How We Debate Atonement Theology Is A Mess: with Brad East
⭐ In this Theology Lab conversation, theologian Brad East offers a pastoral perspective on Penal Substitution, one of the most debated ideas in Christian theology. What does it really mean to say that Jesus died for our sins? How should we understand the atonement, justice, and God’s love through the lens of the Bible, and especially in thinking about preaching or what we share as Christians? East unpacks the meaning and misconceptions behind Penal Substitution, and a critical use of it, helping viewers think about it with nuance, faith, and compassion. Perfect for non-expert Christians, curious believers, and folks wrestling with big theological questions, this video provides an accessible and thoughtful exploration of biblical theology, atonement, and pastoral care.
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Description
⭐ n this Theology Lab conversation, theologian Brad East offers a pastoral perspective on Penal Substitution, one of the most debated ideas in Christian theology. What does it really mean to say that Jesus died for our sins? How should we understand the atonement, justice, and God’s love through the lens of the Bible, and especially in thinking about preaching or what we share as Christians? East unpacks the meaning and misconceptions behind Penal Substitution, and a critical use of it, helping viewers think about it with nuance, faith, and compassion. Perfect for non-expert Christians, curious believers, and folks wrestling with big theological questions, this video provides an accessible and thoughtful exploration of biblical theology, atonement, and pastoral care.
Resources
📚 Check out Brad's recent book! https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802883872/letters-to-a-future-saint/
Generated Transcript
Scott Rice (00:00)
So we are joined in this theology lab by Brad
Brad teaches at Abilene Christian University.
And the conversation that we're going to have here with Brad ⁓ centers on an article
just came out in Christianity Today with the title, The Way We Debate Atonement is a Mess. And I like...
I saw the title, I'm like, I've got to read this. ⁓ And I was really impressed by the article. I thought it'd be great to talk to the author here who I knew something about. We both have something in common. both had Robert Jensen, the author, the theologian Robert Jensen was part of our graduate studies. So Braddies, thanks so much for joining us at Theology Lab.
Brad East (00:37)
Thanks for having me.
Scott Rice (00:38)
⁓ Brad, let me get started with this question. We're going to be having a conversation
about ⁓ penal substitutionary atonement. So going
you hear any of us, you know, use listeners, viewers, if you hear any of us say PSA, that just means penal substitutionary atonement. a viewer or listener has never heard of the words penal substitutionary atonement before, that's a new term. Can you just briefly say what it is, what its basic elements are?
Brad East (01:09)
Yeah, penal substitutionary atonement is a very, very popular way of understanding or teaching the way that God saves human beings through Jesus's death on the cross and resurrection. And you can focus in on the three words in reverse. ⁓ So atonement, that is, God redeems us or reconciles us or saves us. Well, the question is, how does he do that? What's the mechanism or means?
PSA doesn't necessarily say that this is the only way to understand it, but that it's a very important and perhaps central way. And penal and substitution. So penal has to do
punishment. So that the sin that separates human beings from God, the sin that alienates us from God, merits divine punishment. So we are already in a kind of law court, ⁓ conceptually speaking.
God is the judge or the king exercising justice and we deserve punishment, but Christ
Steps into the gap. He takes our place Imagine like the end of a tale of two cities even though I deserve to die. I deserve the punishment I deserve what's coming to me because of my sin Christ steps in
and in his sinless perfection. He takes all all that I
am, all of my sin, and all the consequences for my sin, and then he gives to me his innocence, his righteousness, his justice. So that's a very brief summary. There's much more to say, but that's the brief version.
Greg Fung (02:51)
Brad, one question we had was, why is penal substitutionary atonement such a fault line right now? I mean, just for context, I grew up with it. I thought it was pretty great. Why is this so controversial?
Brad East (03:04)
Well, one answer is that the controversy is perennial. ⁓ We might get into this a little bit later. The doctrine absolutely has precedent in the Christian tradition from the earliest centuries, but it comes into a particular form and its most popular and widespread form about 500 years ago in the Protestant Reformation with Martin Luther and John.
And it is often associated with Calvin and the reformed tradition, though the reformed will tell you, and they're right about this, that it is distributed across all Protestant traditions and Catholics as well. The Orthodox are sort of the least into it. Some Catholics are into it, though it's not the dominant account, though there is much overlap. But Protestants of all stripes have this in the bloodstream of the tradition, so to speak.
Okay, so having said that, I think it has always been, or certain inflections of it have always been controversial. Lately, there was a book that came out last year by a scholar named Andrew Valera that has been getting a lot of press where he purports to analyze atonement in the Old Testament, but in particular in Leviticus. And he sees this, or at least his readers see ⁓ his case as disproving.
