Our Terror

In my word work, I sometimes type words that land so pleasantly with some that I get to thinking they ought to be set down where others can see them.

The soon-to-be-former president of the Southern Baptist Convention said: “God the Father killed his own son instead of killing you.”

I shared the fact of it on the Book of Faces with this framing: “I’ve never heard the heresy put this way before, but it’s helpful. Stay safe, America.”

A journalist I admire very much offered this reply (publicly): “Which of the four main theories of atonement is non-heretical? (Asking for a friend).”

I offered this in reply to his reply: “Thank you for this question. Let me begin by saying that I imagine everyone (or almost everyone) is a heretic of one kind or another. On the matter of Jesus of Nazareth needing to be killed in order to stop God from killing us, that there is, to my mind, a heresy. I would need a quote from Anselm or whomever you have in mind as an atonement theorist before I would know which part of what the person said is mistaken. Having said that, I believe there’s all manner of mystery and wisdom at work in Jesus’ career and empire’s response and God’s purposes. A quick two-sentence formulation I’m comfortable espousing in person and on the Internet is this: Jesus is not our protection against God’s terror. Jesus is God’s loving response to ours.”

The journalist I admire very much “liked” my reply.

I don’t know where anybody else is at on the question of God and the (to me) related question of Jesus of Nazareth. I am sometimes surprised to hear how particular ideas from which I believe I’ve been delivered still linger in the consciousness of others.

For anyone who might be helped or challenged by it, here’s my formulation again: Jesus is not our protection against God’s terror. Jesus is God’s loving response to ours.

We are a beginning.

Editor’s Note: The above image has been purloined from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992). Those familiar with the tradition will note that what we’re seeing here is a rare encounter between Laura Palmer and the Log Lady. In this scene, the Log Lady speaks unto Laura Palmer these words: When this kind of fire starts, it is very hard to put out. The tender boughs of innocence burn first, and the wind rises, and then all goodness is in jeopardy.