Peter Scmhiechen, Saving Power

Theories of atonement, expressions of how Jesus' life and death convey God's saving power, stand at the center of Christian theology, and also stand at the core of what it means to be church. So says Peter Schmiechen, in this expansive work of scholarship, Saving Power, about the atonement. Schmiechen sets out to survey the important ways that atonement has been understood, and then to analyze and evaluate the various expressions, on his way to outlining some of the essential components that make up a theory of atonement and, further, to layout out some central claims made across the various theories about what atonement has to say about God and about us.

Schmiechen lays out ten theories of atonement, divided up under four major headings. He also looks at a particuar figure or writing that typifies each view.

A. Christ Died for Us
1. Sacrifice (Hebrews)
2. Justification by Grace (Luther)
3. Penal Substitution (Charles Hodge)
B. Liberation from Sin, Death, and Demonic Powers
4. Liberation (Irenaeus, twentieth-century liberation theology)
C. The Purposes of God
5. Renewal of Creation (Athanasius)
6. Restoration of Creation (Anselm)
7. Christ the Goal of Creation (Schliermacher)
D. Reconciliation
8. Christ the Way to the Knowledge of God (H. R. Nieburh)
9. Christ the Reconciler (1 Corinthians 1-2)
10. The Wondrous Love of God (Abelard, Wesley, Moltmann)

In this first part of the book, Schmiechen does a very admirable service in providing a clear exposition of each of the different views, a concise outline of the logic of the view, a rather detailed look at one figure (sometimes more) or New Testament writing that exemplifies each presentation, and then synthesises and evaluates each of the different theories. Undoubtedly one could quarrel with small points of analysis or presentation, but on the whole his outline is a thorough and clear presentation of a broad range of atonement theories.

The theory that comes under the most fire in his presentation is the "penal substitution" theory, and the presentation of it by Charles Hodge. Schmiechen sees this view as typified by an understanding that sinners stand under God's righteous judgment, and that Christ's death pays a penalty in our place, satisfying the demands of the law. The points he takes most issue with is the idea that atonement would be a transaction with God as object in some way. That is, something is done to or given to God to appease is wrath and judgment. This would mean that in God justice has won out over love as the ultimate demand to be satisfied. It also means that Jesus' death is an end in itself. Schmiechen doesn't throw out the theory entirely though, instead proposing what he sees as a radical reformulation, maintaining a recognizable outline of the theory but stressing that while Jesus death can be in some ways interpreted as being for us, it shouldn't be looked at as a "compensation offered to God to enable God to redeem us" (118). Instead, Jesus death is seen as a revelation of God's judgment against sin and a revelation of the obedience and fidelity that typify God's intention for creation, thus removing any transactional quality.

In some ways, Schmiechen's criticisms are surely on base. He insists that penal substitution is problematic if it affirms only God's justice as an ultimate characteristic of God's person, requiring the law to remain always fully in force, even over God. For formulations of penal substitution that succumb to this danger, this is a relevant critique, because it recasts the good news in language of vindication, not grace. But I don't think this attitude typifies this understanding of the cross, where Jesus is almost always understood in terms of his identity as the Son of God, following God's will even unto death. God is first and primarily subject. The value of his second critique is less clear. He sets out to counter any argument that sees Jesus' death as an end in itself, apart from his life of holiness and obedience, which he sees as ultimately a valorisation of retaliatory violence. Again, there is a good reminder that Jesus death shouldn't be understood as radically divorced from his person and life, nor that God in some way condones or enacts retaliatory violence upon those who sin out of some vindictive desire to punish those who dare to cross him. Again, there is value in being aware of the tendency to valorize suffering and to condone violence, and his word is an important critique of too much preaching and teaching that confuses this issue. But, getting to the core of the theological argument, Jesus death can and should be understood as the reason he came, the high-point and focus of his life and ministry. And was understood this way already in the New Testament (e.g. Phil 2, 1 Cor 2), as is made clear by the relative space given to the Passion narratives in the Gospels, and even seemed to be the understanding of Jesus himself, who predicted his own death on numerous occasions and who in the Gospel of John spoke of his death by saying "my time has come." I would even argue that Schmiechen's logic is almost turned on its head here, and that any atonement theory that doesn't see Jesus death as the central and defining moment in his life has a strong uphill climb to legitimacy.

