I am so excited today! This is the day that I get to announce that Bear Creek UMC has an author in our midst! Our own, Rev. David Orendorff, has penned a new book, “The Way of Lovingkindness: An Imperfect Process of Spiritual Engagement.” David, now retired, was the pastor at Bear Creek for 10 years, and has been working at this book for a lifetime. It is a great book and I highly recommend it to any of you who are trying to sort out a way to positively embrace an inclusive Christian faith in today’s world.
In the book, David, refers to two different understandings of salvation: a punitive understanding of salvation, and a therapeutic understanding of salvation.
Here is how David tries to explain the two of them and how they differ:
In the “punitive” understanding of salvation:
“God has decreed laws. We have broken the laws. We must be punished. Jesus
substitutes himself for our punishment by being crucified for our sins and going to
Hell in our place. God accepts Jesus’ substitution by removing Jesus from Hell,
raising him from the dead, and forgiving us. However, only those who accept Jesus
as Lord can escape the eternal suffering of hell.”
David is clear in his renouncement of this understanding of salvation and offers another way to view salvation, what he calls the “therapeutic” understanding:
“I challenge this view of God as king and Jesus as substitutionary prince. I offer a
primary understanding of God as lovingkindness, servant, and healer. I and others
call this the theory of therapeutic salvation. Therapeutic salvation originates with
Jesus’ earliest followers and offers a way to reconciliation with God, people, and
all creation. When Jesus is said to heal someone, the Greek word most used in
Christian scripture is therapeuo—in English, to give therapy, to care for, to heal.
The root of the word “salvation” is “salve,” a healing balm.”
David does some incredible and helpful work here! He’s right. The “punitive” understanding of salvation is very guilt and shame based. For me, in my life right now, I don’t find that very helpful. But what I love about David’s work here is that he doesn’t just reject the old tradition…we have enough people saying “no” right now! But, instead, he refreshingly offers a new model of salvation that some of us can embrace with a whole-hearted “yes”! This new understanding, the “therapeutic” understanding, is based on a positive understanding of God and offers something that is so needed in our world today: healing!
This week I am reading an autobiographical book by Phillip Yancey, called “Where the Light Fell”. In this book Yancey tells, much in the same style as “Hillbilly Elegy”, what it was to like to live in a family and society totally immersed in this world of “punitive” theology. And let me tell you it is a brutal read. The guilt and shame created by the shadow of a punishing God is so painful to experience. And as the story unfolds, we begin to see how this extreme understanding of a punishing god so effects both Phillip, and his older brother, Marshall.
At one moment Yancey, then 11 or 12, hears his mother praying to God, “Lord, be gentle with me, just be gentle. But dear Lord, use whatever it takes with my kids, even if it’s suffering. Break them.” Upon hearing this he writes: "Maybe God is like my mother—a super-person who both loves me and schemes to break me.”
And I think for too many of us, in this punitive understanding of God, that is what we have. A “super god” who holds two conflicting views for us: a loving God and a Punishing God who is trying to break us!
The good news is that Yancey finds his way towards a therapeutic understanding of God: a “grace-filled” understanding of God. And you can see and experience this in so many of Phillip Yancey’s previous books. Especially in one of my favorites: “What’s So Amazing About Grace”. The bad news is this punitive theology wreaks havoc on the spirit and formation of his older brother, Marshall.
I share all of this because, just like David Orendorff, it is my belief and mission in life to find positive ways that people can say “yes” to a grace-filled God.
Your pastor and friend, always praying that grace wins, Brook
PS: David Orendorff will be at Bear Creek UMC on Sunday, December 4th after worship, 11 a.m., to sign copies of his book. We will have books there for you to purchase as well! Thanks David!!