Posted                          

quote:

---

And there's a residual element of that with me. However rational and objective I try to be about the whole thing there's still that nagging sense that to renege upon PSA is somehow to renege upon the Gospel itself.

... if you take out PSA you end up with a Saviour who cannot save for the wrath of God remains unsatisfied and unatoned for.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Forgive my ignorance, Psyduck, but I'd always been led to believe that PSA was the default Reformed or Calvinist position. Perhaps because such Calvinism that existed in the generally Armininian circles in which I moved came from a particular enthusiastic end of the Baptists and Brethren - who tended to be more Calvinistic than the Wesleyan/Holiness influenced Pentecostals.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It was generally believed that PSA was the sole basis of our salvation. So to question it would be to undermine any sense that we could be saved.

---

quote:

---

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
To me the issue is about the basis of forgiveness and therefore relationship with God.
On the CV thread, it was often asserted that God can forgive whomever he likes and does so. He doesn't need a reason or basis. The consequence was really a universallist gospel.
On the other hand, if God's forgiveness is extended on the basis of the fact that the cross deals with sin, one has a different scenario altogether.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Dr Richard Turnbull places PSA as being at the core of Evangelical identity, along with scriptural authority, relationship with Jesus and mission.

---

Posted                          

Sorry to double-post! TANGENT// (probably!) Starlight:

quote:

---

(except for the moral influence view that Christ killed himself to make us love him, which I dismissed out of hand as a non-contender).

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Starlight: I also decided PSA had some logical issues, it struggled to work logically as a theory

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Starlight: I also decided PSA had some logical issues, it struggled to work logically as a theory
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh really? please demonstrate.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Regarding universalism MT, If you want to wade through the CV thread, there was an extensive discussion between JS and JJ about this point.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

What Johnny S said, plus a bit more. The people you're talking about are generally quite keen on doctrine.

---

quote:

---

If you attacked another of their doctrines you'd get another harsh response.

---

quote:

---

There's a bit more to it than that. Firstly, the cross and atonement are such an important subject area

---

quote:

---

that people are always going to be on a hair trigger when talking about them.

---

quote:

---

Secondly, PSA is seen as a doctrine that is under attack at the moment.

---

quote:

---

[QUOTE] how many churches do you know that change the words to Townend's 'In Christ Alone' right now?

---

quote:

---

How many threads appear on here questioning whether PSA is an evil, contorted doctrine?! As a doctrine that is perceived to be under attack, PSA gets very staunchly defended.

---

quote:

---

Anyway, I thought it was homosexuality that was meant to be the uniquely defining doctrine with which evangelicals obsessively got their knickers in a twist. Make your minds up guys, which is it to be?

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
Can I take it that you're not equating "moral influence" atonement as such with "the view that Christ killed himself to make us love him"? But if you are speaking of a moral influence view that "view that Christ killed himself to make us love him" - I've never come across such a formulation!
...
it might be interesting to hear why a particular variant of Moral Influence was discarded by Starlight (especially when other variants grew to be important components of Starlight's thinking.)

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
Dinghy Sailor:

quote:

---

What Johnny S said, plus a bit more. The people you're talking about are generally quite keen on doctrine.

---

And nobody else is?

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

If you attacked another of their doctrines you'd get another harsh response.

---

Why? Why does a questioning response need to be construed as an "attack"? Why, when it's a case of other Christians seeing things differently, does the response have to be so along-the-line defensive? And - is it? I see lots of PSA Christians who seem to be able to discuss and defend PSA quite robustly without insinuating this kind of thing.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

There's a bit more to it than that. Firstly, the cross and atonement are such an important subject area

---

Indeed. No disagreement about that...

quote:

---

that people are always going to be on a hair trigger when talking about them.

---

Again - why?

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Secondly, PSA is seen as a doctrine that is under attack at the moment.

---

I don't understand the qualification "at the moment". PSA is always under attack, just like the doctrine of Transubstantiation, or the doctrine that Scripture isn't inerrant. And yes, that's a doctrine. (Or part of one.)

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Anyway, I thought it was homosexuality that was meant to be the uniquely defining doctrine with which evangelicals obsessively got their knickers in a twist. Make your minds up guys, which is it to be?

---

Doesn't that, on re-reading it, quite honestly sound a bit to you like the expression of a persecution complex?

---

quote:

---

Why is it apparently so threatening to you that lots and lots of Christians don't hold PSA?

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by shamwari:
IMO the reason people feel so strongly against PSA is because it seems to them to call the character / nature of God into question.

And that is the be all and end all. In the last analysis it is not whether or not I believe in God, but what kind of a God do I believe in.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

However, I'll be watching to make sure you never use that line in future - I think you've disqualified yourself by choosing PSA as your evangelical obsession of choice.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
But what we are talking about, ISTM, is why people feel as strongly as that about PSA.

