Theories of Atonement — Scapegoat Theory

Did Jesus pay Satan a hefty ransom for humanity’s redemption? Is the devil a spiritual ransomware terrorist who hijacks humanity, forcing us into calamitous situations from which we have no control?

Was Jesus a scapegoat? A victim of a Jewish lynch mob?

Whenever we read the word atonement in a hymnal or discuss it around Easter, we have a shared understanding of the term. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines atonement in four ways:

1. Reparation for offense or injury.

2. The reconciliation of God and humankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ

3. Christian science: exemplifying of human ones with God

4. Obsolete: reconciliation

The beautiful nature of the atonement is in its ramification, namely, that we have the luxury of being reconciled to God. This pleasure affords us a bridge on which to connect with God. Almost as if there initially lay a chasm, a void of hopelessness between us and the Divine, and Christ’s efficacious work on the cross not only built this bridge of reconciliation but also carried us across it.

Atonement is a great thing. It’s a marvelous thing.

But which theory about Christ’s work on the cross is the right one?

Stephen D. Morrison lists seven of the most well-known theories surrounding the atonement and I will quote his explanations of each one.

He states the seven theories are: the moral influence theory, the ransom theory, Christus Victor theory, the satisfaction theory, the penal substitution theory, the governmental theory, and the scapegoat theory.

The Scapegoat Theory

Point 1

“This theory moves away from the idea that Jesus died in order to act upon God (as in PSA, Satisfaction, or Governmental), or as payment to the devil (as in Ransom). Scapegoating therefore is considered to be a form of non-violent atonement, in that Jesus is not a sacrifice but a victim.”

Point 2

“There are many Philosophical concepts that come up within this model, but in a general sense, we can say that Jesus Christ as the Scapegoat means the following. 1) Jesus is killed by a violent crowd. 2) The violent crowd kills Him believing that He is guilty. 3) Jesus is proven innocent, as the true Son of God. 4) The crowd is therefore deemed guilty.”

Point 3

“Christianity is a priestly religion which understands that it is God’s overcoming of our violence by substituting himself for the victim of our typical sacrifices that opens up our being able to enjoy the fullness of creation as if death were not.”

Thoughts on the Scapegoat Theory

Rene Girard, the progenitor of this theory was a French historian, professor at Stanford, and his focus settled on anthropological philosophy. A man of his genius sought to investigate the atonement theories and he put into mind that Christ’s death was seen as a societal necessity, a cultural phenomenon that occurs in society from time to time to develop or evolve a religious rite and belief.

According to him, most religions with a ritual and sacrifice, began this way. There is a series of sins or wrongs committed in a nation or tribe, there is some mentionable disaster or consequence which from there the local body of people develops righteous indignation against and then a single soul or several guilty people who suffer the justified wrath of the people for the betterment of their society. Someone becomes the scapegoat. Someone takes the blame.

Here is Rene Girard giving us a detailed progression of his thoughts on the Scapegoat Theory.

“What I have called ‘bad sacrifice’ is the kind of sacrificial religion that prevailed before Christ. It originates because mimetic rivalry threats the very survival of a community. But through a spontaneous process that also involves mimesis, the community unites against a victim in an act of spontaneous killing. This act unites rivals and restores peace and leaves a powerful impression that results in the establishment of sacrificial religion.

But in this kind of religion, the community is regarded as innocent and the victim is guilty. Even after the victim has been ‘deified,’ he is still a criminal in the eyes of the community (note the criminal nature of the gods in pagan mythology).

But something happens that begins in the Old Testament. Many stories reverse this scapegoat process. In the story of Cain and Abel, the story of Joseph, the book of Job, and many of the psalms, the persecuting community is pictured as guilty and the victim as innocent. But Christ, the son of God, is the ultimate ‘scapegoat’ — precisely because he is the son of God, and since he is innocent, he exposes all the myths of scapegoating and shows that the victims were innocent and the communities guilty.”

Professor Girard’s initial demonstration of public lynchings is close to home for Black Americans, because, not too long ago, black bodies would hang from trees as a deterrent, as a sign of triumph by the local white militia, as a staple of racial dominance, and of black subjugation to that white dominance in the American Deep South.

American history reminds us that photographers were asked to participate in these public lynchings. Asked to photograph the torture and then mutilation of black bodies. The photos, once developed, were used as postcards that one family would send to another as a holiday gift. Bits and pieces of the victim’s body, namely, their sexual organs, were severed and contained, treasured as souvenirs of a just cause won by a just people.