⁓ penal substitutionary atonement as an account of how Jesus saves. Given that it's a doctrine, right? It's an interpretation of scripture. So if you go back to interpreting scripture and you say, that may not be the best way of interpreting it, then maybe you've shown that it's not the best ⁓ doctrine. And I'm not on social media. I don't recommend anybody who's listening to this to be on social media, but I have ⁓ sources, well-informed sources that tell me that this book has proved very controversial.
Greg Fung (04:49)
Hmm.
Brad East (05:01)
And part of the reason is because maybe about two months ago, John Mark Comer, the very popular evangelical writer, podcaster, et cetera, posted I think a quick thing to Instagram that recommended the book, but in effect said this is the final nail in the coffin of PSA. Like we can be done with it. And a lot of people had big reactions to that. ⁓
Folks wrote in reply, both for and against, a lot of heat, maybe not a lot of light, and that's why I wrote my piece ⁓ a few weeks back, ⁓ to kind of try to intervene, not to try to settle the question at the substantive level, like is it true, is it false, but like Christians can argue about this in a much better way. So I was intervening at a meta level rather than at the level of the doctrine itself.
Greg Fung (05:48)
Got it, that's helpful. Even the social media piece is helpful to know the context of the controversy. For those who aren't familiar with the controversy, could you maybe give us at least high level, is the main anti-penal substitutionary atonement arguments that have been out there, both in this book, but kind of more historically, what are the major themes of that?
Brad East (06:09)
Sure. The criticisms of PSA often, though not always, but often track with Protestant criticisms of John Calvin or Calvinism. ⁓ And there's a kind of, ⁓ that's important to say because there's a kind of rhetorical element where the muscular reformed defend this view and folks who find Calvinism off-putting really viscerally at a gut level.
dislike it. And so that's the kind of emotional tenor of the conversation. It is not like people talking about the Trinity. It doesn't feel abstract. One reason for this is because the doctrine itself is meant to be a doctrine that's preached. It's not a kind of arcane or abstruse thing. is penal substitutionary atonement not only is meant to be but is regularly, as you said Greg, preached from the pulpit in so many words. It is meant to be a very practical, a very pious, a very devotional
So that's to give you a sense of like the register of the argument. And I'm thinking back 20 years ago to when I was in early ⁓ my training but leading into grad school, the public controversy then was between John Piper and N.T. Wright on this very subject. And they both wrote books on it. It was on justification but it was also about PSA. ⁓ So this again, every half generation we go through this. So why you ask what's at issue here?
Greg Fung (07:24)
Right.
Brad East (07:35)
The anti-PSA folks think that penal substitution gives a bad picture of
and a bad picture of us. Or rather, a bad picture of God and therefore a bad lesson for us.
And as they see it, PSA either teaches or at least strongly implies at the practical level that God doesn't really
love us. God is angry. He's pissed off and he can't be merciful towards us until he vents his anger and passionate wrath on an innocent victim. And when the criticism of PSA gets turned up all the way to 11, this is described as divine child abuse. That God the Father
has to whip someone because he's so angry. And if he can't whip us the guilty, he's going to whip his own son and his son will get in the way, receive the beating and then we get off scot-free. And so the first criticism is this doesn't sound like a merciful father. This sounds like an abusive father. Second, it seems to pit father and son against each other, in which case that has bad Trinitarian.
implications because then somehow father and son are not one God with one will and one nature, but also we Christians look to Christ for succor and help. But what he's in effect saving us from is not the devil or sin or death, he's saving us from God. And why would we need to be saved from God? Isn't God the one doing the saving? There's more to say, especially at the technical exegetical level like whether
whether this really is the best reading of the biblical material or whether in addition, whether this is something that's new. Like did Christians miss this until Calvin stepped forth? And so maybe we should be suspicious that it is an innovation. But those are kind of the main, that's where the gut level criticisms and objections come from.
Greg Fung (09:50)
It's helpful. Definitely unattractive. So I appreciate that rundown.
kind of balance it out, what are the usual ⁓ penal substitutionary atonement responses to that?
Brad East (10:02)
Yeah. So I will plug right now that just a day or two ago, I'm a co-host on the podcast, Mirror Fidelity, and ⁓ we just recorded an episode that I think will be out ⁓ maybe on the 8th, October 8th before or after this one posts. So they'll work together in tandem where I talk to my co-host, Eric Rishmaui, who is 100 % pro PSA, and we sort of try to model a debate.
