Emerging Atonement: shame, guilt and sin

Scott McKnight has a great conversation on atonement going on over at the Jesus Creed blog. The question is what do you do with the current theories of atonement when you live in a culture that doesn’t get sin? McKnight shares some excerpts from Alan Mann’s book, Atonement for a ‘Sinless’ Society.

“atonement is ultimately about the restoration of human/divine relations via the re-storying of the storied self                    

McKnight reports Mann’s book is broken into three sections concern (1) Sin as shame, (2) atonement as story, and (3) the use of Mark’s passion narrative as a story for converting to the atonement story of Jesus. another clip of McKnight’s quotes from the book

Mann contends that the operative word for the postmodernist is not “sin” but “shame,” and he defines shame as an “absence of mutual, intimate, undistorted relating that ultimately leads the postmodern self into a lack of ontological (or narrative) coherence” (19). Lots of verbage here, but the sense is this: postmoderns are not guilty of law because they don’t tell that “story” of sin; instead, there is an overwhelming sense that the “ideal” self and the “real” self are so far out of whack that they are “shamed” and afraid to disclose who and what they really are. A lack of inner coherence is what this shame is all about; the lack of a meaningful story or narrative that tells “my story” truly

I find this train of thought fascinating just this past week I was talking with a colleague and member of the Mosaic Life community about my take on the role of shame and guilt in relation to sin.

My take: shame is an internal marker of our sin (brokenness and disconnect from God) in response to grace that is activated by the Holy Spirit as the image of God in us comes to conscious awareness of our need to be more like Jesus. Guilt is the external measure of behavior in response to the expectations of others and motivated by adherence to the law. 

Then this past Sunday I tried to communicate atonement from a post Christian perspective in my message at Mosaic Life.

At-one-ment is God’s love motivated action to bring us to wholeness and holiness (something we cannot do ourselves because we’re broken) in our relationship with God by Jesus sacrifice. Jesus sacrifice expresses God deep and profound love for humanity and desire to be in relationship. Ephesians 2:1-16Ephesians 2:1-16
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
From Death to Life ^{2 1} . In the past you were dead because you sinned and fought against God. ² You followed the ways of this world and obeyed the devil. He rules the world, and his spirit has power over everyone who doesn't obey God. ³ Once we were also ruled by the selfish desires of our bodies and minds. We had made God angry, and we were going to be punished like everyone else. ⁴-⁵ But God was merciful! We were dead because of our sins, but God loved us so much that he made us alive with Christ, and God's wonderful kindness is what saves you. ⁶ God raised us from death to life with Christ Jesus, and he has given us a place beside Christ in heaven. ⁷ God did this so that in the future world he could show how truly good and kind he is to us because of what Christ Jesus has done. ⁸ You were saved by faith in God, who treats us much better than we deserve. e treats us much better than we deserve: The Greek word charis, traditionally rendered

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Head over to Jesus Creed and check out the conversation is something worth thinking and talking about

Tags: apologetics, atonement, christian_perspective, emerging church, faith, faith & culture, meaningful_story, passion_narrative, reformed, shame, spiritual-practice, theology