"The Very Centre and Kernel of All Scripture"
By The Venerable Dr. Christopher A. Brown
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
March 22, 2014
"When I see Christ on the cross," she said. "I just get angry."
She seemed angry - and filled with a passionate intensity. The image of Christ on the cross did not inspire her reverence. Instead, it stirred a sense of outrage at the atrocity inflicted on an innocent man. For her, to turn the cross into a symbol of redemption only obscured the violence and inhumanity of an instrument of torture and death.
The class agreed. It was a graduate seminar on the Atonement, the traditional doctrine that Christ's death atones for sin and sets us right with God. The consensus of the class - including the professor - was that this notion was out of date and sub-Christian. I agreed that we are too sanguine about depictions of Christ's suffering. The image his crucifixion is too easily trivialized, unless we remind ourselves that it was a terrible act of injustice and institutionalized cruelty. My disagreement with my fellow students was that the atrocity of crucifixion does not negate the redemptive role of the cross.
Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org
By The Venerable Dr. Christopher A. Brown
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
March 22, 2014
"When I see Christ on the cross," she said. "I just get angry."She seemed angry - and filled with a passionate intensity. The image of Christ on the cross did not inspire her reverence. Instead, it stirred a sense of outrage at the atrocity inflicted on an innocent man. For her, to turn the cross into a symbol of redemption only obscured the violence and inhumanity of an instrument of torture and death.
The class agreed. It was a graduate seminar on the Atonement, the traditional doctrine that Christ's death atones for sin and sets us right with God. The consensus of the class - including the professor - was that this notion was out of date and sub-Christian. I agreed that we are too sanguine about depictions of Christ's suffering. The image his crucifixion is too easily trivialized, unless we remind ourselves that it was a terrible act of injustice and institutionalized cruelty. My disagreement with my fellow students was that the atrocity of crucifixion does not negate the redemptive role of the cross.
Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org
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