Interesting that so many Christians in recent years are yearning for re-enchantment. I'm currently writing a PhD about the subject: the whys, the features, and the possible remedies.
I hope there is a real good at the end of so much yearning. But I keep hearing Ivan Illich in the back of my mind: perhaps modern people have lost the practices that generated participation and are now trying to purchase re-enchantment as an experience.
We've traded tourism for pilgrimage, wellness for asceticism, spirituality for liturgy, symbolic fascination for sacramental participation, and authenticity for virtue.
…and do I escape my own critique? I’m not so sure…
I'm not so sure that the various atonement theories are at odds with one another. When you read Romans to understand the salvation that Jesus provides, you get the penal, forensic, and justification through faith elements there in chapters 4 and 5. But later in chapters 6 through 8 you get the 'mystical' union of being baptized into his death and going on into his ressurection to become one new man, Christ in the church and the church in Christ. I don't see any conflict here. They are different facets of the full-orbed miracle of salvation and new birth Jesus provides us.
At 66 I'm less enchanted than ever. When I was 5 I believed in a literal easter Bunny and when I was 12 believed in ghosts and UFOs. As a more charismatic type in my 20s I believed in generational curses and oppressive spirits. My renewed interest in the supernatural world the past 15 years is 100% theoretical. While I wish it we more tangible, I don't welcome a return to waking from a nightmare I thought satan had planted in my brain.
I agree with this in part. The Reformers still inhabited a profoundly enchanted world and yet were among those who helped foreground more forensic accounts of the atonement. To that extent, explaining the shift primarily through disenchantment risks a degree of anachronism.
I don't know Aulén well enough to make this claim confidently, but the quotation seems to obscure something deeper that occurred in the modern era. For a variety of reasons, our culture gradually shifted from a participatory ontology to a representational epistemology. Reality came to be understood less as something we inhabit and participate in, and more as something we observe, analyze, and describe.
This shift was accompanied by a growing tendency toward abstraction and dissection. The ancient Church could speak simultaneously of victory, sacrifice, justification, participation, recapitulation, and deification. These were not competing theories so much as interwoven aspects of a single reality.
We, by contrast, often inherit only the fragments. Having learned to divide, classify, and isolate, we struggle to recover the unity that once held these motifs together. Even our romantic attempts at re-enchantment often seem unable to put the patient back together on the operating table.
MacIntyre is surely right that we have lost many of the living traditions that once made these symbols, practices, and moral vocabularies intelligible from within.
If you've ever read about the tragedy of the space shuttle Challenger and how the events leading up to it "took on a life of their own" you begin to realize how much the people who came up with Christus Victor understood of "...all that is, seen and unseen".
In the last 10-20 yrs I have been persuaded that the demonic is very real. But, unlike angels, demons, Powers, Satan, etc are not created by God but rather generated as malaise or force that is bigger than individual human psychology. Good examples are mimetic desire or fear of scarcity or fear of death operating at a communal level. Scapegoating and mob violence and other sacrificial systems are the most dramatic examples.
I am not sure (as always), but I feel pretty skeptical about demons and such. But the penal substitutionary idea arouses every bit as much skepticism in me. I tend to think of the atonement along the lines of God apologizing for thrusting us into this reality that includes, beside incredible beauty and joy and love, a huge amount of suffering and fear and hatred. The title of today's article, "Atonement After Enchantment" suggests that this is post 1 in a series. I hope so. I am curious to see if enchantment, or re-enchantment, means accepting the reality of demons again, and I would like to see the case for that being made.
I became familiar with the Christus Victor theory through author and theologian Greg Boyd. Having been disturbed by a series of dreams I sought counsel from a therapist and my pastor at the time. I went on a journey of creating space, journaled, walked in prayer and sat in silence. It was during this time I read Beck's book, Chasing Magic Eels, which turned a curious eye in me.
Though I do not prescribe to the recreational use of psychedelics, studies have shown good success with traumatic PTSD and severe anxiety. Interestingly, during these studies the participants encountered non-human intelligences, some taking human form and others akin to animals, including dwarf like beings. Whether they are products of our beautifully complex minds or parts of our collective psyches, they can be benevolent while others can and do bring harm to our souls.
Modern theraputic modalities such as Internal Family Systems start by helping the patient become aware of our individual multiplicity, such as simply "a conflicted part of me wants to sleep in this morning, but another part shames me to get to the gym". Or more complex is that I love my spouse but a part of me is angered by how she routinely tells me how to drive while another part of me tries to talk me down before I bark back unlovingly to her. Recognizing this natural internal dialog is key.
