Has the Church been preaching half a gospel?
The immediate answer is, of course, a question: which part of the Church? The Church is a large and varied organisation and it is dangerous to generalise. But has at least parts of the Church been preaching half a gospel?
And by that I mean we have so much to say about the sins we commit, about forgiveness and the need to forgive. We have plenty to say about how the cross enables our sins to be forgiven. But what about when we are hurt by other people? What about when we are caught up in situations larger than ourselves when there is no good thing to do? Often the issue is more more complicated than the question can I be forgiven for the wrong things that I have done?
How will I deal with my anger when someone hurts me (just keep swallowing it)? Does God care about the trauma of the victim? Is 'forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us' really all we have to say to the traumatised, the victim of hate crimes, the sinned against? Does the cross have anything to say to us when we are the victim as well as the perpetrator?
This is a huge question that theologians are beginning to take more and more seriously. But here is one thought which has most helped me. The cross helps when I am sinned against because it refuses the lie 'this action did not matter.'
To be honest, when I have done something wrong I do not really want to hear, 'you are forgiven', I want to hear 'it did not really matter'. But when I am hurt I need the acknowledgement that this action did matter, it did hurt, the pain and the anger is real and God fully understands that. If God had forgiven our sins from the safety of heaven with just a word then God would have sided firmly with the perpetrator. But God did something very different and simultaneously forgave and exposed the real cost of sin.
The Gospel is about more than sin and salvation, more than being forgiven. But if we could just say more about the way that God holds together the needs of the victim and of the perpetrator (and we all both at some time or other) then we would be closer to a full Gospel.
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Thanks Judith - this sounds much like that rationale behind some of the sculpture of the liberation artists - Guido Rocha's tortured Christ where the gold of Christ's body is also that of a man in inexplicable pain, where there is at once nothing more glorious, yet no depths that this man is unable to understand, take into himself and redeem.
ReplyDeleteIs this also a case of distinguishing between forgiving ... and excusing; one can forgive an act but not excuse it; forgiving exposes but excusing conceals and can perpetrate a re-occurrence. yet all too often the two seem to be confused in contemporary usage.
Just thoughts - I found in pastoral terms with teenagers, that anger and wrath can be expressed and healed through a process of lament, but were not helped by too much gentleness - the wounds of Christ were for them the power of redemption -a way of understanding not "why" things happen - just that God is there when they do.
Thanks for the comment which I found very helpful. Your point about the difference between forgiving and excusing is very important and you are right about lament as well; I would like to see the Church recover the role of lament in worship and pastoral care.
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