Unless and until THE PREMIAL COMPONENT OF JUSTICE gets rehabilitated in conformity with the Biblical witness, even our vaunted comprehension and well-meaning expression of LOVE in its public social application will continue to ring hollow.

But for the grace of God, a great many more of us would be just like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, John Owen, or Francis Turretin, if not worse. [2/26/11] Even allowing for the residual barbaric vindictiveness of those centuries, many of their noble contemporaries rose above the brutal instincts of their human milieu to deserve divine accolades, as did their exemplars in the first centuries after the Light of Christ’s resurrection first broke through. In view of that resounding record, what excuse can we muster to defend the embarrassingly unchristlike tenor of well-known historic words and works of notable founders and promoters of modern reform movements in the church? Surely it is no longer “in our interest”—it never really was!—to suppress unseemly examples, any more than the Bible would dare to do so (which episodes, bear in mind, have become causes for slander by many a gleeful accuser of saints, despite their source in holy Writ). Better to err in the interest of exposure than of concealment. We ought, accordingly, to applaud intrepid filmmakers who let the chips fall where they may (think only of “Maestro,” “Oppenheimer,” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” in 2023 alone). [2/19/24]

How seldom we reflect on the probing question exactly why we must insist on a doctrine of atonement with teeth in it, a theory ‘red in tooth and claw.’ What inner impulse overrides the native reticence of Scripture to cooperate with our punitive venture of bullying its vocabulary and semantic integrity into a tortured confession of our carnally cruel orthodoxy?

Witness only the disgracefully irresponsible renderings scattered throughout the New International Version (NIV)—and now also the newer and widely endorsed English Standard Version (ESV)—of the Bible. If, as was hoped, these little spins and twists of meaning would somehow manage to pass muster at the moment they cropped up for initial scholarly scrutiny and have never since been adequately exposed, much less repented of. then how dreadfully might they play out on the projected “international” stage over the long haul after attaining widespread uncritical acceptance? [2/26/11]

We may cry up “love” and shout down “justice” (penal, of course) all we want, but the resulting contents of love will remain palpably denatured unless we reconstitute the premial contents of integral justice. For full and entire justness (human no less than divine!) is simply the conformity to (in the case of personal righteousness) and restoration of (in the case of public justice) a law whose fulfilment IS LOVE! Accordingly, it is LOVE that both punishes the vicious (who violate the norm of love by their stubborn behaviors and harm the innocent by predatory habit) and rewards the virtuous (who actualize the norm of love by their resolute conducts). We can see this strikingly in its fairness and wisdom whenever God’s “punishment” of offenders amounts pedagogically to coercing them with official force to supercompensate their victims by restoring with a surplus of good. [2/27/11]

The penal substitution theory underestimates the damage done by sin. That is, at least in part, why it is compelled to augment the actual harm a particular sin should be assessed for with the supplemental notions of “guilt” and “punishment.” So, in common parlance Christ is not said to actually “bear sin(s)” (as Scripture, nevertheless, certainly does teach), but to “bear the guilt and punishment of sin(s)” (which Scripture, curiously, does not teach). It all sounds so plausible, especially in combination with the fabricated theory of imputation, so-called, which confers the glory of a solid Biblical concept upon a specious theory that environs it with alien contexts of discourse and, in effect, reconceptualizes it perversely. Sadly, the existential declension that ensued remains all but undetected by its devotees, and evidently even by most challengers. [2/28/11; 2/19/24]

If the premial understanding of the atonement and justification is not restored to the church, certain behavioral reflexes within thought and practice will assuredly continue to build up pressure and burst through toxically to assault the cause of Christ at “inconvenient” times and places. In particular, the popular tendency to avoid asking God for JUSTICE (in preference to mercy) seriously debases our expectation of observing restorative justice on our behalf within personal experience and current events, much less in the panoramic drama of unfolding history going forward. Not only do we despair of seeing it happen on our own behalf (“I’m just an unworthy sinner, scarcely deserving of mercy!”), but the eager longing for justice expressed by others within our purview tends not to arouse our sympathy or compassion, much less our emulation! This consequence severely debases Christian motivation to do justice in the earth. It threatens to compromise our whole ethic, our very witness to God’s Kingdom before a barely watching, marginally curious, cynically doubtful, but mostly skeptical and increasingly hostile world. We face a huge problem. [3/1/11; 2/19/24]

The Polish Brethren demonstrated that their repudiation of penal substitution was generative of a most rigorous and conscientious obedience to Christ’s commandments and his Father’s will.

