Review Posts: Saved from Sacrifice
I am starting a new book today that I think will be interesting and provocative. It is called Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross (Eerdmans 2006)by S. Mark Heim. Here is where Heim is going and what he wants to do:
For Heim, the death of Christ isn't necessary because because of God, but because of humanity (xi). "Jesus didn't volunteer to get into God's justice machine. God volunteered to get into ours. God used our own sin to save us" (xi). This shows that Heim operates in a Girardian (will likely discuss this later, although see earlier blogs on Boersma) rubric of mimetic violence. His
theory is that God uses our system to save us and in bearing such sin, makes more obvious those who suffer such excluding sin. The language of "sacrifice, innocence, guilt, punishment, substitution, and blood" tells the truth "about our situation and what God does to liberate us..." (xii). Summing up, "Sacrifice is the disease we have. Christ's death is the test result we can't ignore, and at the same time an inoculation that sets loose a healing resistance. The cure is not more of the same" (xii). Heim's book, then, tries to explain the double-language about the cross, exemplified in the shedding of Christ's blood to end the shedding of blood.
What do you think of this rendering so far?
For Heim, the death of Christ isn't necessary because because of God, but because of humanity (xi). "Jesus didn't volunteer to get into God's justice machine. God volunteered to get into ours. God used our own sin to save us" (xi). This shows that Heim operates in a Girardian (will likely discuss this later, although see earlier blogs on Boersma) rubric of mimetic violence. His
theory is that God uses our system to save us and in bearing such sin, makes more obvious those who suffer such excluding sin. The language of "sacrifice, innocence, guilt, punishment, substitution, and blood" tells the truth "about our situation and what God does to liberate us..." (xii). Summing up, "Sacrifice is the disease we have. Christ's death is the test result we can't ignore, and at the same time an inoculation that sets loose a healing resistance. The cure is not more of the same" (xii). Heim's book, then, tries to explain the double-language about the cross, exemplified in the shedding of Christ's blood to end the shedding of blood.
What do you think of this rendering so far?
posted by Aaron Perry at
2:41 PM
1 Comments:
Given that God always humbles Himself to meet humanity in our own state and that we all resonate with Joseph, who remarked that evil human intentions are used within God's good intentions, I would say Heim is worth the read. He's likely even onto something original and preach-able. Were God to use a divine system rather than a human system, we wouldn't understand how we can be saved. Instead, the divine Person intersects the human system both to indict and to redeem it. What a thought!
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