us hard lessons. Lessons like having to forgive one another, having to turn the other cheek, having to bear one another's burdens. If I was going to be really pedantic over it, I'd say something like 'we know that we are Christians because we love our brothers and sisters'. I know, I know, it's unfair to bring the words of Jesus into a discussion on how Christians should act. But it might be kind of important too.

No one has the monopoly on Christianity. Not the Reformers or the Catholics or the Orthodox. Not the charismatics or the Evangelicals. Not the left or the right. Jesus loves us all.
Here's a funny thing. I'm quite left wing, and I'm the pastor of an inclusive and affirming church. There are a lot of right wing churches nearby who won't fellowship with us because we aren't real Christians since we don't think the way they do. Likewise I used to get grief from the local Anglican priest because I don't subscribe to the rule of Bishops, so every communion that goes on in my church is not a real communion, it's a heresy. And here's the thing folks, while they may not see me as a Christian, I certainly see them as one, and so the command to love my brothers and sisters extends to those who might not see me as one.

Do you remember that time when Jesus spoke about only loving people who were just like you? I'm sorry to bring Jesus back into this, but it's kind of important. Well He said that's not really loving people. And this is where I want to really get to the meat of all this. How do we love those who we disagree with, and vehemently?

The short answer is love. We love them. We don't respond to them the way they treat us. Instead we do the Jesus thing and forgive them and work to reconciliation. And at this point I know what some of you are thinking: But Pastor Steve, they've really hurt me, they've kept me downtrodden for years, they are doing all of this out of hate. Yeah they probably are, and they definitely have. So you know how it feels, and it doesn't feel nice. They haven't treated you how Jesus would treat you, and they haven't treated you the way they would treat Jesus. Again, Jesus says that as we do to others we do to Him.
But you don't have to be the same as them. You can start to do the Jesus thing and treat them the way you would treat Jesus. Because if we don't, we're perpetuating that hatred, and denying the very way of living Jesus asks us to.

I can't remember where I heard the quote but someone once said that a victory won by violence is a victory for violence. And if these people hate you, then love them. Don't take up their weapons to use against them, instead turn their swords into ploughshares. And please don't think that just because they have hurt you that you are absolved from showing love. We did kill Jesus remember, and He still chose to love us.