Greg Fung (10:28)
Hmm,
what else?
Brad East (10:28)
where,
and so I'm kind of, going to be channeling him all the things that he was telling me just a couple days ago.
And
Scott Rice (10:34)
Okay, this is particularly
interesting because Brett, don't know, after reading the article, I don't know where you stand on the question. So this is intriguing.
Brad East (10:39)
Well, that's kind of the point.
You're not meant to know where I stand. Maybe I'll put my cards on the table in a minute.
First, if you read any major theologian who teaches or holds penal substitutionary atonement, they are not going to be susceptible to these kinds of popular criticisms. They are not in any way going to threaten the integrity of the Godhead. The Father and the Son are not at odds. Jesus does not
wonder does the Father love me, the Father is not looking around, prowling around looking for somebody to vent his anger on. ⁓ The initiate, the entire initiation of all that Jesus does on our behalf is at the behest of the Father who sends him and who wills with the Son and the Spirit that Christ die for our sins. So on and so forth. So you're not going to find that
Even if, granting, and this may be jumping ahead, but even if some preachers are guilty in the pulpit, the best rep, if we want a steel man rather than straw man, the position, then we gotta go to the best representatives and they're not gonna be guilty of that. That's the first thing I'll say. The second thing is, their position is not,
that the father is sort of emotionally angry and needs somewhere to put that. Instead, and again representing the steel man view, the idea is that God is just and in God's covenant with his people and indeed with the whole world, with humanity, but let's say with his people. If you read the Law of Moses,
⁓ Obeying the covenant, obeying the commands brings blessings and disobeying, transgression brings punishment or curses or to use the biblical idiom wrath. And that is what we are justly owed and it is not God's malice but precisely his mercy that he steps in himself in the gap in order to take what we are due.
and to then give us what we lack, which is life and forgiveness and all the good things that Jesus gives us.
terms of there's more to say, but those two things very much would be what a pro PSA theologian would say.
Greg Fung (13:04)
So I appreciate you outlining the two sides. It sounds like there's some real concerns for the anti-penal substitutionary atonement camp. But the response by and seems to be like, oh, well, you've set up a straw man. If you really look at what true PSA camp is looking at, it's very different. It's not kind of taking that critique.
So I the question is, there still things that dog, even after you kind of set aside this draw man, you set up the steel man, what remains? Are there still issues that dog the pro PSA camp?
Brad East (13:36)
think there are. They don't necessarily have to be fatal, but if I were talking to a PSA friend, I would say these are things y'all are on the hook for. That the PSA side, pro-PSA, pro-penal substitutionary atonement side needs to account for in their continued belief in and teaching of PSA. And all this two or three. One, I already alluded to in a previous answer, which is
that if this is a doctrine that is meant to be preached, then it seems like a problem that it appears to go off the rails so much in the pulpit and in the pews. that growing up, I didn't grow up in a PSA heavy context, but my whole adult life, but starting in my teens, when I knew people, normies, who would refer to the atonement and they would represent PSA,
they would represent it in all the bad ways that the anti-PSA crowd are concerned with. That's the way it trickled down to them. And I have heard teachers, pastors, preachers talk about PSA, the atonement, in such a way that it sounds like either God is, ⁓ like Jesus is the object of the Father's wrath, not as standing in, but that God himself is angry with Jesus.
or that God is so emotionally taken with this anger and vitriol that he's still in his heart, feels that way about you and me, even though we're baptized believers, like he's still mad and like Jesus has to kind of step in the gap every day lest I be zapped. So that's one. A second one is that I think the pro PSA crowd.
I think they seriously undersell the extent to which penal substitutionary atonement is a kind of innovation. So what do I mean by a kind of innovation? Because it's Protestants, Protestants are generally allergic to doctrinal development because it, in a sense, it needs to all already be there in the Bible.
But I think if you are a student of church history, you can see plainly that doctrines, i.e. interpretations of scripture, develop over time. Paul is not Nicene. Paul doesn't know the Nicene Creed. Peter, St. Peter, is not Trinitarian in the sense developed with great philosophical sophistication at the first two ecumenical councils in the fourth century. That doesn't mean that we look backwards and say, he
wasn't Trinitarian, he rejected Father, Son, and Spirit. No, it's just that until a particular Christian doctrine is formulated in such and such words, you can't reject it or accept it because it doesn't exist for all intents and purposes in human time. In the same way, I think that pro-PSA folks can admit without it being fatal to their case.
that PSA takes,
in effect, 1,500 years to reach its sort of mature, complete formulation. And it hasn't really changed in the last 500 years. Now, if they were here representing themselves, they would say, you can read this discourse by St. Athanasius, this sermon by Jerome or Augustine, this sermon by St. John Chrysostom, ⁓ elements in St. Anselm in the 11th century, elements in St. Thomas Aquinas.
