NOTE: This is a post I published last night on my personal blog.  I had decided to only publish it there (where my readers tend to be almost exclusively the friendly type), but since then I’ve had a few responses and some additional life events which have led me to change my mind.

One event, in particular, tipped my change of mind – I found out that a friend of mine from college took his life a few weeks ago.  I don’t know if depression was a factor, but from what details I could find, it appeared to be that way (which it is in a high % of adult suicides).  As such, I decided to post this here on .Info, as the readership is much wider, and the chance of someone going through something similar is greater – and one of the most important things to learn is that you’re not alone, and that you need to talk to others when you’re going through something like this…

Blessings,

Chris

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I know I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I don’t think I’ve ever centered an article on it. For (at least) the past ten years or so, I’ve struggled with seasonal depression that (almost like clockwork) hits like a wave during February/March, sometimes lingering on into April. Over the years, I’ve found different ways of dealing with it, though I just really wish it would go away.

The “Feeling” of Depression

In trying to describe how it feels when it comes on, it is like I am no longer able to process any strong emotions. I know how to act like I’m feeling them (ex-theatre major), but it’s just not there. I’m also fairly sure that if you’re close enough to look me in the eye, you might pick up that I’m faking it, but I try to prevent that from happening.

Imagine that you’ve got wool gloves taped to your hands, steamed eyeglasses, ear muffs, a mostly-functional nose-clip, and cotton-mouth. Now, imagine walking around like that 24/7 for about a month or two. Now, apply that to your emotions, and you might be getting the idea.

You wish you could feel, and you try to feel, but no matter how much you act like you feel, the feeling just doesn’t come. Time slows down to a crawl, which just leads to impatience and frustration, which slows it down all the more. You wonder if it is unresolved (or non-convicted) sin in your life, usually convinced that it is. If anyone’s to blame, it’s got to be you, you think…

Some Additional Down-Sides

One of the downsides of this feeling is that guilt tends to pile up pretty quickly – no matter what you do. You really don’t want to tell anyone how you feel, because you know it will bring them down – and you don’t want to be a downer to everyone else. (FYI: This is probably the fourth draft of this article, and I’m still not sure I’ll hit “Publish”.)

You’re also not really looking for an outpouring of sympathy, especially if you realize (as I do) how good you’ve got life – a wife, four kids, two dogs, a good job, a great church family, some talent at what you enjoy doing. And as you realize how good you have it, your guilt at feeling depressed just compounds the feeling. In your head, you are greatly troubled by the plight of those less fortunate, your heart bleeds for them, but the feeling of powerlessness frustrates you all the more.

You feel lonely, even if you’re surrounded by people, and all the more guilty if someone figures you out. Because you’re feeling so impatient with the passing of time, you tend to feel distant and you likely are somewhat irritable or aloof when people talk to you, even though you might feel on the verge of tears (since it would be such a relief if they actually would flow w/o any help from you).

One thing I’ve learned from those much wiser than me, who I’ve let in on this secret, is that probably the most important thing to your healing is just naming it and telling someone else about it. Before I did this, I found myself doing and saying things that I knew were wrong/insensitive/risky just to see if I could somehow force myself to feel.

If I could only get someone to yell at me, I might respond in kind and actually feel angry! But that doesn’t work. It only makes others mad and you, and drives you deeper down.

If I could only get someone to love me more, I might feel it break through. But that only lead to frustration, strained relationships and a loss of love.

If I could only escape into my own world, I might love it there. But that only leads to more loneliness and isolation.

If I could only increase the risk & excitement in my life, I might actually feel deeply excited. But it only hurts the ones I love and risks things that ought not be risked.

If I could only end it all… but that’s not a good solution, either. It would just be selfishness and an expansion of the callousness I come to feel. (For the record, kind reader, I was only there once, before I began to heal).

“If I could only” … only leads to more pain, more lonliness, and more loss of feeling.

So what has worked?

For me, admitting it to those close to me has brought a sense of relief. By talking to them about it, we become closer. They don’t always say the right things, or helpful things, but in the process, you start to learn that you’re not unloved.

Finding others who struggle with depression has been a boon to me, because you start to learn that you’re not alone – even if you might feel like it. (If I do publish this, it will likely be so that if someone out there also feels like this, they’ll know they’re not alone.) That feeling of having a kindred spirit doesn’t necessarily make the feeling (or lack of feeling) go away, but it makes bearing it a little lighter.

Admitting it to God (sometimes harder than admitting it to friends) is hard, and giving it to Him (when I’ve been able to do it, which I don’t think has happened yet here in 2009) allows you to become close, but it’s oh, so scary. So scary. At least for me. That loss of control? I want to own it, and I don’t want to give it up. It’s just not always in me to let it go. It’s the gap between knowing what’s good for you and being able to do what’s good for you. Kind of like following the doc’s advice to exercise more and eat less.