The Polish Brethren (Socinians) definitely denied that Christ’s cross was intended to ‘satisfy the justice‘ of a punitive God so as to enable His forgiveness. Quite plausibly, this firm denial of any divinely penal motive in the suffering of the Savior may well have prevented their exceptionally conscientious obedience to the Lord’s commands from degenerating into moralism or legalism. Their ethic was arguably among the very highest of their contemporaries, indeed, within the whole history of Christianity, with the exception of the first few generations, who, no surprise, were their avowed models. They understood God’s Gift of the Holy Spirit as given to enable them to endure in obedience to Christ’s teaching so that they could win everlasting life. Without the spectre of a wrathful punitive Deity looming over them—God’s precious children by faith—they could follow their Lord’s lead without compulsiveness or dread, and hence could run the devout way of God’s commandments with alacrity and fearlessness.

It may not be too much to say that the ‘penal satisfaction‘ theory of the Atonement is inherently subversive of an authentic Christian ethic since it imputes ‘legalism’ or ‘moralism’ to earnest and eager endeavors to keep Christ’s commands carefully. Such a doctrine squelches enthusiastic scrupulousness to obey the Lord Jesus and leads to a lackadaisical attitude where ‘anything goes’ so long as a confrssional is within convenient reach or forgiveness is ladled out wholesale with no strings attached. The resulting ‘Christianity’ is a reproach and a disgrace to the reputation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and, much later, Dispensationalism, have all contributed to the debasement of Christian behavior and the reputation of Christ by their adherence to post-apostolic, non-biblical doctrines of the Atonement, and this not in their own right exclusively, but because penal theories of the Atonement make allowances for miscellaneous deviations that crop up within the larger realm of doctrine as well as the realm of ethics, both personal and social. [12/9/10; 8/11/23]

Their robust (some would say lopsided) emphasis on the humanity of the Lord Jesus somehow seems to have admirably encouraged and even inspired the assiduous obedience to Christ’s comandments that nobly typified the Polish Brethren above their contemporaries for several generations (with the possible exception of the early church, whom they were consciously emulating). They took heart in observing how God awarded His Son despite all the grim opposition and cruel manhandling he suffered. Christ was their model. Since God rewarded Jesus with immortal life for walking the way of His directives, they knew that this was the well-pleasing way for them to walk as well.

They also took courage from the knowledge that God had bestowed the Gift of His Holy Spirit on them to facilitate this earnest obedience to His will. Their power to endure so nobly and tranquilly the terrible forces at length unleashed against them, most severely by the Roman Catholics (especially Jesuits) and Calvinists of Poland, but including the animus of Lutheran Europe, testifies eloquently to the ruggedness of their doctrine. For they saw clearly and believed heartily that THE FATHER MOST GENEROUSLY REWARDED HIS SON FOR OBEDIENT BEHAVIOR EXERTED AGAINST ALL ODDS. This knowledge braced them in their contest with their foes. So, in addition to the fact that these Socinians did not affirm penal satisfaction/substitution in any sense whatever, they did boldly assert God’s premial award to the Lord Jesus Christ, even if they somewhat inadequately comprehended all that meant with respect to a premially forensic atonement. (They evidently did not quite grasp either that or how such a favorable response from God could, further, be actually cleansing or atoning. Further study of what remains of their widely-suppressed but soberly creative and brilliantly nuanced theological and ethical literary output, although very little is in English translation, is certain to prove fruitful and beneficial to the larger body of Christ in our era.)

However, regardless of the fact that they vigorously and successfully disputed any Biblical grounds for a ‘substitutionary’ atonement, and in particular, ‘penal satisfaction,’ they highly revered the Lord’s Supper—the channel of atoning cleansing via Christ’s innocent blood. Moreover, the Polish Brethren practiced adult, believers’ baptism, whose washing entails the atoning function also of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, regardless of their weak grasp of the connection between God’s reward to Christ and these two practices, they nevertheless benefited from their fiducial practice of the rites in their mediating of atoning power. The happy results were evident in their sterling lifestyle and rigorous attention to all the commands of their Lord Jesus Christ. They have left an unequalled legacy of faithful study of Scripture, obedience to the Gospel ethic, and endurance through affliction and persecution, that compares favorably with their early Anabaptist contemporaries across Europe. [12/9/10; 8/11/23]

Christ was s “protective cover” (hilasterion) around (peri) our sins precisely because his faithfulness (pistis), which was “in” (en) his blood (haima), rendered him essentially impervious, ‘immune,’ to any threat of God’s wrath. Hence, by “drinking” his “blood,” by which our hearts (“core” of our souls or bodily existences) get “sprinkled from a vicious conscience,” our sins are cleansed away, and thereby God’s wrath, in turn, is ‘averted’ from us or, better, “not aroused” toward us on account of our having perpetrated the offensive behaviors. [12/9/10; 8/12/23]