---

quote:

---

Believing that the Lord's suffering on the cross was redemption itself is a fundamental error on the part of the church. That error, along with the error about three divine Persons from eternity, has ruined the whole church to the point that there is nothing spiritual left in it anymore. There is no topic that fills more books by orthodox theologians today, that is more intensely taught and aired in lecture halls, or that is more frequently preached and pronounced from the pulpit than the following: God the Father was angry at the human race, so he not only moved us all away from himself but locked us into a universal damnation and cut off communication with us. Nevertheless, because he is gracious, he either convinced or goaded his Son to come down to take a limited damnation on himself and ritually purge the Father's anger. This was the only way the Father could look on the human race with any favor. So this was in fact done by the Son. For example, in taking on our damnation, the Son let the Jews whip him, spit in his face, and then crucify him like someone accursed of God (Deuteronomy 21:23). After that happened the Father was appeased, and out of love for his Son he retracted the damnation, but only from those for whom the Son would intercede. Therefore the Son became a Mediator to the Father for all time.
[2] These ideas, and others like them, resound in churches today and reverberate off the walls like an echo from a forest, filling the ears of all who are there. Surely, though, everyone with decent reasoning enlightened by the Word can see that God is compassion and mercy itself. He is absolute love and absolute goodness - these qualities are his essence. It is a contradiction to say that compassion itself or absolute goodness could look at the human race with anger and lock us all into damnation, and still keep its divine essence. Attitudes and actions of that kind belong to a wicked person, not a virtuous one. They belong to a spirit from hell, not an angel of heaven. It is horrendous to attribute them to God.
[3] If you investigate what caused these ideas, you find this: People have taken the suffering on the cross to be redemption itself. The ideas above have flowed from this idea the way one falsity flows from another in an unbroken chain. All you get from a vinegar bottle is vinegar. All you get from an insane mind is insanity.
Any inference leads to a series of related propositions. These are latent within the original inference and come forth from it, one after the other. This idea, that the suffering on the cross was redemption, has the capacity to yield more and more ideas that are offensive and disgraceful to God, until Isaiah's prophecy comes to pass:
The priest and the prophet have gone astray because of beer; they stagger in their judgment. All the tables are full of the vomit they cast forth. (Isaiah 28:7, 8)
(Emanuel Swedenborg, True Christianity 132, published in Amsterdam in 1771)

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

I enjoy reading threads about PSA because opposition to it is practically the whole basis of the New Church.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

I refer you to the Purg. Guidelines about only posting if you don’t mind being challenged.

---

quote:

---

This should have been posted by me:
Many people frequently posit that conservative and/or evangelical Christians are "obsessed about sex". However, recently on the Ship, a spate of threads have arisen which posit that actually, PSA is the uniquely sensitive issue of which evangelicals and conservatives are disproportionately mindful.

These two ideas are mutually exclusive: you can be disproportionately protective of one or the other but not both - in that case you're just generally protective of your doctrine.

Since Psyduck has been the major proponent of these recent threads, I am delighted to hear that he shall never talk about other Christians being obsessed by sex, since that would invalidate the case he's been making on the recent threads. I can't remember if he's used the "obsessed about sex" line before but I'm glad that he won't do it in the future.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

I can't remember if he's used the "obsessed about sex" line before but I'm glad that he won't do it in the future.

---

OK, you have to allow me a and a over that.

quote:

---

a spate of threads have arisen which posit that actually, PSA is the uniquely sensitive issue of which evangelicals and conservatives [I note you are collating all evangelicals under the PSA rubric] are disproportionately mindful.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
There are Christians - I'm one of them - who clearly affirm that people very unlike them in faith, practice and theology (like, in my case, conservative evangelicals) are real Christians, despite taking issue with them on (many) points of disagreement.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
Why? Why does a questioning response need to be construed as an "attack"? Why, when it's a case of other Christians seeing things differently, does the response have to be so along-the-line defensive?

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
Freddy:

quote:

---

I enjoy reading threads about PSA because opposition to it is practically the whole basis of the New Church.

---

Should have thought of that for the OP! That's exactly what I mean by a Christian identity with PSA - or its repudiation - as an important part of its construction.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Regarding universalism MT, If you want to wade through the CV thread, there was an extensive discussion between JS and JJ about this point.

---

Did they speak to what I said? If so you had no excuse for what you said. If not, then what I said adds to the discussion.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Regarding universalism MT, If you want to wade through the CV thread, there was an extensive discussion between JS and JJ about this point.

---

Did they speak to what I said? If so you had no excuse for what you said. If not, then what I said adds to the discussion.

---

Mousethief, indeed you are right, I was the one who espoused exactly the position which you mentioned.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
Freddy:

quote:

---

I enjoy reading threads about PSA because opposition to it is practically the whole basis of the New Church.

---

Should have thought of that for the OP! That's exactly what I mean by a Christian identity with PSA - or its repudiation - as an important part of its construction.

---

That's what I thought of immediately when I read the OP.

I'm not thinking that many will agree with our particular denominational stance, but I doubt that we are the only denomination whose identity is strongly bound up with PSA one way or another.

So the OP is right on target for me. Thanks!