In some ways, I am reminded of Rich Mullins’ paraphrase of Psalm 139 -

Where could I go, where could I run
Even if I found the strength to fly
And if I rose on the wings of the dawn
And crashed through the corner of the sky
If I sailed past the edge of the sea
Even if I made my bed in Hell
Still there You would find me

‘Cause nothing is beyond You
You stand beyond the reach
Of our vain imaginations
Our misguided piety
The heavens stretch to hold You
And deep cries out to deep
Singing that nothing is beyond You
Nothing is beyond You

Time cannot contain You
You fill eternity
Sin can never stain You
Death has lost its sting

And I cannot explain the way You came to love me
Except to say that nothing is beyond You
Nothing is beyond You

If I should shrink back from the light
So I can sink into the dark
If I take cover and I close my eyes
Even then You would see my heart

And You’d cut through all my pain and rage
The darkness is not dark to You
And night’s as bright as day

Nothing is beyond You
You stand beyond the reach
Of our vain imaginations
Our misguided piety
The heavens stretch to hold You
And deep cries out to deep
Singing that nothing is beyond You
Nothing is beyond You

And time cannot contain You
You fill eternity
Sin can never stain You
And death has lost its sting

And I cannot explain the way You came to love me
Except to say that nothing is beyond You
Nothing is beyond You
Nothing is beyond You

It’s a Process

Some of you who’ve known me for years know that I used to do a bit of composing, and that I’d play the piano for hours a day. I still keep up well enough to play for my church community’s worship each week, but it’s been years since I’ve been able to write music. It’s like a switch flipped some time ago, and even in the good times, that well of feeling from which I pulled tunes, tears and tomes of lyrics was boarded over.

I don’t know if it will ever be un-boarded, but I have learned to be thankful with what I have, to love those who love me, and to care about those who don’t.

But I still, so often, truly feel powerless.

The one area that has ignited that spark I once felt comes from the sense of injustice I feel when I see Christian brothers and sisters attacked unjustly, particularly by those within the church (who ought to know better). It is that spark that led me to approach some other writers with similar feelings about this injustice and to start doing something about it.

In some ways, this experience has reminded me of Galatians 6:

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.

It is a balance – being gentle with those struggling with pain and sin, and helping them to carry their burden. Not thinking too much of yourself. Avoiding comparisons with how someone does it so much better than you do (or the opposite). And, over time, learning to carry your load, so that you can help others carry theirs.

Today

2009, in some ways, is better than other years – I recognize the feeling, and I’ve been able to be open about it. I’ve actually felt like writing about it, and I’m contemplating (for real) hitting “publish” (and if you’re reading this, I must have done so).

The numbness came, right on schedule, in February, but it was not as bad as before after speaking a little bit about it at the Great Banquet at my church. It’s funny, but a crisis at work happened about the same time, and I received a lot of positive feedback for maintaining a level head in the crisis. So, I can actually count this struggle as something beneficial when the time is right, I guess.

The full wave hit last week, right when my wife was leaving to help care for her mother (who broke her knee – please pray for her!) out in Colorado. But I talked to her about it, and she’s been calling me to encourage me.

I’ve written about it – and at least imagined publishing it – hoping I might be able to help someone else, and that, in doing so, I might feel healing in return.

I’m still working on giving it up to God. And to be completely frank, it is not going really well. I know I need to, but I don’t really know what it looks like, and I’ve forgotten (I think) how it feels to do so.

When my daughter, Aria, had open heart surgery 9 years ago, God granted me a sense of peace that it was all in His hands. I knew there was not a thing I could do, so it was all going to be up to Him to take care of. And I felt at peace.

But when I’m the ‘patient’, I can’t/won’t give it up to the Great Physician with any ease. I’ve got bottomless pools of “blame” and “the need for control” that are so hard to swim across without drowning. Can He take care of it? I’m sure He can.

Do I have enough humility – will I be able to deal with the loss of pride – to not take care of this on my own?

I hope so.

But I’m just not there yet…

We’ve recently had a comment from a Armchair Discernment Ministry to the effect of:

If you OUTRIGHT Deny Penal Substitution then you are twisting God’s Word and are changing and twisting the content of the Atonement and the Gospel itself. [...]

A person who claims to be a Christian AND openly denies and reinterprets the clear words of scripture regarding Christ’s atoning work on the cross is doing the same thing that the Mormon is doing but they are doing in regard to the Gospel itself. That person is redefining the gospel and what Christ accomplished on the cross and has set up a false idol and a false gospel.

