Lex orandi, lex credendi

The first way to honor the Passion as a mysterion, Jenson argues, is liturgical (Theology as Revisionary Metaphysics, 132-3): “We understand the cross as our reunion with God when we ourselves are made actors in the cross’s story,” especially, he argues, in the three-day celebration of Pascha. The liturgy, “transcending the limitations of the creeds and the doctrines taught in schools . . . kept understanding of the atonement alive for so many centuries.”

What happens when the atonement is detached from this liturgical life: “the loss of this liturgy in most of Protestantism, and the concurrent loss of its Sunday compendium [i.e., in the Eucharist] . . . has slowly but inevitably delivered Protestantism over, on the one hand, to the grotesqueries of ‘blood atonement’ and the like and, on the other hand, to a doctrine of the atonement that may be summarized: God loves us all regardless, now let’s get on to the real issues of peace and justice.”

Again, Jenson’s dismissal of “blood atonement” is an error. As Jenson knows, there is surely blood in the atonements of the Bible. Put that aside: Doctrine is not merely a propositional account of the church’s practices, as some postliberals suggest. Yet doctrine must arise from those practices, or it will be distorted and distorted profoundly.