After his in-depth analysis of the ten theories of atonement, which take up the bulk of the book, Schmiechen concludes by discussing the structure and role of atonement theories, and by laying out five points or dimensions to discuss when looking at atonement: 1. From image to theory; 2. God's opposition to sin, death, and demonic powers; 3. the purposes of God; 4. persons in community; and 5. God's initiative. This framework allows him to discuss the themes that carry through many or all of the theories, and also present a way to evaluate theories for their adequacy on these various points. He then concludes the book with a very insightful discussion of how theories of atonement relate to forms of church. He looks at how various understandings of atonement, with their accompanying understandings of how that saving power is bestowed, lead naturally (but not necessarily) to various shapes for the Christian community. One of the examples that best typifies this discussion is the recognition that Luther's reunderstanding of atonement in terms of justification by faith leads to church that is centered around preaching of the Word and the use of the vernacular Bible, in order to get the truth of God's Word out to the greatest number of people and incite faith. This final chapter is one of the greatest values of the book, though it is short, in that it helps us to recognize the centrality of the atonement to our life as church, and second, helps us to recognize that the same atonement theory can lead to different expressions of church when understood differently. This can be cause for fruitful dialogue and empathetic listening on the part of people from various denominations.

In Saving Power, Schmiechen has written an important study of the atonement. As he carefully presents a broad spectrum of options in a sympathetic way, he invites the reader to recognize the values implicit in each of them, and points a way toward a deeper and more powerful understanding of what it is that God has accomplished in Jesus. I know I was surprised by the power of a number of the views, and found friends in Christian thinkers from centuries gone by that will help enliven and energize my own thinking about Jesus Christ, and I trust it will have the same benefit for all who invest the time in these pages.

C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

This book truly is a masterpiece of fiction, a beautiful retelling of the myth of Psyche and Venus. In it Lewis weaves compelling characters with a classic tragic tale of gods and philosophers, all the while probing at the deepest questions of life with his characteristic insight.

The book is introduced as a complaint against the gods by Oruel, Queen of Glome. In it, she proceeds to tell her story and shape her complaint for their mistreatment and injustice. Oruel is the first of three daughters of the King of Glome, a simple man and a king of marginal quality. After Oruel and Redival's (Oruel's sister) mother dies, the tale is taken up as their father takes a new wife. This wife lives only a year, but gives the king a new daughter, Istra, in Greek, Psyche. This new girl is amazingly beautiful, and becomes the love of Oruel's heart. Oruel cares for her like a daughter. The two of them are tutored by a Greek slave, the Fox, who brings them up in Greek wisdom and philosophy. And they were happy.

But a plague and drought come upon the land of Glome. Redival, mockingly baptized Psyche as a goddess, and tells Oruel and the Fox that Psyche is a goddess. She then suggests to the king that Psyche should be sent out to the people to cure their diseases. And Psyche goes, and the people are glad for the healing she brings with her touch. But the priest of Ungit, the local goddess, worshiped as a pillar of stone in the temple, comes to the place to tell the king that the goddess is demanding a sacrifice to abate the judgment that has come up on Glome. And the sacrifice is to be the chosen one, the king's daughter Psyche, the one who has elevated herself to be a goddess. And the king agrees. So Psyche is dressed up and tied to a tree up high on the mountain, an offering to the goddess Istra and to the Shadowbrute, whose bride she is to become.

A month or two later, after recovering from her own illness and depression over the loss of her beloved sister, Oruel sets out with Barda, one of the kings guards, to find what is left of Psyche and give her a proper burial, but instead she finds Psyche alive. Psyche tells a tale of a god coming to her rescue; she has now become his bride, and lives in a beautiful palace. The god visits her only at night, in the darkness. Oruel is immediately skeptical, because though Psyche brings her to the palace, she sees only grass and trees, though just as she is getting ready to leave, she gets a fleeting glimpse of the glory of the palace. She tries to convince Psyche to leave, but Psyche is happy with the god as her husband, and is obedient to him now.

