Why I’m going to do nothing but bake cookies and watch Elf for two weeks.

It’s the end of the semester.  I’m exhausted…from the academic work, but also from being angry for three months straight.

Last week I put a quote from a book called Atonement and Violence on Facebook as my status message.  I don’t remember what it was, but it was sure to piss someone off.  I picked the one that would have the highest chance of making the most people angry and uncomfortable.   It didn’t occur to me until the next day that maybe I was angry and uncomfortable, and I wanted others to join me.  We psychologists call this “projection.”  The rest of the world calls it either “misery loves company,” or “what the hell is your problem?”

And now, at the very end of the term, I realize that Theology class has made me angry.  The assigned readings have exposed the fragile narcissism of my former pastors, popular Christian authors, and my fellow lay people.  And I, too, spent many years afraid of the theological variety that I sensed existed.  I was told (implicitly) that it would be dangerous for me to know more than whatever was determined to be “Truth” by my small community, and I believed it.  I learned the Truth and defended it, stifling my curiosity, creativity, and even femininity. But now, the chaotic choir of history’s theologians has begun to drown out the relentless Evangelical anthem that has played in my head for the past 7 years.  And I just might start humming along.

Once I figured out that I did not want to Facebook-debate about atonement theory, rather I just wanted to be known and understood, I changed my status.  The new one read, “Christine Canty is pissed that she lived almost 30 years without knowing all her theological options.”  That one felt way more accurate.

My Atonement Theory

It’s the end of the semester.  I’m exhausted…from the academic work, but also from being angry for three months straight (another post for another day).  My Theology Class is studying Atonement Theory, and I just turned in a short paper on my own working model of Atonement.  I’m finding Atonement Theory to be like a mosquito bite: I’d really like to ignore it, but the goddamn thing won’t stop itching.

Here’s my paper:

The problem with the penal substitution atonement model that I have been taught throughout my Christian life (besides the fact that I never knew there were other options), is that it favors oppressors over their victims.  This model states that we, as sinners, collectively deserve the punishment of death, but Christ died “in our place.”  While this theology can be used to release the perpetrator from his guilt, it is problematic for victims of oppression and violence.  As Rosemary Radford Reuther points out, this model puts victims in a “double-bind”: They either must accept their deserved punishment (because if there is punishment, there must have been sin), or if they are innocent, they should endure their undeserved punishment in order to emulate Christ, the innocent sufferer. I am searching for an atonement theory that speaks to the realities of both victims and perpetrators of violence (and the many of us who find ourselves often in both positions). My working theory is that redemption of both sin and suffering happens not at the cross where a sinless savior dies, but in the life, ministry, and (especially) resurrection of Jesus.

Thomas Finger asserts, and I agree, that the cross was the inevitable result of Divine Love dwelling in a violent world. Ruether agrees, writing that “the cross is the ultimate expression of…retaliation by the mighty of religion and state that rejected [Christ’s] call for repentance and solidarity with the poor.” The cross was an act of senseless human violence, not God’s planned atonement strategy for sin.

If the cross represents an act of meaningless violence toward God by those in power, then the resurrection exposes the oppression and injustice of the cross.  Christ, silenced by a violent death, is now a witness to the violence done against him.  And it is in Christ’s resurrection, not his death, where both violators and victims find redemption.  As perpetrators, we see our own violence exposed by the resurrection: perhaps we, too, are so entwined in the system of sin that we rage against the God who stands with the oppressed.  As victims, we see ourselves in the suffering and dying Christ, and if this innocent suffering is not glorified (as in the penal substitution model), we allow ourselves to feel rage at the assault on our own dignity.  As Ruether writes, “those who remember the cross as a crime against humanity experience… anger and sorrow at this act of unjust violence, but they also revolt against it by carrying on Jesus’ message of good news to the poor.”

In Jack’s Absence

Jack tells me that whenever I’ve gone on a trip without him, I come back just a little different.  More confident, more relaxed, somehow stronger.  Whenever he says this I change the subject, not because it’s not a compliment, but because I’m afraid of what that means for the rest of my life.  If I come back independent, confident, and strong to the point that my husband is startled, it must mean I’m less these things in my daily life.  I’ve written on this blog before about my insecurities about being a wife, my fears that maybe I only married because I thought I needed a man, and that I’ll never be truly brave and strong.

