As I have noted above, we Americans today should stop well short of thinking of retributive justice versus distributive justice. For us Americans today, it should not be a matter of either/or, as the term "versus" in the subheading here suggests, but of both/and. Our American system of laws should include penalties and punishments for breaking the law. This is what is meant by retributive justice. Nevertheless, we Americans today should also think seriously about distributive justice.
But Crossan is not discussing our American legal system. Instead, he is discussing how Christians understand God in the Christian Bible, which includes the Hebrew Bible. More specifically, Crossan focuses on the Christian understanding of the death of Jesus. Did Jesus die on the cross as a substitute for the sins of the world? No, says Crossan.
Crossan claims that Anselm d'Aosta (c.1033-1109), who became archbishop of Canterbury in 1093, was the first Christian writer to articulate explicitly the idea of Jesus's death as a substitution sacrifice for the sins of the world. In Anselm's view, Jesus's death represents retributive justice because he died for the sins of the world, as a substitution sacrifice.
But Crossan painstakingly shows that the different biblical texts about Jesus's death reveal a different view of his death. In this way, Crossan shows how and why the view of Jesus's death as involving retributive justice can be rejected and should be rejected. This part of his book will probably be the most challenging part for many Christians because Anselm's view has become deeply ingrained in the Christian tradition of thought.
Crossan explains, on the one hand, the sense of retributive justice, which is connected with forms of violence, and, on the other hand, the sense of distributive justice in different biblical texts, which is connected with non-violence.
Then from Crossan's account of distributive-justice/non-violence emerges a truly fresh way to understand the ancient Jewish and Christian apocalyptic tradition of thought. Instead of understanding all the violent imagery literally, Crossan suggests that we understand the violent imagery metaphorically. As you can see, I just summed up in one sentence the basic move he makes: instead of literal, metaphorical. But my, oh my, how this seemingly simple move changes our understanding. Because of the sheer vividness of the literal way of understanding apocalyptic imagery, Crossan's metaphorical way of understanding the imagery is challenging, and it is not easy to digest the metaphorical understanding, as I will discuss momentarily. But the metaphorical understanding leads to a fresh way to understand spirituality and the spiritual life.
When we understand the ancient Jewish and Christian apocalyptic tradition of thought literally, we will think in terms of retributive-justice/violence. In this view then, the apocalyptic imagery about the end of the world as we know it refers to the Great Divine Cleanup of the World, as Crossan puts it. The forces of good conquer the forces of evil through violence. This violent conquest leaves a lot of dead people around. But the upright people emerge living in heaven on earth or earth in heaven.
But when Christians pray the Lord's Prayer, they say, "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10, NRSV). In the ancient biblical thought-world, what is the will of God understood to be? Distributive justice, says Crossan. Is he right about that? If he is, does it make any difference?
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