Recently however, IFS therapists have documented encounters with parts that do not belong, hiding behind soul wounding childhood traumas. In other encounters these "Others in or among us" appear to be inherited legacy traumas. Think of children of enslaved blacks, children of holocaust survivors, children of the Great Depression, sins of the father...
Cultures across history have given names to these non human intelligences (NHI), sometimes idolizing, many times encapsulating into mythological stories of dragons, elves and fairies, and most recently UFO and alien abductions. All wearing the masquerades borrowed from the culture’s most recent theatrical wardrobe. Not being human, they require a form to be realized (or an idol to be worshipped).
In the scriptures we are told of angels and vistors, some benevolent, others malevolent (killing first born male children). We are cautioned to discern the spirits, to not slander the holy ones.
I do not understand any of this, but I believe we have been deceived by the limits of our perception and understanding. All Creation groans for restoration, a releasing from the fowler's snare. How wide and how deep is all creation? The distance to far off hidden galaxies, the bizarre interworkings of the human cell and the fossilized remnants of ancient worlds suggest a broad definition of Creation, maybe even a spiritual dimension as well?
When reflecting on the paradigmatic shift from a Mythological to more Legalistic atonement frame of reference, the culture and economics of Feudalism potentially played significant role. Laws, rules and regulations became more transnational and hierarchal, as a human centered form of authority took precedence over daily life. It may be that Anselm’s ‘Supererogatory Obedience’ woven into his ‘Satisfaction Theory of Atonement’ teased out in his ‘Cur Deus Homo’ work, which had a huge impactful influence on the theological world of his day, clearly set the stage for a more assertive forensic and consequential understanding of the Passion. After all, it was a “Trial”, in a human sense, but metaphorically and prophetically, So, So much more! Also, I think this shift occurred due to the ‘Pistis Christou’ debate (subjective generative) verses the (objective genitive) understanding of that phase that grew more intense during the Reformation. Is it Our human faith in his work on The Cross, or was it more his Own faith in full supererogatory obedience to the Father, that saves us? The later feels more mysteriously mythological, whereas in the first instance, it feels more legalistic and transactionally dependent upon our agency.
Interesting that so many Christians in recent years are yearning for re-enchantment. I'm currently writing a PhD about the subject: the whys, the features, and the possible remedies.
I hope there is a real good at the end of so much yearning. But I keep hearing Ivan Illich in the back of my mind: perhaps modern people have lost the practices that generated participation and are now trying to purchase re-enchantment as an experience.
We've traded tourism for pilgrimage, wellness for asceticism, spirituality for liturgy, symbolic fascination for sacramental participation, and authenticity for virtue.
…and do I escape my own critique? I’m not so sure…
I'm not so sure that the various atonement theories are at odds with one another. When you read Romans to understand the salvation that Jesus provides, you get the penal, forensic, and justification through faith elements there in chapters 4 and 5. But later in chapters 6 through 8 you get the 'mystical' union of being baptized into his death and going on into his ressurection to become one new man, Christ in the church and the church in Christ. I don't see any conflict here. They are different facets of the full-orbed miracle of salvation and new birth Jesus provides us.
At 66 I'm less enchanted than ever. When I was 5 I believed in a literal easter Bunny and when I was 12 believed in ghosts and UFOs. As a more charismatic type in my 20s I believed in generational curses and oppressive spirits. My renewed interest in the supernatural world the past 15 years is 100% theoretical. While I wish it we more tangible, I don't welcome a return to waking from a nightmare I thought satan had planted in my brain.
I agree with this in part. The Reformers still inhabited a profoundly enchanted world and yet were among those who helped foreground more forensic accounts of the atonement. To that extent, explaining the shift primarily through disenchantment risks a degree of anachronism.
I don't know Aulén well enough to make this claim confidently, but the quotation seems to obscure something deeper that occurred in the modern era. For a variety of reasons, our culture gradually shifted from a participatory ontology to a representational epistemology. Reality came to be understood less as something we inhabit and participate in, and more as something we observe, analyze, and describe.
This shift was accompanied by a growing tendency toward abstraction and dissection. The ancient Church could speak simultaneously of victory, sacrifice, justification, participation, recapitulation, and deification. These were not competing theories so much as interwoven aspects of a single reality.
We, by contrast, often inherit only the fragments. Having learned to divide, classify, and isolate, we struggle to recover the unity that once held these motifs together. Even our romantic attempts at re-enchantment often seem unable to put the patient back together on the operating table.
