I reckon that the theory of atonement that appeals to someone is dependent upon upbringing and personality. If you’ve been brought up feeling the need of rules and regulations and a strong father, you might have one view on how the atonement could work. If you’ve been brought up rigidly and with frequent beatings, then you’d have quite a different view.
Church history matters too: substitutionary atonement is a recent western thing—it doesn’t much feature in the Orthodox churches. And I can’t help but feel that those Orthodox traditions and beliefs are more likely to be in tune with the early church, partly because of locality and culture, and partly because they’ve had few if any difficulties of translating from ancient Greek.
How do I see things on 31 March 2018 (I’m not dating this for Easter Day lest my two readers think it’s an April fool).
I see JC as the example for us all – the type. We are all resurrected – that is, free to ascend – when as a result of a Gethsemane moment we let go of selfishness and ego. This is not just a once-in-a-lifetime event. We have Gethsemane moments many times a day as we are confronted by the paradoxes of our humanity and the difficulties of life on the planet. It is not easy being human.
For me, Easter resurrection has nothing to do with life after death. That was something introduced by the church as a means of controlling hoi polloi–behave now and you’ll get a club-class seat in the hereafter. Absolute pish. Death in the Passion story is about meanness of living, not about absence of heartbeat.
I’m sure that the resurrection is the thing that most makes modern people laugh at us—how can we believe such sky-pixie tripe? And it’s very difficult to get across to schoolchildren, especially so soon after Christmas. The symbolic message of resurrection–ascension is much more important than any literal interpretation, and it is incontrovertible.
I suppose there’ll be letters to the bishop from “disgusted of Burton”. Good luck with that.
Happy Easter.
Read my Easter message here.
Rambling Rector Retired 
Couldn’t agree more. I see it all as myth. Problem for me is I love the mysticism of a Solemn Mass (the more Tridentine the better!) but just can’t take it all literally….
Indeed. Mysticism, ritual, music – all ways to the Divine. I sometimes think that terms like salvation and redemption etc are musical terms. I wish people would stop insisting the being friends with Jesus was the only way ….
Love the musical terms idea. I think reverence is the key for me. Treat the Mass as holy and it becomes holy (treat the real presence as real and it becomes real). Doesn’t really matter which rite is used. An ex colleague (old recusant family) was struck by the noble simplicity of the BCP when he stumbled on It being done properly. I’ve seen CW done brilliantly and the EF rushed and irreverent……
One of my churches has CW with smoke and and Roman bits and pieces. Another two use unadorned CW. I use BCP as writ every Wednesday. I like the order of events in BCP, especially consecration not completed until the elements are mixing with gastric juices. The only thing that jars is the continual grovelling, even though I understand why it’s there politically. But in the end it’s not my view that matters.
Spot on Stanley