A Modified Theory Of The Atonement: Why Modify?

| briansabey

 

The apparent illogic of the notion of God suffering for man’s sin is captured nicely in “Life of Pi”:

Humanity sins but it’s God’s Son who pays the price? I tried to imagine my Father saying to me, “Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed two llamas. Yesterday another one killed a black buck. Last week two of them ate the camel. The week before it was painted storks and grey herons. And who’s to say for sure who snacked on our golden agouti? The situation has become intolerable. Something must be done. I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed you to them.”

“Yes, Father, that would be the right and logical thing to do. Give me a moment to wash up.”

“Hallelujah, my son.”

“Hallelujah, Father.”

While the character who finds the story of Christ’s Atonement so illogical does eventually find it meaningful and valuable, he does not resolve the illogic. And that is fine for a character who appreciates Christianity, in common with every other religion, as a set of beautiful stories that contain truth. But for a person like me, who considers Christ himself to be the Truth and Christianity to not only contain truth but to be true, the apparent illogic grates on the mind. Continue reading →

What is Revelation Anyway?

| davidsabey

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Many of the tensions among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and between members and those that do not (or no longer) affiliate with the Church seem to boil down to different understandings of revelation. For example, questions about anachronisms in the Book of Mormon or the early Church’s practice of polygamy are fundamentally questions about the nature of revelation, the authenticity of purported revelations, and one’s obligations to those who claim the titles “prophet, seer, and revelator.” These questions have been simmering since the First Vision, flaring up from time to time in response to any number of issues, including, for example, the recent policy change regarding children of same-sex couples (i.e., How can you argue that both the original policy and its retraction are revelations or the result of revelation?). Continue reading →

We are Losing Precious Members

| joshsabey

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People are leaving my church. Good people. People I know. People I like. In response to this modern exodus, I have heard three explanations from within my church community. The first two are rationalization narratives. They attempt to put the community at ease. First, there is the narrative that we are destined to be a small group of believers. The Bible never suggests “the believers” are going to be popular. In the Book of Mormon, Nephi has a vision of the modern-day church and he notes that “its numbers [are] few.” And so declining membership actually seems in line with revelation. Believers are supposed to be a small, peculiar group of persecuted faithful. This is problematic. Continue reading →

Why Multiculturalism Fails As A Primary Lens For Viewing Culture

| briansabey
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There are several reasons that I am an attorney instead of an English professor (my original plan). A relatively minor reason that I don’t usually mention is the dominance of multiculturalism in the academy as a lens for talking about and judging literature and culture generally.

What I mean by “multiculturalism” is a particular kind of intense focus on race, gender, class, nationality, sexuality, and other categories that might make a person a minority, and the ways in which cultures construct and deploy these categories (generally in ways that disadvantage the minority). Anyone who has studied English literature at today’s universities should understand what I mean. But so should anybody familiar with the rhetoric of certain liberal politicians, some of whom (for instance) have recently assumed it unnecessary to make any substantial explanation of why they deem it deeply wrong for Joe Biden to have had collegial relationships with segregationist senators. Continue reading →

Suffering Grace: in defense of a benevolent God

| joshsabey

catholic-celestial-christ-37737Those who argue against the existence of a benevolent Christian deity will often site as a centerpiece of their belief the inexplicability of suffering in the world. This happened again recently in the New York Times. While there is some suffering caused by other people which can be explained by an appeal to human agency, there is also suffering (perhaps a far greater amount of suffering) caused by mindless, lifeless, natural forces. Hurricanes, volcanoes, tornadoes, tsunamis, famine, pestilence. Millions of people, in pain, just for living on the earth. These forces, they will say, since they cannot be assigned another agency, must be assigned to God, if there really is one.

To secure their position, they might add, while the devil could be a convenient scapegoat, what are we to do when a hurricane has brought rain to a farmer but killed another woman’s child? The farmer kneels in the darkened soil thanking God in the same moment the anguished woman stands at the end of the pier cursing the devil. We cannot say in one instance it is an act of the devil and in another it is the act of God. It must be one or the other. Continue reading →

A Ninth Argument For Heteronormativity

| briansabey

You can tell when a news story is big, because even I will have heard about it–I who rarely spend more than ten minutes a day on news, and usually much less. But even I heard about the Catholic church’s publication, “Male and Female Created He Them,” which respectfully asserts the Catholic position on gender identify–that one’s biological sex should be the same as one’s gender identify, and that men and women were designed by God to complement each other, among other things. It also calls for dialogue about the issues while calling upon Catholic parents and educators to respectfully give their witness regarding these matters. Its publication during Pride Month predictably sparked a subdued outrage among the major news outlets, who (so far as I have seen) failed to report its arguments for why the notion of choosing your own gender is harmful for children and society, and dwelt instead on the supposed harm this non-revolutionary doctrinal statement will cause to Catholic persons dealing with gender identity issues.

I recently posted a blog article setting forth eight different non-religious arguments that honest people have found persuasive in favor of heteronormativity. My purpose was not to persuade anybody that traditional sexual mores are correct, but that there are valid arguments in favor of heteronormativity that good people might accept, and that those who (like me) stand by the traditional mores regarding homosexuality are therefore not necessarily bigotted. I explained that I used only non-religious arguments not because religious arguments are invalid, but because they are not publicly accessible.

The Catholic church’s publication reminded me that I missed one of the major non-religious arguments that people have found persuasive in favor of heteronormativity–namely, the complementarity of men and women. Continue reading →