A couple weeks ago I stayed home, and Jack went on a trip, which I don’t recall happening in our marriage before.  As I dropped him off at the airport a 5am, I wondered if he would come home to a more independent and confident wife.

The first day, I reveled in my aloneness for a good 10 hours, then I got bored and lonely.  So I invited a friend over for dinner.

Wait, what?

Spending time with people is usually a much more complicated process for me.  I’m never sure if I’m lonely or just exhausted.  I don’t know whether I want to see people or just see them on facebook while a movie runs in the background.  I hem and haw and fret and just don’t know what I want.  And eventually I decide to see people, or not see people, but I don’t feel at ease.  I spend the evening thinking that maybe I would have preferred the opposite.

But for some reason, on the day Jack flew to Boston I knew that what I was feeling was loneliness, and what I wanted was company.  To know what I wanted was, I’m sorry to say, the strangest feeling.

The whole week without Jack was marked by me knowing myself… as if my desires had cleared their dusty throats and started singing with shocking clarity.  And I was like, wait, who are you guys and what is that beautiful song?

I made french toast for dinner three nights in a row.  I left dishes in the sink overnight, not worrying about whether I’d regret it in the morning because I knew I wouldn’t.  I had 10 people over for a study group and loved every minute.

It was such a delight-filled week, but I was also scared.  Jack would return, and I didn’t want to have to say, “the week you were gone was one of the best of my life.”  I brought my ambivalence in to my counselor, asking her why just the presence of Jack (who is a very kind man) muddles my own thoughts and desires.  And we talked and came to some realizations, and I cried, and I left with more wonder and joy and sadness than I had come with.  PEOPLE, THIS IS WHY I’LL BE IN THERAPY TWICE A WEEK FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.  That’s $12,000 a year, if you’re curious.  But it’s worth it.  It really is.  Go to therapy.

The day before Jack came home, I read a chapter from a book called She Who Is, by feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson.  The chapter was on conversion.  Johnson writes about how religious conversion is often talked about in terms of “disowning oneself,” but this language is only really useful to those in power.

She writes:

If pride be the primary block on the path to God, then indeed decentering the rapacious self is the work of grace.  But the situation is quite different when this language is applied to persons already relegated to the margins of significance and excluded from the exercise of self-definition.  For such persons, language of conversion as loss of self… functions in an ideological way to rob them of power, maintaining them in a subordinate position to the benefit of those who rule.

Okay, there’s more, but take a deep breath.  If you’re anything like me, your stomach is churning and your heart is saying “more!” and “stop!” simultaneously.

Johnson continues:

Analysis of women’s experience is replete with the realization that within patriarchal systems women’s primordial temptation is not to pride and self-assertion but rather to the lack of it, to diffuseness of personal center, overdependence on others for self-identity, drifting, and fear of recognizing one’s own competence.

(Johnson, She Who Is, 64)

And my first thought after reading this was, NO FUCKING WONDER humility never worked for me.  I remembered myself at 20, a new convert, presenting myself and my new faith to roommates, family, and friends.  I tried to appear joyful (because that’s the image I was supposed to project), but was dying of fear inside.  A few people, mostly men, men who were probably used to power and privilege, scoffed or laughed or bragged about themselves in response to me.  It was painful and infuriating.  But I thought they would come around if I was more humble, if I listened to them and laughed at their jokes and was nice and gentle.

When really, I probably should have thrown some tables around.

Diffuseness of personal center.  Overdependence on others for self identity.  Fear of one’s own competence.

It’s heartbreaking to admit that all these phrases describe me in relationship, even in my marriage to a truly humble man—the kind of man who, when I told him that I was more free and alive in his absence, responded, “let’s keep working on a way to let you be free and alive when I’m around, too.”

I do have parts of myself that are capable of harming others for my own benefit.  But most of my sin comes out of the belief that my identity is tied up in how others think of me, that my opinion of myself is secondary, and that I should check with someone else before doing, thinking, or even feeling anything.

Before reading this Johnson excerpt, I kind of worried that I was going about personal healing all wrong.  That all this therapy was “secular,” and God was impatiently tapping his foot waiting for me to get back to humbling myself and diffusing my personal center (God-construct, anyone?).  But Johnson gives me hope.

There’s theology and then there’s theology.  Some theology is like, “Oh, so that’s what perichoresis means.  Interesting,” and some theology makes you go, “Holy fuck, maybe God is good to me.”