Review: JP Holding's The Atonement Contextualized

The doctrine of the Atonement is at the center of Christianity. Unfortunately, it's a difficult concept to wrap our modern minds around, and it even seems nonsensical at first glance. After all, how does one guy dying on a cross a long time ago pay for the sins of the entire world? That's a difficult question to answer, and indeed that's probably why many Christians have never attempted to devise a valid response.

But since this is an apologetics blog, I won't avoid the difficult questions. Instead, I want to tell you about a book I think does an excellent job of explaining and defending Atonement, JP Holding's The Atonement Contextualized. 

Holding's strength as an apologist is that he's good at putting his subject in its proper historical and cultural context, and in such a way that his audience can understand. That's vitally important, because the New Testament was originally intended for an audience who lived in a very different social setting. And when we understand Atonement the way those early Christians did, defending the doctrine becomes far easier.

They key to understanding Atonement, Holding argues, is recognizing that the biblical world was a collectivist society. In such a social setting, people thought of themselves more as belonging to a group than as individuals, and their social relations were governed by a concept known as "Patronage." As Holding describes it, Patronage dictated that formal relationships between wealthy, powerful people (patrons) and inferior individuals (clients) were managed by brokers (p 17). Scholars maintain that this is also how the New Testament describes our relationship with God, and Holding argues that the Atonement should be viewed in this context as well. God is the patron, Christians are the client, and Jesus served as the broker by dying on the cross. Holding has dubbed this the Patronage Transference Model (PTM).

Under this arrangement, one might say that Jesus performs a 'currency exchange' in which our pledge of loyalty to the Father is transacted into something the Father can accept as a cleansing of sin...if we share Jesus' virtual and corporate identity (see the point above about collectivism, and the New Testament's references to the Body of Christ), and Jesus is sinless, then by corporate association, we too become sinless..." (pg 148)

Keeping things in proper historical context is all well and good, a skeptic may respond, but how does any of this information justify Jesus taking responsibility for our sin? He died and we aren't held accountable for our actions? Not exactly. As Holding points out, "...if someone paid restitution for you...then you would be indebted to that person. The very notion of Christian ethical behavior is one of an obligation of the believer indebted to Christ." (pg 535) This is very important from an apologist perspective, because it means that a seemingly valid objection to Atonement is just a misunderstanding generated by an anachronistic reading of the New Testament.

What follows this overview of the PTM is a solid refutation of many other common objections to Atonement. Holding demonstrates, for example, that Jesus' crucifixion wasn't a case of human sacrifice, thus undercutting the atheist charge that God is a barbaric jerk who killed his own son. Holding also explains why God  couldn't just forgive sin, and why Jesus' death was necessary.

If the book gets a wide enough audience, which I hope it does, it should generate some interesting discussions. I am curious to see how the skeptics will respond to the arguments, if they do at all. I'm even more curious to see how other Christians respond to the book, as other reviewers have already raised some legitimate questions about Holding's thesis.

In any event, the book's worth reading. It's well researched and written for a general audience, and it's really cheap. I paid three bucks for it and read it in one day on my phone. It's the kind of book you could give to your pastor or your college-age child who's been watching too many anti-Christian rants on YouTube. 

Debating tips for atheists

Free thought blogger and atheist activist JT Eberhard has given a talk several times this year about why the arguments for the existence of God fail. During the talk, Eberhard discusses his year-long experiment of attending church and asking Christians why they believe in God. The lecture is designed to give atheists an outline of how to dialogue with believers and deconvert them. I have to admit, it was very interesting to watch; Eberhard is a talented speaker, and it's good that he's trying to foster discussion between two groups of people who tend to ignore each other.

Having said that, I think there are some additional debating tips atheists should be made aware of before they go on a campaign to debunk Christianity. So, if you're an atheist and reading this post, take the following into consideration.

Argue with people who can answer your questions

The sad fact, and Eberhard confirmed this, is that the average church goer isn't prepared to rebut the typical skeptical arguments, however ridiculous they may be. This is no doubt a problem that churches need to take seriously and begin addressing, but atheists shouldn't make uninformed church folk their targets if they're truly interested in a meaningful discussion.

Instead of quizzing some member of your local church about the best arguments for the resurrection, go to an apologetics conference and ask the same questions. If you run in the same circle that Eberhard runs in, get in touch with the Ratio Christi group at your university. The chances are that somebody or some group of people in your area is willing and prepared to have a thoughtful discussion about the reasons to believe in God. The same rules apply to the internet. Don't engage in a pointless debate on youtube; go to theologyweb, leave a comment on this blog, or find another apologetics blogger who can answer your arguments. In sum, don't reach for the "low hanging fruit," as Eberhard put it.