Because John Calvin never repented of his errors (neither his significant part in the wrongful death of Servetus, much less in matters of doctrine), they, along with his embitttered spirit of vendetta, were passed along to his theological heirs undiminished, turning many of them into “double the sons of gehenna” that he, too, was hazardously morphing into. Servetus credibly testified that Calvin ‘started it,’ and we can well believe it. We have Calvin’s own language preserved in all its shocking hubris, quite the equal of what he accused Servetus of venting. Have we lost a hallowed sense of irony at such historic displays? Let us shudder to repeat such blameworthy history, provoking blasphemy to God’s reputation. [12/10/10; 8/12/23]

Moral Theology / Personal & Social Ethics / Social & Economic Justice / Social Reform / Discipleship / Sanctification / Praxis

ACEMOGLU, Daron (1967-) and James A. ROBINSON (1960-)

***__________.  Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.  New York: Crown Publishers, 2012.  {xi, 529p.}

ANDREW (van der BIJL), “Brother”  (1928-)

****__________.  The Ethics of Smuggling.  With a Foreword by Corrie Ten Boom.  Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers / London: Coverdale House Publishers, 1974.  {139p.}  [One of the most compelling popular treatments of the global ethical implications of God’s Kingdom that I have ever read.]

BALGUY, John (1686-1748)

***__________.  Divine Rectitude: or, a Brief Inquiry Concerning the Moral Perfections of the Deity; Particularly in respect of Creation and Providence.  London: John Pemberton, 1730.  {62p.}  [This brief and worthy treatise clears the way for Balguy’s later and truly extraordinary An Essay on Redemption (q.v.).]

***__________.  The Law of Truth: or, the Obligations of Reason Essential to all Religion, To which are Prefixed, Some Remarks supplemental to a late Tract; entitled, Divine Rectitude.  London: John Pemberton, 1733.  {xxiv, 48p.}

***BARTHOLOMEW, Craig (1961-), Jonathan CHAPLIN (-), Robert SONG (-), Al WOLTERS (1942-), editors.  A Royal Priesthood?  The Use of the Bible Ethically and Politically: A Dialogue with Oliver O’Donovan.  The Scripture and Hermeneutics Series, Volume 3.  Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press / Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.  {xxiv, 446p.}

BELL, Jr., Daniel M. (1966-)

**__________.  “The Economy of Salvation,” Chap. 6 in The Economy of Desire: Christianity and Capitalism in a Postmodern World, pp. 145-160.  The Church and Postmodern Culture, series editor, James K. A. Smith.  Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016.  {16p.}

**__________.  “Forgiveness and the End of Economy,” Studies in Christian Ethics 20, no. 3 (2007): 325-44.  {20p.}  [A more extensive treatment of Anselm.]

BOER, Jan H[arm]. (1938-)

****__________, compiler.  Living in God’s World: Biblical Quotations [on Justice, Stewardship and Economics].  Jos, Nigeria: Institute of Church and Society, Northern Area Office (Christian Council of Nigeria).  1995.  {[vii], 81p.}

CASTELLIO, Sebastian (1515-63)

***__________.  Advice to a Desolate France, in the Course of Which the Reason for the Present War Is Outlined, as well as the Possible Remedy and, in the Main, Advice Is Given as to Whether Consciences Should Be Forced.  Translation by Wouter Valkhoff.  New Edition with an Introduction and Expanatory Notes by Marius F. Valkhoff.  Preface to the English Translation by Albert Geyser.  Shepherdstown, WV: Patmos Press, 1975 (1562).  {xiii, 50p.}

CLIFFORD, Ross (1951-) and Philip JOHNSON (1960-)

***__________.  The Cross Is Not Enough: Living as Witnesses to the Resurrection.  Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012.  {313p.}

COLLENBUSCH, Samuel (1724-1803)  [His influence on others was possibly more oral than written.]

DINESEN, Isak [pseud.] (1885-1962)

__________.  Babette’s Feast (the movie)

__________.  Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard.  NY: Vintage, 1993.  [p. 52.]

DURRWELL, F[rançois]. X[avier]. (1912-2005)

***__________.  “Principles of Christian Life: 1. Redemption and Personal Sanctification; 2. The Justice of God is Man’s Holiness,” Part I of In the Redeeming Christ: Toward a Theology of Spirituality, pp. 3-33.  Translated by Rosemary Sheed.  New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963.  {31p.}  (Originally published as Dans le Christ redempteur.  Le Puy/Lyons/Paris: Editions Xavier Mappus, 1960.)

ELLUL, Jacques (1912-94)

***__________.  “The Freedom of Christ and the Emancipation of Man,” chapter 2 in The Ethics of Freedom, pp. 51-75.  Translated and edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976.  {25p.}  (Originally, Éthique de la Liberté.  Geneva: Labor et Fides, n.d.)

***__________.  The Subversion of Christianity.  Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley.  Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986.  {v, 212p.}

ELY, Richard T[heodore] (1854-1943)

***__________.  Ground Under Our Feet: An Autobiography.  New York: The Macmillan Co., 1938.  {xv, 330p.}

***__________.  Social Aspects of Christianity, and Other Essays.  New and Enlarged edition.  New York, Boston: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889.  {xiii, 161p.}  (Reprint from the collection of the University of Michigan Library.  Digitized by Google Books.  Prepared for Publishing by Hewlitt Packard.)

