Marginal Christianity

My friend, Tony Jones , recently featured a guest post on his blog from someone who advocated altering the traditional serving words for the eucharist (The body of Christ broken for you. The blood of Christ shed for you.) to: ‘Christ is here, in your brokenness. Christ is here, bringing you to life.’ Or, ‘Christ broken, with us in our brokenness. Christ’s life, flowing through our lives.’ Such redactions just won’t do the heavy lifting if one is committed to taking seriously the language of scripture. While the traditional imagery of blood sacrifice may make some squeamish, Fleming Rutledge, in her new book The Crucifixion , insists it is ‘central to the story of salvation through Jesus Christ, and without this theme the Christian proclamation loses much of its power, becoming both theologically and ethically undernourished.’  Read more at http://tamedcynic.org/is-disdain-for-blood-sacrifice-a-kind-of-supercessionism/

Mar 10, 2016 @ 0:06 by Scot McKnight 3 Comments Anselm Reconsidered Jason Micheli will be posting reflections on Fleming Rutledge’s new book, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ , through Lent. Jason is a United Methodist pastor in DC who blogs at www.tamedcynic.org Every year during Advent we let our confirmation students loose through the building to take an informal poll. The question we give the confirmands is the same every year: Why did Jesus come? About 15% always respond that Jesus comes to teach us how to love one another and help the needy. I suppose those are the liberals. Without fail, a reliable 85%, in so many words, reply that Jesus comes to die for our sins. That Jesus is born to die. For us. Instead of us. In our place. Every year the question is the same and, remarkably, every year so is the answer. The needle doesn’t move at all. More than 3/4 answer, year in and year out, that Jesus comes in order t...

Mar 3, 2016 @ 0:03 by Scot McKnight 20 Comments A Wrath-less God Has Victims Like many upper middle class mainline Protestants, which is to say white Christians, I’ve long taken issue with the concept of divine wrath, believing it to conflict with the God whose most determinative attribute is Goodness itself. Whenever I’ve pondered the possibility of God’s anger I’ve invariably thought about it directed at me. I’m no saint, sure, but I’m no great sinner either. The notion that God’s wrath could be fixed upon me made God seem loathsome to me, a god not God. I’ve changed my mind about God’s wrath. Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2016/03/03/a-wrath-less-god-has-victims-by-jason-micheli/#disqus_thread