a few more . .

Ok, since it seems to have grabbed the interest of so many, allow me to state a few of my other objections to the various trinitarian/atonement/divinity theories.  I am open to thinking divergent to my own, but these are the issues I keep getting hung up on.  In no particular order:

1.  "The Crucified God" - I have not yet read this particular book, but I do have some objections to the general concept that God himself was crucified.  As I hear it, God alone is perfect, and as a perfect being he demands a perfect sacrifice to atone for men's sins.  So therefore, in order for Jesus' sacrifice on the cross to count, Jesus had to have been perfect.  So, syllogistically we come to see none other than God himself in the person of Jesus hanging on the cross, offering himself for our sins.

Here's where it breaks down for me.  We believe in a God who is not merely the Creator of the universe, but also the Sustainer.  We are not here because God spoke, but because he is always speaking.  We are maintained by the fact that he is always singing our name.  So, if God dies the song dies too.  This also brings me to the second big objection I have:

2.  If God dies by what power is he raised?  If God is dead, then nihilism is our only option.  This is one platform I can't abandon.  We have hope of a resurrection because we believe in a God who can't die.  We believe in a God who is life.  If the source of all life suffers death, then all is lost.  I fully support a christology in which God identifies with his messiah (Son), and even one in which he suffers immanently in his chosen.  I can't believe in a God who dies on the cross, because if God dies there is no one with the power to raise him.  Rather the beauty I find in the story of Jesus is a hope in what was beyond hope.  In Jesus, I see the greatness of human drama in which when it appears that even God himself had forsaken this rejected messiah, unforeseen at the last moment, God, the source of all life, vindicates Jesus by assuming him into God's own eternal life.  But, for me, this hinges on the reality of God's eternal deathlessness.  If God dies, I see no means by which a resurrection is possible.  Radical theology becomes the only line of thought that makes any sense.

I'm pretty much at a point where I'm ok identifying myself as a pan-en-theist.  I believe the biblical idea that there is no place in the world where God is not present.  We may experience him differently, even sometimes as though he's not there, but nonetheless I believe he pervades everything and every person.  In this way, I understand that God is fully present in all human suffering.  I definitely believe that God was present in the crucifixion.  I think in that particular fact the question, as much as ever, becomes why did God not do something about it?  I find the unique Christian answer to be:  he did.  He raised Jesus into eternal life in God.

But again, in my view, if God dies on the cross all is lost.

3.  Another way I've heard it posed is that sin being the rejection of God, and hell being the state of separation that is the consequence of our rejection, our sin demands that someone suffer hell.  Depending on the semantics of this position I can either see it as a good point or one that is totally misguided.  

I feel it breaks down when we attribute divinity to Jesus:  for our sake, God forsakes himself?  I don't really see this as solving anything other than making God seem schizophrenic on some level.  I guess atonement completely breaks down for me when we cast it as a form of punishment.  As I stated earlier, I have no room for a blood-thirsty God, nor a God who puts himself in time-out to save us from our just-desserts.

Even Moltmann who embraces atonement unequivocally, agrees that the concept of expiation is outdated.  He speaks of "dissociating ourselves from the inadequate images of sacrificial theology:  ransom, expiatory sacrifice, satisfaction, and so forth."  He brings out a refreshing point that in Jesus, God is not saving us from the sins we've committed, but from the sinners that we are.  We are not seeking spiritual bleach for spiritual dirt on our souls, but to be reborn such that sin no longer is characteristic of our being.  If people spoke more consistently in this way, I doubt I would have near as many problems with atonement.

Personally, in the cross of Jesus I find a unique place where the pan-en-theistic God proves to humanity that he has not chosen a faction, but desires to embrace all.  Jesus, who has chosen to represent the vulnerable, is killed by the collusion of Jewish power groups and Roman political authority.  Jesus does not respond with vindictive accusations.  He verbally embraces all those who oppose him, praying for their forgiveness.  In the end it appears that he dies alone, until his followers experience him not as dead, but eternal.  Jesus, chose the cause of the poor.  He chose the lost causes.  And, in him God affirms this choice by not allowing death to have the last say.  Yet, at the cross we see oppressors and oppressed standing side-by-side.  The world's factions are brought together and face the consequences of their divisions.  The Roman centurion recognizes that the man he killed is the man who should lead him, and as he looks away he sees the poor, marginalized followers whom this leader represented.  This servant of Caesar realizes that Jesus is better at being an emperor than Caesar is, and the call of this Lord is to those whom he is oppressing.  The poor should by no means be painted idyllically.  These are the same people who frequently plotted to kill the same Romans that Jesus just submitted to unto death.  In this messiah, and no other that I've seen, God proves that he hasn't taken a side in our factions, only that he has taken our side as his creatures.  To me, all our excuses for sin and hate for the Other are atoned for in that moment, where both sides are faced with the hideousness of the consequences of division.  God does not take the side of the repressed Jews, nor the Roman overlords, nor the pious Jewish leaders, but rather the faithful servant who suffers for all.  

It is not that God required atonement to reconcile us to himself.  We required atonement to reconcile us to each other.