And to all of that, we can say yes, yes. But it is not the flavor, it is not the mood, it is not the vibe. If you read patristic and medieval writers on atonement, they do not sound like this. They just don't. It is not the primary or the mainstream way. It's not what they reach for. It's not the conceptual toolkit to describe how Jesus saves us. And so I think when
reform to defenders of penal substitutionary atonement ⁓ try to give their best possible defense, they say, nope, it's not original, it's not new, it's been there the whole time, and I think that's a weak case.
me to, but those are the two big ones that come to mind right now.
Scott Rice (18:17)
I am, so let's say if you're right that there is a side to penal substitution that is a development and innovation and that's okay, that that's part of what the theological task is. You
this phrase in the article, right? You theology is an ongoing conversation. I love that.
If you're right about that.
What do you think that means for a good expression of atonement theology now? So I think what I'm asking you a little bit is like, I think I'm asking you to share a bit about how you think we should express the saving significance of Christ on the cross. Is penal substitution, right, theological innovation is part of our task. Is penal substitution a go-to?
helpful model? Do you see adaptations of it? Do you think it's helpful to lead with something else?
Brad East (19:15)
I think that for me, those are pastoral questions. Pastoral questions have everything to do with context.
It's not translocal or transcultural. So depending on one's context, I think the answer could be yes or no. Or maybe. If you think of PSA instead of as a single master theory,
but a ⁓ family that describes ways of putting together the puzzle pieces
are undeniably in scripture regarding atonement that have to do with some kind of substitutionary or at least representative, right? For our sins, for our sake, on our behalf, ⁓ as well as penal. I just don't think you can get away from these things. The Bible talks about God's wrath. The opening chapter of Romans talks about wrath, like the wrath of God being revealed. ⁓
And if PSA is one configuration of those things, then the question becomes, why might I lead with this in this context? Or why might it take the backseat in a particular evangelistic, pastoral, or homiletical ⁓ context? So to me, that has everything to do with sort of wise discernment of audience, ⁓ where people are coming from. I have a colleague here named Richard Beck, who's a psychologist, but
an even better theologian, and he for 10, 20 years has been working at a local men's prison. And he was a sort of, for a while, a very good, good progressive liberal Christian who knew PSA was bad. And then he started working with the men at the prison, and it turned out that was the way that the gospel was good news for them. And I have no reason, I have no principled reason to object to that. That makes much good pastoral sense to me.
The danger is, and this is maybe another returning to a criticism of PSA, not on the merits but on the use. If you talk to folks in pro-PSA churches, churches where PSA ⁓ is sort of the heart of the gospel, they don't think it's one faithful way to describe how God saves us. It is the way. And it may be the only way.
And I do think I utterly reject that. And I think even the the best reformed and other evangelical theologians who support PSA would agree with that. ⁓ Gavin Ortland, who I often ⁓ misname as Gavin Newsom, who is the governor of California. ⁓ Gavin Ortland had a ⁓ wonderful brief ⁓ video and podcast response to Comer maybe four, six weeks ago.
Greg Fung (21:59)
I love you.
Brad East (22:11)
where he didn't respond at all to the merits of the critique. He just gave a 15-minute defense of PSA, and what he said was, this is not the only way to do it. But his defense of it, or his recommendation was, it is a complementary and integrative account that can make space for ransom, Christus Victor, ⁓ union with Christ, theosis or deification, all the different ways that the New Testament and Christian tradition have described
God saving work in Christ that for him PSA incorporates and encompasses and integrates these into a larger whole. I don't know that I would place it at the center in that way, but I think that is a perfectly reasonable and defensible approach.
Scott Rice (22:59)
Um, just before we go on to the next topic here, Brett, remember once teaching a class on the person of Christ at a divinity school. was a progressive leaning divinity school. We got to penal substitution. There was a mixture of kind of church history. were getting kind of going from Anselm to the Protestant Reformation. This came up and this, the, big, the big concern, right, was how is the first person of the Trinity depicted in this account?
It just seems like God doesn't like us. And when we addressed that concern, when I said like, there's a way, like if you were going to try to salvage this account, I'm not saying you should or shouldn't, but if you were trying to salvage at least popular conceptions of this and you correct that by saying like there is, like you say in the article, there is one will in God. All right, there's not a God behind the back of Jesus. There was a great amount of sympathy.