After returning to Glome, Oruel doesn't know what to do about Psyche—can her story be real, or isn't she just after all delusional. Psyche decides that she must at any cost go up and bring Psyche back from this house of the god, or if not bring her back, then kill her, instead of leaving her to the fate she seems so happy to have obtained. So she makes a return trip back up to the valley, and again finds Psyche there. She convinces Psyche that her lover cannot be what he says. He is certainly a robber who visits her at night, not a god, or if not that, he is certainly not a god but a demon, too terrible to behold. Psyche must, Oruel says, light a lamp during the night and see what manner of man she has wed, for then the truth will come out. Though Psyche is reluctant, Oruel convinces her by threatening her with killing herself and by even stabbing herself with a knife. Psyche agrees in order to save the life of Oruel, and that night sheds light on her companion. Psyche sees the light, and after a moment hears the wailing of Psyche as she retreats in sorrow out of the valley. A flurry of thunder and lightning and a mighty flood of the river proclaim the god's displeasure, and the god comes to Oruel. It tells her that Psyche must go out into exile, and live a har road. And that Oruel shall now also be Psyche, and share in her exile.

Oruel returns to her kingdom, and does her best to forget about the ordeal with Psyche. She becomes queen at her fathers death, and does her best to rule justly. She becomes popular with her people, and forges alliances with the kingdoms around her. But all the while she remembers the loss of her beloved Psyche. As she grows old, Oruel the Queen seeks to undertake a journey into the surrounding lands, and after exploring the kingoms that surround Glome, she comes to a small temple in a land near Glome that is dedicated to the goddess Istra. That being Psyche's name, she asks to hear more, and comes to find that this goddesses story is the story of Istra, but the blame for her misfortune is laid at the feet not of the gods but at the feet of her two jealous sisters who have driven her to her fate. Upon returning to Glome, her treasured lieutenant, Bardia, is taken ill and dies. This finally leads her to conclude her complaint against the gods for giving her so little to love, and then taking even that from her.

But the story is not over. Oruel takes up and writes another book, recounting what happened to her after the complaint against the gods had been written. She came to know that Bardia had died because she had worked him so hard, and that her sister Redival had become so bitter because Oruel had treated her so poorly. Then, during the festival of the new year in Ungit's house, she has a vision that she herself is Ungit, that detestable deity of the land.

Finally, she has a vision where she goes to the land of the dead, and is allowed to read her complaint before the gods and the dead. And she does. She complains that it is too much for humans to bear the existence of gods, even beautiful ones, because the gods take what the humans want to be theirs. In her case, Oruel has lost Psyche to the gods. She is even led to complain, "We'd rather you drank their blood than stole their hearts. We'd rather they were ours and dead than yours and made immortal." Her complaint comes down to the simple assertion, "That's why I say it makes no difference whether you're fair or foul. . . . Theres no room for you and us in the same world. . . . We want to be our own."

"The complaint was the answer." The gods ask if she needs further answer, and she says no. Coming to hear herself, to hear her most inner complaints laid bare, was answer enough. But then, the gods declare that she is now to be judged according to the gods' complaint against her, and she is led into a beautiful hall of pictures to await her judgment.

And finally, Oruel finds herself in the presence of God. Lewis does such a great job of showing, in this imaginative and mythical way, how life is lived before God. Oruel's journey is a great parable of what it means to live in search of God, and helps us explore what it means to find God. This book is highly recommended.