EVANS, Christopher H[odge]. (1959-)

***__________.  The Kingdom Is Always but Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch.  Library of Religious Biography, edited by Mark A. Noll, Nathan O. Hatch, and Allen C. Guelzo.  Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004.  {xxx, 348p.}  (Esp. pp. 38-39, 72, 79, 299-303.)

***__________.  Liberalism Without Illusions: Renewing an American Christian Tradition.  Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010.  {ix, 207p.}

***__________.  The Social Gospel in America Religion: A History.  New York: New York University Press, 2017.  {vii, 271p.}

FLETCHER, Verne H. (1922-2009)

***__________.  “Foreword”; “Part Two: Application,” in Markus Barth and Verne H. Fletcher, Acquittal by Resurrection, pp. v-viii, 99-150.  New York/Chicago/San Francisco: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964.  {4p., 52p.}

FORDE, Gerhard O[laf]. (1927-2005)

__________.  “Christian Life.”  Eleventh Locus in Christian Dogmatics, Volume 2, pp. 391-469.  Edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson.  Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.  {79p.}

FOSTER, Robert L[ouis]. (1970-)

__________.  “Naming Sin: Reframing Racism and Atonement,” in Leaven, Vol. 18, Issue 1, Article 6, pp. 1-5 (2010).  {5p.}

HALLIE, Philip P[aul]. (1922-94)

***__________.  Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There.  New York, Cambridge, Hagerstown, Philadelphia, San Francisco, London, Mexico City, São Paulo, Sydney: Harper Colophon Books / Harper & Row, 1979.  {viii, 303p.}  [Esp. p. 140.]

HAROUTUNIAN, Joseph (1904-68)

__________.  Piety Versus Moralism: The Passing of New England Theology from Edwards to Taylor.  Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006.  {}  (Previously published by Henry Holt and Company, 1932.)

HAYS, Richard B. (1948-)

**__________.  The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics.  San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996.

HILTON, Boyd (1944-)

***__________.  The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1785-1865.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.  {xiii, 414p.}

HOWARD, Thomas (1935-)

***__________.  Chance or the Dance?  (?)

***__________.  Once Upon a Time, God…  Philadelphia and New York: A. J. Holman Co./Division of J. B. Lippincott Co., 1974.  {114p.}

JOHNSON, Philip.  See CLIFFORD, Ross.

KINGSLEY, Charles (1819-75)

***__________.  Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet.  1849.  (Reprinted, Okitoks Press, 2018.)

***__________.  Cheap Clothes and Nasty.

***__________.  Yeast.  1849.

KOT, Stanislaw (1885-1975)

**__________.  Socinianism in Poland; The Social and Political Ideas of the Polish Antitrinitarians in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.  Translated from the Polish by Earl Morse Wilbur.  Boston: Starr King Press, 1957.  {226p.}

KRETZMANN, John P. (-) and John L. McKNIGHT (-)

****__________, editors.  Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets.  The Asset-Based Community Development Institute, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University.  Chicago: ACTA [Assisting Christians To Act], 1993.  {[xi], 380p.}

LEE, Philip J. (-)

***__________.  Against the Protestant Gnostics.  Oxford University Press, 1987.  {368p.}

LOFTHOUSE, W[illiam]. F[rederick]. (1871-1965)

****__________.  Ethics and Atonement.  London: Methuen & Co., 1906.  {xii, 302}

LORENZEN, Thorwald (1936-)

***__________.  Resurrection and Discipleship: Interpretive Models, Biblical Reflections, Theological Consequences.  Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995.  {352+p.}

***__________.  Resurrection and Responsibility.  Festschrift.

***__________.  Resurrection – Discipleship – Justice: Affirming the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Today.  Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2003.  {186p.}

MacDONALD, George (1824-1905)

***__________.  The Curate’s Awakening.  Edited by Michael R. Phillips.  Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers/A Division of Bethany Fellowship, Inc., 1985 (1876).  {224p.}

MacINTYRE, Alasdair C.  (1929-)

__________.  “Justice as a Virtue: Changing Conceptions,” in After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, pp. 227-37.  First edition.  Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1981.  {11p.}

__________.  “Justice as a Virtue: Changing Conceptions,” in After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, pp. 244-55.  Third edition.  Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2007 (1984).  {11p.}

__________.  Whose Justice? Which Rationality?  Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988.  {}

MAGGAY, Melba Padilla (1950-)

***__________.  Transforming Society.  Published by the Institute for Studies in Asian Chcurch and Culture, Quezon City, Philippines.  Oxford, UK: Regnum Books, 1996.  {v, 108p.}

MANGALWADI, Vishal (1949-)