There was greater amount of sympathy for this view.
I see that as
the main corrective that's needed in the PSA view. How does that sound to you, or do think there are still other points that are hangups?
Brad East (24:12)
I agree with you, I'll add one more that's related and it's both the most,
gut level because for adherence it's the best part of it and for opponents it's the worst part of it and it's this, that when Christ cries out on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Then,
He really is, in some psychological, emotional, and experiential sense, a subjective sense, abandoned by God. He is God forsaken. He suffers God forsakenness, which is just another way of saying hell. He suffers hell. And for Calvin, in book two, I think it's chapter 16 of the Institutes,
Calvin goes into this and I think this is the most innovative aspect of Calvin's contribution that he says Christ doesn't just save our bodies. So it's not just a bodily death. He saves our souls. And so it's a spiritual death and he suffers the tokens or the signs of the totality of God's wrath against sin. That's why he cries out and then he does his good trinitarian work. He comes in and says
The father never does anything but love the son and the son always knows that that's true. But nevertheless, in solidarity with us, he goes to the very depths, all the way to the bottom of God forsakenness before, of course, rising up from it. And for adherence, this is literally like there is nothing greater in the good news than this because it shows us the depths of God's love for us
he and this is why PSA saturates reformed hymnody. It is everywhere. ⁓
He bore the wrath for my sake. That's how much he loved me. He suffered 100 % alienation from God.
then opponents say, wait a second, how could that possibly be true? That on the cross, Jesus, the son of God
alienated from God? How could that possibly work? And then language of like turning his face away. Like why would the father be looking away from this? That sounds like not just bad trinity.
stuff, but it sounds anthropomorphic. that's, think, right down in the spiritual guts. That's where the opposition lies. And in a sense, think it's subjective because it's very experiential. How do you think about and experience your own sin and need for grace? And I think some, not all, but some people who really feel that deeply, PSA speaks to them because it means that's the
That's the depths to which God went to try to rescue me in his love. And I think it's okay, even if that doesn't speak to you and me, we can honor that in others for whom it does speak to.
Scott Rice (27:06)
Yeah, someone listening carefully to what you just said would probably know that in that, let's say, defense of PSA, the positive take on that, you never said there was a split in being between Jesus and God. The rifts there are psychological, maybe a deep spiritual one, but nothing that would make you say, in the end, you no longer have one God.
Brad East (27:27)
Yeah, yeah.
Greg Fung (27:29)
raises a question for me. Is it that the other forms of atonement just need
work in terms of how we conceptualize it? We need to work on a rhetorical bits or is it simply that just PSA after 1500 years finally kind of was like a key that unlocks certain elements. And it was just, it was a timely piece. How do you think about that?
Brad East (27:49)
I do think it's a key, on the one hand, I do think it's a key that can unlock many doors. But on the other hand, no, I don't think,
neither think it is the master, you know, the one atonement theory to rule them all, nor do I think that there are others, that the others are bound to work on the page or in the classroom, but not in the pulpit. So for example, ⁓ the language of redemption or deliverance.
or liberation or emancipation, where if penal substitutionary atonement is locating sin within me, like I am part of the problem, and that's absolutely part of the biblical witness, but ⁓ liberation or emancipation or ⁓ deliverance, these locate the problem outside of me, so that it is the devil who must be defeated, or it is the power of sin.
or the power of death that holds me in thrall. And now I'm not in a courtroom, I'm in Egypt and I'm a slave to Pharaoh, but God in the Exodus is coming to liberate his people. And that absolutely preaches and it preaches I think at all times and places, but it preaches in particular for people who have experienced ⁓ literal physical kinds of ⁓ bondage or oppression.
but also people for whom their experience of sin is not they look inward, but they look outward. it's like an addiction. It's like an addiction to alcohol. It both is in me and is out there. when in the gospel, when we announce the gospel through preaching and say that that oppressor God has destroyed, what does 1st John say? The son of God appeared in order to destroy the works of the devil.
It's like, that, yeah, that preaches. If you're in a spooky setting and not a disenchanted setting, and a spooky setting is 90 % of the world, if you come in announcing that, that sure sounds like good news. And you haven't come within a mile of penal substitution. And you may need to get there to locate sin also within me.
And again, I'll just add a third one and not go into as much detail, but also the metaphor that, not just the metaphor, the image, the language of healing, right?
