What is Womanist View of Atonement? (Green/Huntsman 3 of 5)

We're going to dive into some other atonement theories, including womanist views? Is that the same thing as feminist? Check out our conversation...



https://youtu.be/4Zrf7wL3sbc



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Objective vs Subjective Atonement

GT  00:41  But I do like some of the other models. And I like--because I know, in fact, I just pulled up the Wikipedia article, because I was looking at it. It's really different than the one I remember from 10 years ago when I saw it. But I would like to hit some of the main ones. Could you describe for an audience who may not be familiar with other models? I want to get away from penal substitution, personally. I want to talk about the others, because I think people don't know what they are. So, Eric, you mentioned moral influence. I remember in your chapter, you talked about nonviolent and womanist. And I think Deidre, you're kind of the--you're the womanist [expert.] And is that just another word for feminism, that's not supposed to be as...



Eric  01:28  Deidre, why don't we do this, because you're more of a theologian? Why don't I do the three classic approaches, and then we'll let Deidre do the more theological expansions. And for your listeners who haven't seen the book yet, we divide the book into two sections. The first is called Scriptural Historical Foundations and the second section is called Theological Exploration. So let me do the foundation part and then Deidre can do the expansion.



Eric  01:52  Not everyone agrees with this, and the person who immediately followed me, Ariel Bybee Laughton, pointed out that this is an outdated rubric. But there was a Swedish scholar, Gustaf Alin, who came up with three major theories. And the one was objective, and then one was subjective, and one was what he called Christus Victor. And the objective is an umbrella for atonement models that are trying to change someone else besides ourselves. So, it's either for those who use the term propitiate, propitiate an angry God, or to ransom us from the devil, or somehow change something else. I mean, J.B. would, even, I think, subscribe to this: change nature and natural law that are demanding a consequence.



Eric  02:40  Subjective models are that the atonement is changing us. And just fast forward to the Givens, healing would be a subjective model, the Atonement is changing us. What Gustav Alin pointed out with Christus Victor, and he had some good New Testament models for this, is that Christ was victorious over something like sin or a death. So, those were the three big rubrics. And we had people in the Middle Ages--Abelard was for--which one was that? He was objective, right? And then Anselm was subjective. This is outside of my ken here. But then we get into many other models. And so Ariel set the stage for that. And then someone like Deidre, who does so much with contemporary theology, was able to bring in these non-violent models. And yes, she'll tell you womanist is very much different from feminist. Go ahead, Deidre.

Womanist Atonement

Deidre  03:38  So, I work primarily as a feminist theologian. So the term womanist refers to women of color, specifically and largely black women. There are lots of different subsets, different names that people will use to specify women of different ethnic and racial backgrounds, with the recognition that feminism isn't a monolith. There's intersectionality, that issues like race, class,