***__________.  Truth and Social Reform.  Third Edition.  New Delhi: Good Books, 1996 [1985, 1989].  {164p.}

MAURICE, [John] F[rederick]. D[enison]. (1805-72)

***__________. “Relation of Love to Righteousness,” in Reconstructing Christian Ethics: Selected Writings, pp. 80-88.  Edited by Ellen K. Wondra.  Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995.  {9p.}

MAURIN, Peter (1875?-1949)

**__________.  Easy Essays.  Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1977 (1961).  {[xviii], 216p.}

MAURO, Philip (1859-1952)

__________.  “Wherefore Then the Law? (Gal. 3:19),” chapter VIII in Our Liberty in Christ: A Study in Galatians, pp. 86-96.  Boston, Mass.: Hamilton Bros./Scripture Truth Depot, [1920].  {11p.}  (?)

McKNIGHT, John L.  See KRETZMANN, John P.

NAGASAWA, Mako A. (1972-)

***__________.  “Does Atonement Theology Impact How We Define Economic Justice?  Part 1: A Critique of Wayne Grudem.”  [Boston]: New Humanity Institute, posted

**__________.  “Donald Trump’s Scapegoating and the Scapegoating of the Black Community.”  [Boston]: New Humanity Institute, posted February 15, 2016.  {[c. 13+]p.}  Online:

**__________.  “Out of Eden: A Christian Study and Action Guide to Food and the Environment.”  Power Point presentation on Social Justice & Evangelism.  New Humanity Institute Resources Curriculum: Medical Substitutionary Atonement, Personal Healing, and Social Justice.  {}  Online: www.newhumanityinstitute.org/resources.curriculum.htm

**__________.  “Restoring the Captives: A Christian Study and Action Guide to Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow.”  Power Point presentation on Social Justice & Evangelism.  New Humanity Institute Resources Curriculum: Medical Substitutionary Atonement, Personal Healing, and Social Justice.  {}  Online: www.newhumanityinstitute.org/resources.curriculum.htm

***__________.  “The Role of Jesus in Revolution & the Pursuit of Justice.” [Boston]: New Humanity Institute, posted Feb. 2009.  {[c. 12]p.}  Online:

**__________.  “Shame & Glory: How Jesus Heals Your Self, Desires, and Emotions.”  Power Point workshop presentation at Honor-Shame Conference.  New Humanity Institute Resources Curriculum: Medical Substitutionary Atonement, Personal Healing, and Social Justice.  {[c. 24]p.}  Online: www.newhumanityinstitute.org/resources.curriculum.shame&glory.htm

**__________.  “The Third Abolition: A Christian Study and Action Guide to Human Trafficking & Modern Day Slavery—The Problems Hidden in Plain Sight.  Power Point presentation on Social Justice & Evangelism.  New Humanity Institute Resources Curriculum: Medical Substitutionary Atonement, Personal Healing, and Social Justice.  {}  Online: www.newhumanityinstitute.org/resources.curriculum.htm

***__________.  “What Lynching, Torture & Scapegoating Have in Common: Penal Substitution.”  [Boston]: New Humanity Institute, posted February 18, 2016.  {[c. 13+]p.}  Online:

*__________.  “Why Evangelicals Scapegoat Gays, Muslims, Etc.”  [Boston]: New Humanity Institute, posted February 29, 2016.  {[c. 12+]p.}  Online:

***__________.  “Why Penal Substitution Is a Gateway Drug to Right-Wing Extremism.”  [Boston]: New Humanity Institute, posted February 22, 2016.  {[c. 23+]p.}  Online:

***__________.  “Why Trump and Cruz Are the Direct, Logical Result of American Evangelical Theology.”  [Boston]: New Humanity Institute, posted March 5, 2016.  {36p.}  Online:

NIETZSCHE, Friedrich Wilhelm (1844-1900)

__________.  Beyond Good and Evil (Jenseits von Gut und Böse).  Trans. Walter Kaufmann.  New York: Vintage, 1966 (1886).

__________.  The Genealogy of Morals (Zur Genealogie der Moral).  1887

O’DONOVAN, Oliver (1954-)

**__________.  Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics.  Second edition.  Leicester, UK: APOLLOS/An imprint of Inter-Varsity Press; Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 1994 [1986].  {xxi, [276p.]}

PAUL, Robert S[ydney]. (1918-92)

__________.  The Assembly of the Lord: Politics and Religion in the Westminster Assembly and the “Grand Debate”.  Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1985.  {x, 609p.}

PENN, [Jr.,] William (1644-1718)

***__________.  No Cross, No Crown: A Discourse showing the Nature and Discipline of the Holy Cross of Christ; and that the Denial of Self, and Daily Bearing of Christ’s Cross, Is the Alone Way to the Rest and Kingdom of God.  Philadelphia: Kimber, Conrad, and Co., 1807.  (First part reprinted with some modernization, Shippensburg, PA: Mercy Place / A licensed imprint of Destiny Image, Inc., 2001.  {x, 190p.})  [One of the most in-depth and sustained treatments of “modern” sins ever written.]