That crosses both bounds because it's a kind of cancer in me. It's a kind of sickness that I contracted if you believe in original sin. And it's not bad news when I learn about it because I only learn about it when God says I've already given you the medicine. ⁓ And so in that sense the rhetoric of healing as atonement can also work. So no I don't think it's unique but I do think it is particularly emotionally and rhetorically powerful.
Greg Fung (30:34)
Yeah, that's helpful. It may be powerful to a certain band of society or cultures at a given time, but to your point, once you step out of North America in the 21st century of, in a certain level of education, maybe that feels very different, different ⁓ to your point of healing. It's almost like you're prescribing different forms, different models of the Atonement for a different moment in time for a different person. That's pretty interesting. it
Brad East (30:58)
100%. Yeah.
Greg Fung (31:01)
me wonder, and you say in your article that
We want an ongoing conversation between these different forms of the Atom and different models. We want to have a robust, healthy conversation. Isn't the sort of conversation that never ends, in the sense of, free will and predestination, to me that feels like a conversation that will never be solved, we'll just always have that tension forever, and that's how it is.
Versus there are some conversations like, say, the Trinity, which it took a few centuries, but
we kind of got there, and there's not a lot of debate at this point.
Do you feel like these models of atonement and some of the debates around penal substitutionary atonement and so forth will eventually come to some kind of stable resting place? Or is this more like free will predestination, which it just will always be a tension point.
Brad East (31:47)
That is a very good question. I mean, you're inviting me to predict church history, so I will not make a prediction that the Spirit can do as he pleases, but...
Greg Fung (31:52)
Yeah.
Brad East (32:00)
If I had to guess and let's guess and more analyze why, like why no one particular doctrine of the atonement has been quote unquote canonized as kind of like this is either the one or at least it's one of the big five, you know. I think the answer, there are many answers to that, but it is because the mystery of the redemption that Christ accomplishes for us is inexhaustible and so that it is a feature, not a bug.
that every time we look at it from another angle, we see some other rich, glorious aspect of the work of Christ. And so we're not meant to define it in that sense. ⁓ to be clear, what the councils are doing with the Trinity is not to of like lock God in or define God. It's rather to prescribe the parameters of faithful talk
God so that we don't exit.
exit those boundaries or transgress them, lest we'd be talking about false gods or idols or misspeak about God based on Revelation.
So I'd say that. I'd say in addition, ⁓ speaking of Robert Jensen, a shared love of Scott's and mine, the great Lutheran theologian who passed away eight years ago, I believe, he has a great moment in his systematic theology where he's talking about atonement. And atonement is not like some people atonement would take 200 pages and it's a chapter for him. But it's a chapter for him for two reasons. One,
For him, every single word he writes across his systematic theology is about the good news that in Christ, God saves us. Moreover, he says, if you want a theory, the theory, the early church didn't provide a theory because they had a theory. It's called Isaiah 53. The
Testament just points there and says that'll tell you all about what Jesus is up to with us. But beyond that, he says if you want the atonement,
The atoning work of Christ that God does for us through the Spirit in the passion of Christ, the resurrection and so on, is not something to be grasped with your mind or to put into words. It's something to experience. How do you experience it? He asks. He answers. You go to the Holy Triduum liturgy. So on Easter week, go to church on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and at the Easter vigil Saturday night.
then you will know by the end what the atonement is because you will have liturgically experienced it. You will have walked through it in a kind of narrative, doxological form as an act of worship and reception rather than something sort of cognitively put into propositions. And I find that to be not only a wonderful way of explaining it,
but also a way of not explaining it in the right way. And that I think actually cuts to the heart of why the church is never going to pin down the one or the three or five best or true theories.
Greg Fung (35:07)
I like that. It makes sense.
have to experience it at some level and how can you ever bottle that up? So I guess that's good news and it means that there's more to come, hopefully.
Brad East (35:18)
Yeah, yeah.
Scott Rice (35:21)
Well, Brad, you have been a terrific guest and folks, if you're interested in Brad's
article, The Way We Debate Atonement is a Mess, there's a link to it in the description to this podcast. Brad, thanks for being a guest at Theology Lab.
Brad East (35:36)
Yeah, this was a blast. Thanks for having
Scott Rice (35:41)
Brad, okay, I wanted to wrap up a couple minutes early. I one small question to ask you, because I want to ask you something else. Do you have right until on your time, two o'clock?
Brad East (35:50)
Yeah, I'm good. I'm not rushing somewhere.
Scott Rice (35:53)
Okay, can I, what you said about the significance of thinking about ⁓ salvation significantly, particularly like Satan and the powers has a lot of relevance for this other theology lab series we're doing this year on evil. We do these two series. This is the scripture and tradition one. We're doing another one on evil. And I want our audience is gonna be either grew up with Satan language and will be comfortable or it's gonna be like, I don't know what to do with that.