Now, besides the obvious fallacy in such thinking (since PSA, as a theory, didn’t exist for the first 1000-1500 years of Christianity), such rigid, dogmatic certainty about matters like this (particularly when used in an attempt to excise entire groups of Christians from the body of Christ) become another Gospel, entirely.  So, with that in mind, I think it is probably incumbant to repost the group project from last year, where we outlined the various orthodox positions on Jesus’ atonement, and link to a key follow-up regarding exclusionary practice in adherence to PSA.

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There has been a great deal of discussion lately on the subject of “atonement”, sin, and the nature of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. In many cases, adherents of specific views of atonement (particularly the theory of Penal Substitutionary Atonement) have taken a dim view of groups of Christians who do not hold to identical views – in some cases, suggesting that the “correct” view (theirs, of course) is required both for evangelizing and for salvation.

Fortunately for Christians throughout the centuries without such ‘enlightenment’, systematic theology does not save, but rather the Grace of God and the mysterious work of salvation made possible through the cross and the empty tomb. In reality, many theories and ‘word pictures’ have been used throughout the history of the church to describe this work, and there is room for liberty in differences of view. Despite this liberty, though, there is need for some boundaries…

Guardrails

In Charleston, S.C., there was a bridge that was rather narrow, and was somewhat frightening for many motorists to cross. Once, during a period of repairs, the outside rails of the bridge had to be removed. Immediately, this bridge went from 2 functional lanes to a single lane, causing all sorts of traffic snarls, because people were afraid of falling off the edge. The rails, when in place, were not very capable of stopping a determined car from going into the water, but they gave some sense of security to motorists.

One of the lessons we can learn from this is that boundaries, contrary to popular opinion, are not always restrictive. Rather, boundaries clearly delineate how far you can be without going over the edge, leaving much more functional room within their borders. Unlike those who acted as if there was only room for one lane on the narrow bridge, once guardrails were in place, there was room for multiple lanes for cars to cross. The bridge, itself, did not change – it did not become wider or narrower. In fact, it became safer AND more efficient.

In the case of atonement theory, it is important that we establish the ‘rails’ – the primary one being that Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection was required in order to bring salvation to mankind. The second rail would be that man could not find salvation by his own means. These rails rule out “all paths lead to heaven” and “if you’re good enough, God will accept you”, and other universalist/semi-universalist views of atonement.

Atonement Views

The Views of Atonement

1) Ransom View of Atonement
This view of atonement, held as the dominant theory in the church for its first 1000 or so years, was first described by Origen. It teaches that Jesus’ death paid a ransom to Satan (whose accusation held humanity to his claim after the fall of Adam and Eve to sin).

Because Satan’s claim against humanity was just, it required God, who is a God of justice, to pay a ransom price in return for man’s release. God paid this in the form of Jesus, on the cross. However, since Jesus had not sinned, he had not earned death, so it could not keep him. Thus, man was redeemed by God and his ransom of Jesus to Satan, and Satan could no longer make a claim upon man. (If you’ve read (or seen) C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, you’ve seen an allegorical story which was written to follow ransom theory.) Christus Victor (see #6 below) is often seen as similar/identical to the Ransom View, though it (CV) takes a more holistic view.

2) Satisfaction View (Anselm’s View) of Atonement
St. Anselm, however, did not like the ransom view, because it placed God in a position of debtor to Satan. Instead, he put forth a theory of atonement called the “Satisfaction View”. In his view, man has defrauded God of the honor and glory due to Him through sin – trying take God’s place, ourselves. Jesus, though, brought full honor and glory to God in his life, and then through his death ’satisfied’ the difference due between man and God.

In this case, Jesus’ substitution is that he suffered for us. In his view, men and angels owe a debt of honor to God. This debt cannot be paid if sin has been committed in their life. Jesus, because lived and did not sin, was able to pay this debt of honor that none other could pay. By dying, though, he suffered in our place to pay that debt of honor.

This theory of atonement was further refined by Thomas Aquinas and codified as the dominant theory in the Catholic church. Even so, like Ransom Theory, it was not considered to be a required belief for salvation, but a secondary matter.

3) Penal Substitution
In Penal Substitutionary Atonement, sin is a crime against God, for which the punishment is death and separation from God. Jesus, because he did not sin, could take this punishment upon himself and absolve those whom he chose from this punishment. In this view of atonement, God punishes Jesus in our place (which is different than substitution where Jesus suffers for us rather than being punished in our place) – if we are one of the elect.

Interestingly, this is the first view of atonement in which the emphasis on Jesus’ atonement was made specific to each individual’s sin, rather than as a general atonement for the sin of mankind. Since Jesus’ crucifixion happened at a specific point in time, it could only cover the sins of people God had chosen at that time for it to cover. Thus, Calvin also had to borrow from Augestine’s theories of double-predestination. Additionally, to distinguish itself from the Satisfaction View, the Penal Substitution View teaches that Jesus was not satisfying a deficiency in mankind, but rather that he was satisfying God’s wrath.