PHULE, Jotirao Govindrao (1827-90)

PINSON, Koppel S[hub]. (1904-61)

__________.  Pietism As a Factor in the Rise of German Nationalism.  New York: Columbia University Press / London: P. S. King & Son, Ltd., 1934.  {227p.}

RADER, Benjamin G. (1935-)

***__________.  The Academic Mind and Reform: The Influece of Richard T. Ely in American Life.  University of Kentucky Press, 1966. {vii, 279p.}

RAUSCHENBUSCH, Walter (1861-1918)

***__________.  Christianity and the Social Crisis.  New York and London: The Macmillan Co., 1907.  {xv, 429p.}

***__________.  Christianity and the Social Crisis in the 21^st Century: The Classic That Woke Up the Church.  With Essays by Tony Campolo, Joan Chittister, James A. Forbes, Jr., Stanley Hauerwas, Richard Rorty, Phyllis Trible, Jim Wallis, Cornel West.  Edited by Paul Rauschenbush.  New York: HarperOne / An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2007.  {xxii, 376p.}

***__________.  Christianizing the Social Order.  New York: The Macmillan Co., 1912.  {}

***__________.  The Righteousness Of The Kingdom.  Edited and Introduced by Max L Stackhouse.  Nashville/New York: Abingdon Press, 1968.  {320p.}

***__________.  The Social Principles of Jesus.  College Voluntary Study Courses: Fourth Year—Part I.  New York and London: Association Press, 1917.  {[ix], 198p.}

ROPER, Ronald L[ee]. (1948-)

****__________.  “Youth Revival Preparation Kit and What to Do After the Revival.”  A Progressive Categorized Bibliography.  2005.  {26p.}

RYAN, John A[ugustine]. (1869-1945)

**__________.  A Living Wage.  Revised and Abridged Edition.  With an Introduction by Richard T. Ely.  New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920.  {ix, 182p.}  (Unabridged edition, Macmillan, 1906.)  (Nabu Public Domain Reprints.)

SAFSTROM, Mark (-)

***__________.  The Religious Origins of Democratic Pluralism: Paul Peter Waldenström and the Politics of the Swedish Awakening 1868-1917.  Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications/An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2016.  {xii, 289p.}

SCHOTTROFF, Luise (1934-2015)

*__________.  “‘Give to Caesar What Belongs to Caesar and to God What Belongs to God’: A Theological Response of the Early Christian Church to Its Social and Political Environment,” in The Love of Enemy and Nonretaliation in the New Testament, pp. 223-57.  Edited by Willard M. Swartley.  Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1992.  {35p.}

SHELDON, Charles M[onroe]. (1857-1946)

**__________.  His Brother’s Keeper.  Updated by Jim Reimann.  Nashville: Thomas Neslon Publishers, 1999 (1895).  {ix, 245p.}

**__________.  In His Steps.  1897.

*__________.  What Did Jesus Really Teach?  Topeka, KS: The Capper Publications, 1930.  {78p.}

SWARTLEY, Willard M. (1936-)

__________.  “Discipleship and Imitation of Jesus / Suffering Servant: The Mimesis of New Creation,” in Violence Renounced: René Girard, Biblical Studies and Peacemaking, pp. 218-45.  Telford: Pandora (now Cascadia), 2000.  {28p.}

TANNER, Kathryn (1957-)

**__________.  Economy of Grace.  Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005.  {}

THOMPSON, E[dward]. P[almer]. (1924-93)

__________.  Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law.  New York: The New Press, 1993.  {xxi, 234p.}

TOLSTOY, Leo (1829-1910)

__________.  The Kingdom of God Is Within You.

TROCMÉ, André [Pascal] (1901-71)

***__________.  Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution.  Revised, Expanded edition.  Edited by Charles E. Moore.  Walden, NY / Robertsbridge, UK / Elsmore, Australia: Plough Publishing House, 2014 [2003].  {233p.}

TROOST, Andre (1916-2008)

***__________.  The Christian Ethos: A Philosophical Survey.  Translated by Kobus and Yvonne Smit.  Edited by Don Sedgwick.  Bloemfontein, South Africa: Patmos, 1983.  {[vii], 154p.}

WATKIN, Christopher (-)

***__________.  Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture.  Foreword by Timothy Keller.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2022.  {xiv, 648p.}  [His elaboration of the powerful Biblical concept of “superabundance” is a long overdue enrichment concerning the results of God’s premial justice to Christ.  However, the author, quite disappointingly, never appears to mention, much less close, this conceptual link, so indispensable to an authentic understanding of atonement and justification in Scripture.]