---

That's interesting - I've been seeing internet ads for the New Church (sponsored link style ads, no graphics) that say just that. Something like "Jesus saves, but not by appeasing an angry father or paying for your sins" - I'm probably not quoting it exactly.

(Hey, this is my 5000th post! )

--------------------
I reserve the right to change my mind.

My article on the Virgin of Vladimir

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Regarding universalism MT, If you want to wade through the CV thread, there was an extensive discussion between JS and JJ about this point.

---

Did they speak to what I said? If so you had no excuse for what you said. If not, then what I said adds to the discussion.

---

Mousethief, indeed you are right, I was the one who espoused exactly the position which you mentioned.

---

Paisano!

---

I have always considered you so

--------------------
To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Regarding universalism MT, If you want to wade through the CV thread, there was an extensive discussion between JS and JJ about this point.

---

Did they speak to what I said? If so you had no excuse for what you said. If not, then what I said adds to the discussion.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

I enjoy reading threads about PSA because opposition to it is practically the whole basis of the New Church. Swedenborg...

---

It occurs to me - is it possible that Swedenborg's Swedish background is in play here in a particular way? I presume that Swedish Lutheranism had originally been steeped in Luther's CV understanding of the Atonement. Aulen, in Christus Victor, seems to me among other things to be trying to restore a lost Scandinavian heritage. I don't know if this is the case, but I wonder if Swedenborg's reaction against PSA was connected with either direct experience, or more likely some sort of folk-memory, of the encroachment of PSA thought on Scandinavian theology after the first generations of Lutheranism - which I presume would be a C17, not a C18 development? (Aulen may say something about this - time to update my CV!!! )

--------------------
The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)

Posted                   

• All of us have multiple identities through which we belong to groups. Any particular identity is based on a whole network of associated practices; beliefs; ideas; rituals etc.
• A large part of any identity may be tacit identity: that is, it is not explicit or even conscious.
• Defining who is in the group depends upon boundaries.
  Some groups do have fairly definable boundaries (gender; whether you are a ‘bachelor’). However, even here the boundaries are less rigid than may appear (transgender individuals; someone who has entered into a civil partnership).
• Many groups or identities have no clear boundaries (who belongs to the Church of England? Everyone in England? Those who attend occasionally? Those baptised in the CoE? Those on the electoral roll? Those who attend regularly? Those who are ‘real Christians’?).
• Controversies and conflict arise when something associated with an identity is challenged. This challenge may be deliberate or not; it may be a challenge to an explicit part of the identity or to an element of the tacit identity. At this point, the element that is challenged can function as a symbol of the entire identity.
• These elements then act as what have ben called boundary markers, oriIdentity symbols, or badges of identity. Whatever you call it, the element acts as an outward and visible sign of the inward ‘whole’ of the identity.
• Religious controversies begin when an element of an identity is challenged. This can be an element which is practice (which day is Easter? Can we use icons?); which is linguistic (can we say ‘theotokos’ of Mary?); which is cognitive (is PSA the true model of the atonement) and of course all of these may overlap with others.
• The element attacked then stands for the whole of the identity. It becomes fiercely defended (assuming the underlying identity is perceived as important) in the same way that an army will fight to retain or regain its standard.
• So much energy and emotion may be invested in this that those involved will not be able or willing to dissociate the symbol from the underlying identity. The controversy will therefore last for the lifetime of those involved.
• The group itself may be strengthened by the challenge and feed off the challenge: cf Social Identity Theory. This may create a snowball effect.
• If there is a group which sustains itself based on that identity, the identity symbol may remain as such from then on (cf Orthodox and icons). It has become an explicit part of the identity.
• On the other hand, subsequent generations may decide that the identity symbol isn’t essential to the identity after all, and it fades in power and significance into obscurity (are wedding rings bad?).
• A third possibility is that, if the challenge disappears, then the identity symbol may appear to fade from view over time. However, it may remain as a tacit part of the identity and may be revived again if the challenge is repeated (cf the difficulty reconciling the Orthodox and RC churches).
• PSA has become an identity symbol/marker for a large swathe of evangelicalism. To attack PSA effectively becomes an attack on the whole identity of evangelicalism. PSA was always fairly explicitly part of the evangelical stream.
• Homosexuality has become another identity symbol for parts of evangelicalism. Again, the 'right' attitude to homosexuality stands for the whole.
• Other strands/denominations/traditions will have their own symbols which will be as vigorously defended, again often to the bemusement of those not in that group.
• This makes religious debate extremely hard - you are not criticising the logic of one model/theory - you are (socially and emotionally) attacking their entire religious identity.

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
It occurs to me - is it possible that Swedenborg's Swedish background is in play here in a particular way?

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boogie:
"Surely, though, everyone with decent reasoning enlightened by the Word can see that God is compassion and mercy itself. He is absolute love and absolute goodness - these qualities are his essence. It is a contradiction to say that compassion itself or absolute goodness could look at the human race with anger and lock us all into damnation, and still keep its divine essence. Attitudes and actions of that kind belong to a wicked person, not a virtuous one."


Swedenborg

Well said.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

It may have been "well said", but it is not scripturally accurate.

---