mbjones

In my first look at A Community Called Atonement, I described the beginnings of atonement — those places you first look when describing a broader, bigger picture. In the next section of the book, McKnight looks at the different images of atonement within various theological traditions. The focus of this quick note looks at the first chapter in this section, on metaphor. I’m just doing that chapter for now because I think it is one quite important to grasp and really does a fine job in setting up the rest of the book. In fact, looking back on the read, this is one of the chapters that stands out the most to me.

If you are wondering what said chapter could be about, wonder no more! It is a look at metaphors and their use in theology. In looking at various definitions of metaphor this one in particular stands out (originally written by Sallie McFague):

“Most simply, a metaphor is seeing one thing as something else, pretending ‘this’ is ‘that’ because we do not know how to think or talk about ‘this,’ so we use ‘that’ as a way of saying something about it.” (pg 36)

Atonement as metaphor then follows as the ‘that’ in which we describe God resolving the sin issue and restoring our relationship to Him, to the self, to others and to the world. Really dwelling on this was one of those ‘Aha!’ moments for me, which is why I so vividly recall this particular chapter. In my conclusion thoughts, I plan on getting back to why this was an ‘Aha!’ moment but for now I’ll move on.

So what metaphors exist in atonement theology? There is sacrifice/offering, legal/justification, interpersonal/reconciliation, military/ransom and this is just the beginning of the list. The remainder of the chapter looks at a very specific popular metaphor — penal substitutionary atonement — but for now I’ll save those details for later. For any interested enough to read this dwell on theology as metaphor for a bit and see if it resounds to you too.