WEBB, Stephen H. (1961-2016)

***__________.  The Gifting God: A Trinitarian Ethics of Excess.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.  {}

WRIGHT, G. Ernest (1909-74)

*__________ and an Ecumenical Committee in Chicago.  The Biblical Doctrine of Man in Society.  Ecumenical Biblical Studies No. 2.  Published for the Study Department World Council of Churches.  London: SCM Press, 1954.  {176p.}

WRIGHT, N[icholas]. T[homas]. (1948-)

***__________.  “Paul and Caesar: A New Reading of Romans.”  Chapter 11 in A Royal Priesthood?  The Use of the Bible Ethically and Politically: A Dialogue with Oliver O’Donovan, pp. 173-93.  Edited by Craig Bartholomew, et al.  Carlisle, UK: Paternoster / Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.  {21p.}

Calling All Saints! Calling All Saints! — Part 11

A Comedy of Errors, a Tragedy of Mistaken Identities (cont’d.)

What if there was no need for any payment for sin’s debt at the cross, because there was more than ample repayment for its injuries at the resurrection, and that made all the difference?

What if the finite terrestrial crime of the cross was repaid to Jesus at a super-compensatory rate in accord with the celestial appraisal of God’s fully restorative premial justice?

What if the New Testament teaches that Christ “bought” and paid for sinners with a “price” (Luke 1:68, 2:38, 24:20-21; Acts 20:28; 1 Cor. 6:20, 7:23; 1 Tim. 2:6; 2 Tim. 2:20-21; Tit. 2:14; Heb. 9:12; 1 Pet. 1:18-19; 2 Pet. 2:1; Jude 4; Rev. 5:9, 6:10, 14:3-4), yet never that he “paid the penalty” or “satisfied the debt” of their sins, but instead simply forgives them like his Father does (and like all God’s children who are maturing in love should be learning to do)?

What if God’s entire ethic of forgiveness is founded not on His Son’s paying Him back for his losses from infractions against His honor, rights, or property, but much rather on His own letting go of His honor, rights, and property…including surrendering even His own precious Son to the tender mercies of maliciously envious rivals, precisely so He could prove to the wondering universe His persistent tough love and genuine mercy against the worst odds imaginable, and thereby even win the additional love and praise of former enemies?

What if the Gospel simultaneously teaches, demonstrates, and empowers the ethic of Jesus?

What if it seems more in Character for our Father in heaven to forgive without payment than to “forgive” after payment, or is He obliged by a postulated “eternal moral order” to somehow, somewhere, somewhen receive payment before He can forgive “justly”?

After all, what if God is “faithful and just that He may be pardoning us our sins and should be cleansing us from all injustice” (1 John 1:9; Rom. 3:25-26)—how exactly does that work…?

What if in Jesus’ parable of the king and the indebted slave (Matt. 18:23-35) the king actually had it right the first time, when he was merciful and forgave the slave who merely entreated him for patience to allow him to repay (whereas the king graciously decided to absorb the cost personally and simply remit the loan in its entirety…), or did the king have a relative handy who could subsidize, indemnify, or pay him back for his losses to the debtor, and yet (by some intra-trinitarian abara c’ dabara) still allow him to claim extra credit for pardoning him as well?

What if the only necessity urged in the parable is that “it was binding [edei] to be merciful [eleesai]” to others if you have been shown mercy, even if to do so entails some loss to yourself, yet without any hint of some necessity to get paid back fully, come Hell or global warming?

What if Jesus taught that to become perfect and holy like our Father in heaven is perfect and holy, we must learn to pardon outright those who ask our forgiveness rather than demanding them to pay us back for the loss first, because after all, children of God are “not simply loving, but also holy” like our heavenly Father is holy, and therefore pardons in such a manner?

What if being “not only loving but also holy” does not mean that we are bound to demand repayment or punishment for every debt or injury, as we have been taught a “holy” God does, but that we are bound to show mercy to those who repent and entreat us to forgive them?

What if the only wrath (orgistheis) in the parable (Matt. 18:34) is actually expressed by the king toward the debtor’s unmercifulness to other debtors, not toward his indebtedness per se?

Hence, what if it is morally incoherent to conceive that God’s holiness requires free forgiveness, yet in the same breath insist that God’s holiness requires that He somehow punish every last sin?

What if a penal atonement spoils the true spirit of Christian personal and social ethics, for it showcases a Savior who not only was not requited (komizo) with wages (misthos) or reward (misapodocia), nor recompensed (antapodidomi) or paid (apodidomi) by God for his superior service, but instead was consigned to a cross in order to suffer God’s wrath in order to pay back God the Creator by himself (were it even possible, Rom. 11:33-36) for the cosmic sin-debt incurred by human beings, so God gets off the hook without having to forgive anything at all?

What if downplaying the fact that the Lord Jesus himself was rewarded for doing good actually undermines our own human incentive to do the good works God intends us to “walk in”?