I'm wondering if I could just pose like, I can do like a mini interview, like maybe Greg and I could both pose one question to you on what you see as the significance of language around cosmic powers and Satan for addressing evil in the world. I'm going to put it in the frame of your CT article. Is that okay?
Brad East (36:42)
Yeah, that's fine.
Scott Rice (36:44)
Okay, all right. We're here with Brad East. ⁓ Brad is a guest this year on the Scripture and Tradition Theology Lab. We've been having this conversation with Brad about an article that he wrote for Christianity Today on the debates around penal substitutionary atonement. I'm asking Brad though, if he would speak to the significance of salvation.
understood with these themes in the Bible around the powers and principalities and Satan. So this is a little bit different than the Christianity Today article. Brad, what would be, you think, a context where language around addressing cosmic forces, sin as a cosmic force, or Satan or the devil, has a certain power to it? And I want to ask you this question because I think there's just a lot of folks
A lot of Christians who don't really know what to do with the language of Satan within the Bible, how to contextualize that now.
Let me ask if you can kind of speak to maybe the power of how the New Testament addresses this language.
Brad East (38:01)
I think this is a timely question for at least two reasons. One, there are Christians in our neck of the woods and by our
for whom this language is a stumbling block. ⁓ But for most of the world, it's not a stumbling block. And for Christian history, it was never a stumbling block. It was just part and parcel of daily experience. And second, because as I'm sure y'all ⁓ are well aware, in recent years, there has been a very quick and interesting return to this kind of language in the public sphere.
in popular context. So whether it is more secular and you have all of a sudden you have the occult making a reappearance or the rise of astrology or Wicca or sort of more homegrown DIY witch hex stuff, crystals, seances, what and what not. There was this amazing, amazing essay by the British writer
Paul Kings North for first thing, it's called The Cross and the Machine, and it detailed his very unexpected, in his late 40s, just before he turned 50, conversion to Christianity. ⁓ He was baptized in January of 2021. And in that essay, he says that he joined a coven, he was a witch. ⁓ The problem was not that ⁓ the magic they performed.
didn't do things, it was that it did, but what did it do and for whom, right? This is part of his story and this is not an isolated marginal instance. This stuff is everywhere these days. For listeners, I would recommend the work of Tara Isabella Burton. ⁓ I am forgetting her book. Am I gonna stare at it right now? ⁓ Yes, Strange Rights, R-I-T-E-S, Strange Rights. I commend this book to listeners and viewers because she deals with all of this.
in a wonderful way that this is sort of everywhere and even for Westerners or American Christians, it's right under our noses because what is the only growing kind of Christianity in North America? Charismatic. It's the Pentecostals. It's the spooky Christians who believe that God is alive and God is at work in the world through the Holy Spirit fighting demons, the devil, principalities and powers, so on and so forth. Okay, that's my preface. I haven't even gotten started, Scott.
I'm just validating your series and your question to say that I think this is not a kind of arcane or peripheral subject. For anybody who reads the New Testament, this language is everywhere, right? Just read the Gospel of Mark and you will realize that the first thing, the first unabiding thing that Mark wants you to understand about Jesus is that he is exorcist in chief. That is his role on earth. He is casting out demons and all four Gospels, Jesus is the one who...
Scott Rice (40:38)
Yeah.
Brad East (41:04)
defeats Satan at the cross. So what do we do with that? ⁓
There are so many ways to answer that and I'm wanting to find for you and for listeners the three to five minute answer and not the three to five hour answer. Here's what I'll say.
Christians have always believed, not just in the spiritual realm, you have to, to believe in God, not just in angels, but in aspects or elements of the spiritual world that are hostile to us and to God, that do not have our best interests at heart. And these powers are not like the dark side of the force. They're not natural and they're not faceless, but they are personal.
and they are agents. that, for example, in Ephesians 6, Paul says, our conflict is not with flesh and blood. It's with the spiritual forces of darkness. It's with the devil and the demons and so on. Well, okay, even if you're open to that, why is that ⁓ healthy for Christian faith and discipleship? I'll give you at least one very, very concrete answer. It means...
that when Jesus commands you to love your enemy who may be your neighbor, even if you see spiritual darkness in them, Paul has told you that they are not your ultimate enemy. This is your neighbor whom God loves, for whom Christ died. And when you look around in our society right now, if you feel like there are forces that seem to be dark and scary and violent, then instead of... ⁓
demonizing human beings you can demonize literal demons. In other words, allows you, it offers you a conceptual toolkit to understand when things go wrong in the world structurally but also when things go wrong at the more local or personal level that we are up against powers. You are right to feel like you're up against something that is supra-human. It is more than or bigger than you and me and then
forces us to turn to divine power, the power of the Spirit of God, to ⁓ fight fire with fire, so to speak. In other words, to not limit ourselves to human agency, human acts, human power, as we engage these things. I can leave it there or I can keep going, Scott.