Read books not written by Richard Carrier

Richard Carrier is a scholar and a good writer. But he's only one guy, and apparently one of the few writers most atheists turn to for information about the Bible. And since he takes some rather unique positions (to it politely) on issues like the Christ-myth, it would be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the work of other scholars. You don't have to read just apologetics works, but New Testament studies is a massive field and there are more and better sources of information than Carrier, or Robert Price, or David Fitzgerald. Not only will you be better prepared for your debates, because you'll lose if you rely on just those three, but you'll get a chance to live up to that free thinker title you so proudly wear around. After all, what good does it do to only read authors you already agree with?

Don't just make fun of Ray Comfort

Yes, the banana argument is dumb. Come to think of it, a lot of the arguments put forward by popular Christian apologists are dumb, or at least oversimplified. So as part of your reading assignment described above, read books written by conservative scholars. People like Ben Witherington, Daniel Wallace, and Craig Blomberg are good examples. These are the people putting up the most compelling defenses of the Christian faith. Worry about what they have to say, not popular evangelists like Comfort.

Remember that we're not all creationists

You may know all the reasons why a literal Genesis creation story is ridiculous. And you may have memorized all of Richard Dawkins' arguments. But what happens when the Christian you've approached informs you that he accepts evolution? There go all those platitudes about the incompatibility of science and religion, the God of the gaps, etc. If you really are so certain that Christianity is a flawed worldview, then make sure you have a solid understanding of what it teaches.Don't base your skepticism on the fact that some Christians harbor weird ideas.

Should Christian college students go to Christian schools?

Atheist blogger and author John Loftus has some advice for Christian college students: don't go to an evangelical school. Instead,

 ...believing students [should] attend a secular college...one that does not require professors to sign a creedal statement of belief, one where professors are free to pursue the truth based on the available evidence. Otherwise, you will just reinforce what you were led to believe in your youth..."

Loftus cites a blog post by evangelical scholar Peter Enns in support of his advice. In the post Enns discusses   several anonymous scholars who began to struggle with their faith after being sheltered by the evangelical education system for so long. Being an atheist, Loftus' advice is simply to avoid evangelical schools altogether.

There are two things I find horrendously annoying about his suggestion. First, it's a myth that secular schools are more objective than religious schools. It's true that students at UC Berkeley will be taught a different perspective than students at Biola, but that doesn't mean much by itself. Bias affects us all, even the professors at secular institutions, and no discipline is exempt. Put another way, students at a public university won't be subjected to the apologetically slanted lectures of professors bound by creedal statements, but they will be subjected to whatever perspective their professors happen to endorse.

This was certainly true of my college career. My  freshman argumentative writing class, for example, was taught by a very liberal feminist professor. I didn't find that problematic; even educators are entitled to their political views. But guess how the course material was slanted. Every lecture, class discussion, and writing assignment was based on the professor's perspective. When I wrote a paper contradicting one of her lectures about workplace discrimination, none of the scholarly sources I cited mattered when I received my grade, the only "B" I received that semester. That's just an anecdote, but many college students have registered the same complaint about their professors.

Getting back to Christianity in college, I find it laughable that Loftus claims that a heightened level of objectivity exists in the history and religious studies departments of secular schools, because it isn't true.

My second complaint centers around the supposedly sheltered nature of an evangelical education. I don't doubt that many Christian schools unnecessarily filter their curricula. But I don't think it's the problem Loftus and Enns have made it out to be for this reason: Many evangelical intellectuals have argued that Christians need to be exposed to contrary ideas and willing to pursue the truth wherever it leads.

I've highlighted Craig Blomberg's discussion of this issue multiple times. For those who are unaware, Blomberg teaches at Denver Theological Seminary, and wrote that "...no Christian should shrink from interacting with any critique of traditional opinion." Just about every Christian apologist I'm aware of says the same thing. If there is such a crisis in evangelical education, I wonder how the people in the business of defending Christianity get away with such heresy. Strangely enough, it was reading the work of these conservative scholars and apologists that prompted me to dig into critical scholarship. My views have evolved some in the last several years as a result of that careful study. But my faith now has a solid foundation, and I'm perfectly happy to interact with skeptical sources, whatever conclusions that ultimately leads me to.  

By the way, this wouldn't be a problem for Christians if we didn't so intensely isolate ourselves from criticism. Churches need to do a better job of promoting critical thinking and interest in biblical scholarship, and there are dozens of ways to do that: insert a history lesson into the Sunday School curriculum every few weeks, host a debate, or bring an apologist to speak on Sunday morning. Any of these examples would be reasonable ways to introduce young Christians to the issues they'll be exposed to in college, and before they have a chance to suffer a crisis of faith.

So, I suppose Loftus is correct, but for the wrong reasons. It's not that secular universities are bastions of free inquiry, where objectivity and honesty reign supreme. Rather, the reality is that most Christians today don't bother to examine their faith (if they ever do at all) until their first year of college. At that point, they compare the fluffy, feel-good faith of their childhood to the critical scholarship they're just beginning to digest. The result is both predictable and unfortunate.