The mass cult-think that took place in the United States after the Civil War where Black Americans were emancipated from slavery but re-subjugated to the bonds of terror from Klansmen, police forces, and lynch mobs was only possible because the people in power, white Americans, thought that what they were doing, the raping, bombing, hanging, mutilating, decapitating, and lynching of Black Americans, was a good and just thing.

Girard points to this as an anthropological phenomenon that is evident in every aspect of society where sacrifices are offered. Whether those sacrifices be birds, oxen, cows, and goats, or if under more civilized eras who are pent up with anger and rage, they sacrifice people to appease their group or their deity.

In the Scapegoat Theory, everything is reversed. The mob that initially saw itself as righteous, videlicet, the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and teachers of the law were seen as innocent men ridding society of an evil man. The Roman soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were seen as mere agents of a benevolent and just society who worked together to kill a man guilty of what they deemed was a crime punishable by death — death on the cross! Jesus’s crime? Jesus declared himself the Son of God, namely, that he was equal with God.

And this theory reverses the guilt. It places the wrongs on the heads of society, the mad and rabid, foaming at the mouth, rage-filled society is the one at fault. And the victim, for once and for all, is innocent and righteous.

This atonement theory settles well within Black Liberation Theology and the first ever Black Liberation Theologian, Professor James H. Cone’s work, The Cross and The Lynching Tree.

“In the ‘lynching era,’ between 1880 to 1940, white Christians lynched nearly five thousand black men and women in a manner with obvious echoes of the Roman crucifixion of Jesus. Yet these ‘Christians’ did not see the irony or contradiction in their actions.”

And again.

“The gospel of Jesus is not a rational concept to be explained in a theory of salvation, but a story about God’s presence in Jesus’ solidarity with the oppressed, which led to his death on the cross. What is redemptive is the faith that God snatches victory out of defeat, life out of death, and hope out of despair.”

Long live Black Liberation Theology for getting right what hundreds of years of Eurocentric theologians got wrong.

Jesus.

Wakanda salute.

Conclusion

Greg Boyd of ReKnew, a theology and all things Christian network, has this to say about atonement theories.

“Atonement theories have customarily been grouped into two camps: a) subjective atonement theories, where the cross is understood to change something in us, but not fundamentally affect the way things are, and; b) objective atonement theories, where the cross is understood to fundamentally affect the way things are and only affect a change in us as a consequence of this.”

And I agree.

Christ’s work on the cross was both subjective and objective. It did not focus more so on outer, societal, heavenly transformations than it did on inner, personal, interpersonal, and communal transformation.

It did not decrease the value of one theory to elevate another.

When it comes to atonement theories, the Christian cannot resort to an either/or fallacy mindset where we have to pick one theory over another.

But more to the point concerning atonement theories is Stephen D. Morrison’s conclusion to his initial published work on the same topic where he informs us of something more important than atonement theories.

“Each theory presented here is dense and complex, but I hope you can learn from the overall focus of each. I believe that we need to move beyond some of these theories and progress into a more robust theory of atonement. But thankfully, at the end of the day, we aren’t saved by theories. We’re saved by Jesus! How that happens may be fun to discuss and theorized about, but only in the sight of the fact that it’s the who that matters far more!”

So, if you’re tackling this subject and you are not sure if you should opt for the moral influence theory, Christus Victor theory, ransom theory, satisfaction theory, penal substitution theory, governmental theory, or the scapegoat theory, understand that we can live and move between them all since our focus is Christ.

We are saved “by grace,” Paul teaches the church in Ephesus, and this “through faith.”

A theory concerning the way things happened, what was accomplished, what transaction took place, — if any, whether wrath or satisfaction, whether suffering or triumph, is of less importance than the fact that we are saved, period.

Truly, our focus must remain on the perfect work of Jesus Christ on the cross that saved us and afforded us the right to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit to live by the fruits of the same Spirit, sealed and protected by our Lord for it is He who holds our faith intact, not us. And, He granted us the right to rise from the grave; the right to resurrection and eternal life.

If anything other than this takes precedence in the life of a believer, chances are they have veered off the track of the gospel’s simplicity and settled for convoluted clouds of hidden knowledge that benefit no one.

Focus on Christ and He will settle the rest in this life or the next.

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. — Proverbs 31:8 NLT

Featured Image Alicia Quan.

Originally published at http://olivettheory.com on November 4, 2021.