What if God—His entire contents—was in Christ on the cross (2 Cor. 5:19, cf. Col. 1:19-20), Himself absorbing the cost that released the world from debt, not accounting their offenses to them, self-sacrificially conciliating the universe—He simply “ate the loss” (to get all technical), thus Christ wasn’t paying God to do it, he was demonstrating God doing it?

But since God can be two places at once, what if He was also outside of Christ, doling out wrath on…Them Both—you know, to pay for sin and all that?  On second thought…

That is to say, what if the cross did not somehow “bring,” “effect,” “secure,” “achieve [complete],” “enable [final],” or “provide [full]” forgiveness of sins—instead, these words are linguistic substitutes, decoys, red meat thrown around to distract us from all the clues pointing to the cross as an actual bona fide revelation, manifestation, display, or demonstration of God actually forgiving His embittered enemies, and not merely a penal substitutionary mechanism, instrumentality, or expedient to “get there from here”?

~~ To be continued ~~

“Substitutionary Suffering”—an Illusion

The very reason people intuitively recoil (unless they’ve become hardened by the repeated assaults of pulpit bombardments) at the thought of penal substitution—that God poured out His own wrath on His innocent Son in order to “satisfy” His “justice” against the sins of the guilty—is precisely that it strikes us as UNHOLY—UNWHOLESOME!  Something in this macabre scenario “hits” us as BULLYING.  If we permit theological scribes to silence our consciences regarding this orthodox caricature, what will the outcome be in terms of Christian character and social ethics?  [03/24/08]

The historical, empirical consequences of arguing for and preaching up a piously so-called “theology of the Cross” have been a muffling of Messiah’s resurrection:  a suppression of the real significance and authentic results of Pentecost, and a total neglect of the prophetic meaning of the Destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 A.D. as a divine avenging for the Jewish crucifixion of His Son exactly one generation earlier.  [03/24/08]

In Messiah’s wrestling with Satan, his final winning move might aptly be dubbed THE REVERSE CRUX MANEUVER.  [03/25/08]

“SUBSTITUTIONARY SUFFERING”:  AN ILLUSION

The idea of “substitutionary suffering” has no utility in biblical theology whatever.  It is meaningless in its essence, in terms of the pattern of sound explanations that confronts us authoritatively in apostolic Scripture as well as Old Covenant Scripture, since in fact the expression never occurs.  Worse, it is misleading in its connotations and nuances (completely aside from its pretensions of being biblical), due to the erroneous theology that always accompanies it like fleas on a dog.

When sins/depravity/transgressions are borne by their perpetrator, then of course they are not “substitutionary,” by definition.  But even when they are borne by someone else, which happens whenever any sin is forgiven/pardoned (for then the forgiver/pardoner bears the sin/depravity/transgression perpetrated against them), the relation is not substitutionary in that case either, because it is not borne “in their place under the wrath of God” (which is the only plausible assumption furnishing an ostensible rationale for its traditional usage), but as a favor to the repentant perpetrator, and is modeled (usually…) by the graciousness of God demonstrated at Messiah’s resurrection from the death of the cross.  [03/29/08; 05/06/16]

Alan Groves, for all his traditionalistic errors concerning “vicarious” atonement has nonetheless scored a key goal by observing that, “The one who has borne (nasah) the sin of others (Is. 53:12) will be the one who is lifted up (nisah) by Yahweh (Is. 52:13). The wordplay is not accidental.” (“Atonement in Isaiah 53,” in The Glory of the Atonement:  Biblical, Historical & Practical Perspectives.  Essays in Honor of Roger Nicole.  Edited by Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III.  [Downers Grove, IL:  InterVarsity Press, 2004], p. 81.  Emphasis added; Hebrew transliterated.)

Indeed, much more should be made of this observation than Groves does (or, indeed, can, in the absence of resurrectionary assumptions regarding the authentic justice of Yahweh).  Isaiah 6:1, 33:10, 52:13 and 57:15 in concert sing the praises of Yahweh, the Son of God, installed through resurrection, i.e., “lifting up,” via crucifixion, i.e., “exaltation,” in every single case of the couplet.

This truly remarkable concurrence of terms explodes with significance in light of the Messianic climax in the culminating events of the Cross and Resurrection.  THE ONE WHO BORE “THE SIN OF MANY” WAS HIMSELF BORNE “FROM THE GRAVE TO THE SKIES” (incorporating a very happy double entendre in English since, indeed, “this day have I begotten [or born] you” is well regarded as referring to his Resurrection!  Hebrews 1:5, Psalm 2:7), such that the capital crime of murdering the sinless Messiah in cold blood—an injustice of incomparable malice—was turned inside out by the overcompensating benignity of A DIVINE JUSTICE—NOT TO BE OUTDONE!—INTO A SALVATION FOR ALL WHO TRUST.  [03/29/08]