MacIntyre is surely right that we have lost many of the living traditions that once made these symbols, practices, and moral vocabularies intelligible from within.
If you've ever read about the tragedy of the space shuttle Challenger and how the events leading up to it "took on a life of their own" you begin to realize how much the people who came up with Christus Victor understood of "...all that is, seen and unseen".
In the last 10-20 yrs I have been persuaded that the demonic is very real. But, unlike angels, demons, Powers, Satan, etc are not created by God but rather generated as malaise or force that is bigger than individual human psychology. Good examples are mimetic desire or fear of scarcity or fear of death operating at a communal level. Scapegoating and mob violence and other sacrificial systems are the most dramatic examples.
I am not sure (as always), but I feel pretty skeptical about demons and such. But the penal substitutionary idea arouses every bit as much skepticism in me. I tend to think of the atonement along the lines of God apologizing for thrusting us into this reality that includes, beside incredible beauty and joy and love, a huge amount of suffering and fear and hatred. The title of today's article, "Atonement After Enchantment" suggests that this is post 1 in a series. I hope so. I am curious to see if enchantment, or re-enchantment, means accepting the reality of demons again, and I would like to see the case for that being made.
I became familiar with the Christus Victor theory through author and theologian Greg Boyd. Having been disturbed by a series of dreams I sought counsel from a therapist and my pastor at the time. I went on a journey of creating space, journaled, walked in prayer and sat in silence. It was during this time I read Beck's book, Chasing Magic Eels, which turned a curious eye in me.
Though I do not prescribe to the recreational use of psychedelics, studies have shown good success with traumatic PTSD and severe anxiety. Interestingly, during these studies the participants encountered non-human intelligences, some taking human form and others akin to animals, including dwarf like beings. Whether they are products of our beautifully complex minds or parts of our collective psyches, they can be benevolent while others can and do bring harm to our souls.
Modern theraputic modalities such as Internal Family Systems start by helping the patient become aware of our individual multiplicity, such as simply "a conflicted part of me wants to sleep in this morning, but another part shames me to get to the gym". Or more complex is that I love my spouse but a part of me is angered by how she routinely tells me how to drive while another part of me tries to talk me down before I bark back unlovingly to her. Recognizing this natural internal dialog is key.
Recently however, IFS therapists have documented encounters with parts that do not belong, hiding behind soul wounding childhood traumas. In other encounters these "Others in or among us" appear to be inherited legacy traumas. Think of children of enslaved blacks, children of holocaust survivors, children of the Great Depression, sins of the father...
Cultures across history have given names to these non human intelligences (NHI), sometimes idolizing, many times encapsulating into mythological stories of dragons, elves and fairies, and most recently UFO and alien abductions. All wearing the masquerades borrowed from the culture’s most recent theatrical wardrobe. Not being human, they require a form to be realized (or an idol to be worshipped).
In the scriptures we are told of angels and vistors, some benevolent, others malevolent (killing first born male children). We are cautioned to discern the spirits, to not slander the holy ones.
I do not understand any of this, but I believe we have been deceived by the limits of our perception and understanding. All Creation groans for restoration, a releasing from the fowler's snare. How wide and how deep is all creation? The distance to far off hidden galaxies, the bizarre interworkings of the human cell and the fossilized remnants of ancient worlds suggest a broad definition of Creation, maybe even a spiritual dimension as well?
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing that and exploring some fascinating ideas and experiences.
When reflecting on the paradigmatic shift from a Mythological to more Legalistic atonement frame of reference, the culture and economics of Feudalism potentially played significant role. Laws, rules and regulations became more transnational and hierarchal, as a human centered form of authority took precedence over daily life. It may be that Anselm’s ‘Supererogatory Obedience’ woven into his ‘Satisfaction Theory of Atonement’ teased out in his ‘Cur Deus Homo’ work, which had a huge impactful influence on the theological world of his day, clearly set the stage for a more assertive forensic and consequential understanding of the Passion. After all, it was a “Trial”, in a human sense, but metaphorically and prophetically, So, So much more! Also, I think this shift occurred due to the ‘Pistis Christou’ debate (subjective generative) verses the (objective genitive) understanding of that phase that grew more intense during the Reformation. Is it Our human faith in his work on The Cross, or was it more his Own faith in full supererogatory obedience to the Father, that saves us? The later feels more mysteriously mythological, whereas in the first instance, it feels more legalistic and transactionally dependent upon our agency.
Thanks Kanye