Tom Clancy, The Cardinal of the Kremlin

My reading of the Jack Ryan saga continues (a bit out of order) with this last of the Cold War installments from Clancy. Both America and the USSR are pushing for supremecy in the arms race, and the focus has turned to missle defense. Both sides are working feverishly on laser-based missile defense systems, to fry satelites and shoot down ballistic missiles before they can do damage to their targets. The US has a highly placed spy, the Cardinal, in the Kremlin, who has been passing them information for decades. Colonol Filiotov was a Hero of the Soviet Union, decorated for his valor in battle numerous times, but his patriotism had come to turn him against the party and the current power structure after the way his sons and then his wife had died needlessly. So he turned to passing information to the US. As the second-in-command of the Defense Ministry, he was perfectly placed to know all of the particuars about Bright Star, the Soviet missle-defense system. And the Soviets had made an important breakthrough. This valuable information had to get out. So Filitov proceeded to send it out by its usual means, but a small hitch in the courier chain, the inadvertant dropping of the film canaster aboard a subway, was witnessed by an off-duty KGB agent, who recognized the film for what it had to be, and followed the person who dropped it. That accident led to the whole chain falling apart. But the US didn't know how far back the chain had been followed, or if suspicion had fallen on Filitov. The slides on the film were exposed by the agent as soon as he realized he was being followed, but a few partial frames remained, showing something of the Bright Star installation. That limited where the leak could have come from, and suspicion fell to Filitov and his deputy, Bondarenko. Meanwhile, the Americans knew of the compromise, but they also knew that the information that Filitov had was invaluable, so they made another attempt at getting it out, using a brush pass with Mrs. Foley, one of the undercover CIA agents in Moscow. But Filitov was being closely watched, and the pass was broken up just before it happened, and Filitov was taken into custody. After a week of imprisonment, the Soviets broke him, and knew of his activities.

Meanwhile, Ryan was involved as the intelligence analyst on the negotiation of a new arms treaty with the Soviet Union, and the progress of the missile defense systems of both sides was a key to knowing how to negotiate. Cardinal provided essential information about what the Soviets were doing, ad Ryan also investigated the Americans' own progress. But the loss of Filitov complicated matters. Not only was it a major intelligence loss, but it also threatened to destabalize the Politburo, the Soviet ruling council. When it became known that a high-ranking member of the Defense Ministry had been compromised, and with another Politburo member in the pocket of a challenger because of his daughter's involvement as a courier for the CIA, it became clear that the whole power structore of the Politburo could be shifting away from the current leader, Narmanov, and is more open policies to Gerasimov, the head of the KGB, and a return to hardline doctrines. So Ryan and the CIA take action. Ryan puts himself out as bait, sending a message through to the Soviets that he is interested in becoming an informant if the Soviets can help get him out of some supposed FTC problems with some stock trades. They take the bait, and agree to meet with him the next time he is in Moscow for negotiations. But he puts one stipulation on the meet, that he must meet face-to-face with Gerasimov. When this happens, instead of turning informant, he confronts Gerasimov with the threat of making the caputer of the Red October public, as well as other things that would destabalize his power. Ryan tells Gerasmov that instead of making a power play for the Politburo, he and his family, along with the captured Filitov, must defect to America.

Gerasmov makes one last play, sending KGB agents to kidnap Major Gregory, a young genius working on the American missle-defense system. And they are successful in snatching him, but a simple traffic violation leads eventually to their failiure, as the Hostage Rescue Team is called in to recover this most valuable hostage. Had it worked, the great intelligence gained from Gregory might have been enough for Gerasmov to overcome the liabilities of the information the Americans could reveal, but with the failure of his play, Gerasmov decides to give in. He and his wife and daughter agree to the defection. His wife and daughter take off for his wife's home in Estonia, where she is met by John Clark, who has boated in off a US submarine holding just off the coast. Gerasmov himself goes to the prison and takes custody of Filitov, and they drive to the airport, where the US diplomatic delegation is getting ready to depart for home after negotiations. Gerasimov ties up his own driver, releases Filitov, and meets the US plane at the end of the runway. But Golovko, a KGB agent, and some others, have started to figure out that something is going on, and are racing to figure out what it is. They end up getting to the plane just as Gerasmov and Filitov are getting aboard. The Russians get out alright, but Ryan is left standing on the runway. After a few tense minutes, he is brought outside of the city to Prime Minister Narmonov's residence, where he fills the PM in on what has just transpired, or at least some of it. He is then returned to the American Embassy.

This is yet another great book in the Jack Ryan series. Worth reading. Even though some of the geopolitical elements are dated, the action and the characters give it life. And in this one, espionage takes center stage.