This is the first view of atonement that was codified as a core doctrine in many churches, rather than being of secondary concern. (Thus, the full emphases on sin, punishment and hell become prerequisites to understanding what to believe before one can become a believer.) This is the primary view in Calvinist/Reformed churches, and is a driving force behind much of the criticism of the Emerging Church Movement, which tends relegate the individual’s view of atonement back to its historic place as a secondary doctrine.

4) Governmental View of Atonement
This view of most closely associated with Arminianism and found a home in Methodism. It is similar to the penal substitution view to some extent, but the biggest difference is that the cross is not seen as the exact punishment for sin, but rather it is God’s way of publicly demonstrating His displeasure with sin. So Jesus is still a substitute in this view, but what he is substituting for is different than the penal substitution view. It wasn’t a substitute for punishment, but rather a substitute for the necessity of punishment. This way the moral nature of the universe is maintained.

This may seem like a game of semantics, but it gets down to the scope of the atonement. In this view, forgiveness is available to all who turn from sin. It is as if the president would offer a blanket pardon for all criminals with the only condition being they ask to be released. A prisoner who refuses to ask to be released will not be released. Additionally, the atonement is viewed in a more communal sense im this view. The church has been pardoned, but one may freely choose to enter into or walk away from this pardon.

Not surprisingly, this view has its share of detractors, mostly from Calvinist/Reformed circles. Some common objections are that this view leads to perfectionism, moralism, or other works-based thinking. Others say that it denies total depravity because it assumes mankind is able to see Christ’s sacrifice and turn from its sin.

5) Moral Influence View of Atonement
This moral influence view is an offspring of the governmental view, to a degree. This view is often referred to as subjective, opposed to objective, because it doesn’t really attempt to answer the question of what of actually happened at the cross, as much as it tries to explain why it happened. In the view, the cross demonstrates Jesus’ self-giving, His complete abandonent to God’s will, and His complete devotion to God for the sake of the world. His death is seen as the completion of the message He spoke during His life on earth. It shows us the self-giving nature of God’s love.

When we are touched by this love, it inspires us to follow in Christ’s steps. By looking at Christ, we will naturally start to act like Him. We will be devoted to God’s plan, and we will serve other self-sacrificially. This view, along with the Christus Victor view, seems to be gaining a bit more prominence. It is not surprising, given the way these perspectives lend themselves to being told in a more narrative style.

6) Christus Victor

Borrowed from the title of Gustaf Aulen’s 1931 book meaning Christ the Victor. In his book Aulen builds a historical case for the “classical” view of Atonement, more commonly know as Ransom Theory. He argues that most of the church misunderstands what the early church fathers believed about Ransom Theory. In Aulens view and definition of Ransom Theory it differs from the common view of Ransom in that Christ was not paying a ransom to the devil but rather rescuing humanity from the bondage of sin and death.

When viewed with this perspective God is no longer indebted to the Devil but rather God is sovereign over everything, including the Devil, and chooses to rescue humanity. As Aulen states it “The work of Christ is first and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil”

SUMMING UP THE VIEWS

Each of these views fits within the biblical guardrails for explaining the meaning of Jesus death, burial and resurrection, with each explaining a different aspect or ‘word picture’ for the atonement. In reality, none of these is likely to be 100% true in trying to explain the inner workings of God.

To some, the prospect of such acceptance of multiple biblical views may be troubling, and the tendency is to want to stake out a single ‘lane’ (accepted atonement theory) and place the guardrails around it – effectively attempting to add human limits to further narrow an already narrow ‘bridge’. Fortunately, it is as the Apostle Paul tells us:

if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

In Conclusion

One of the greatest persecutors of Christians, Nero Caesar, insisted that people burn incense to him as lord, and take his mark upon them in order to be accepted into Roman society. Too often, Christians – whether of the ODM persuasion or not – tend to grasp onto one specific, systematic explanation of an aspect of God – be it atonement, grace, free will/predestination, etc. – and create their own idol of that theological explanation, insisting that it be accepted as the only way that a “true Christian” can believe.

The means to prevent this behavior, though, is not to suggest an “anything goes” mindset with no boundaries. Rather, we should establish the few clear boundaries that exist within Scripture and be gracious and accepting of those who may not agree with our most closely held theories, but whose own theories still remain within those boundaries. In many cases, like with Atonement theories, it may be that all of the theories explain a different aspect of the whole, even if individually they are holistically deficient.

[NOTE: This article was a group effort, written by Phil Miller, Chris and Chris L]