I have a lot to say.
Greg Fung (43:55)
What do wanna do, Scott? He's on a roll.
Scott Rice (43:57)
You go with your follow-up.
Greg Fung (43:58)
Okay, mean, keep going, which is, mean, ultimately, so for the local believer, what does that look like? Is it, hey, like, in your prayer closet, because we're fighting principalities and powers, or is it more than that? What about, there seems to be evil in these systems and structures. How do we fight that and not just be in our closets? Or is that the answer?
Brad East (44:25)
For me, obviously, if one extreme is sort of like ignoring, pretending that these things don't exist, that's what the pendulum can swing there. The pendulum can also swing to win charismatic Christians and communities ⁓ themselves go off the rails or when they go wrong, which is to think that this is sort of the whole point that...
every single day, every single moment, you are basically engaged in constant warfare and you are looking for and eliciting or soliciting the ever-present spectacular. And that's a danger too, because somewhere between 90 and 99 % of the Christian life is just getting up and putting one foot in front of the other. Prayerfully, coram deo before God, ⁓
But like, what does it look like to love your neighbor? It's gonna look extremely mundane. It's gonna be quotidian. It's going to be, ⁓ there's a local ministry here in my town ⁓ that bags thousands, creates thousands of lunches for kids in the school system who don't have lunch. And you know what it looks like? You're on an assembly line for an hour just putting stuff in bags. is that a form of spiritual warfare? Absolutely it is, right? Like what we're fighting is,
a hunger, hunger and poverty and perhaps unjust systems. How are we doing it? We're not doing it by speaking in tongues or performing miracles. It's not spectacular. It's unspectacular. So I think that's a danger to be mindful of. But I'll point you all to a book by a friend of mine that I went, that I did my PhD with named Matthew Crossman, a pastor and a New Testament scholar. He's still at Yale.
He works in the Center for Faith and Learning, for faith and whatever, with Miroslav Volf. And he wrote a book, developed out of his dissertation called The Emergence of Sin. And he talks about sin as a kind of power, like a super personal power, almost like in Paul's letters, especially in Romans. It's like an agent, it's like Pharaoh and it holds us in its sway. And he has this anecdote at end of the book where he says, how do conservatives and how do progressive Christians typically deal?
Greg Fung (46:48)
Mm.
Brad East (46:48)
with a
local problem. And he was speaking personally as a pastor that ministered to an area of New Haven that was very impoverished. And he said, well, what the conservatives want to do is talk about individual agency ⁓ and empowering ⁓ individuals and families to make decisions to improve their lot. ⁓ But also the spiritual. These people need, just like everyone, they need their sins forgiven. So we're going to preach a gospel that hits them here, right?
He says, okay, I'm not denying that's true. Then he says, what do the progressive Christians in my church or in my city want to do? They want to address the systemic issues. They want to address poverty at the structural and legal level. And he says, yeah, like that's part of it too. And he says, but you know, a third thing that nobody talks about that my, he's speaking, my charismatic churches, we go to these neighborhoods and with folks who live here, we pray against the powers. Like we march through and.
Cast out demons. You know, we actually engage in explicit spiritual warfare that is both spiritual and systemic at the same time. And I think, and he's doing this in like a Yale University Press book or Cambridge or Oxford. So good for him for outing himself in such a prestigious context. But I think that sounds biblical to me, right? It's individual, it is systemic, and it's spiritual. And we get in trouble when we ignore any of those.
to the exclusion of the others.
Scott Rice (48:20)
Brad, like I led with, think around this language of the demonic, of Satan, of the powers, there is just a general discomfort for a lot of folks. And I think your descriptions there of its possible relevance or maybe even responsible ways to be thinking and addressing these kinds of themes and how they come to expression in our faith will be really helpful for folks. So thanks so much for offering your take on that. If folks are interested in more from Brad on the topic of
Salvation and Atonement, check out our conversation in the Scripture and Tradition series. We'll put a link to it here. Brad, thanks for being a guest at Theology Lab.
Brad East (48:55)
Yeah, thanks for having me.
