On the surface, encouragements to “Choose Joy” and “Find Happiness” seem straightforward and obvious. And yet, as described in the last post, such advice is underdetermined. Are we pursuing a hedonic or a eudaimonic vision of joy and happiness? Leaving that question unasked and unspecified nudges people toward hedonic well-being and away from the eudaimonic life well lived. Choosing joy defaults to choosing pleasure, the pursuit of the pleasant and happy life. The satisfied life over the good life.

Added to this is the cultural context that defines and directs hedonic well-being. The pleasant and pleasurable life runs through some deep cultural grooves.

Broadly speaking, our pursuit of hedonic well-being is taking place within a neoliberal context. This neoliberal cultural milieu co-opts and directs our pursuit of hedonic well-being in ways that sabatoge our flourishing. That is to say, a generic pursuit of hedonic well-being may, on its own terms, undermine our eudaimonic well-being and fail us in actualizing a rich and fulfilling life. But a neoliberal vision of hedonic well-being has us pursuing aims that do not simply fail to actualize the good life but actively undermine it and harm us. The pursuit of hedonic well-being may cause us to drift and become lost. Chasing the neoliberal vision of hedonic well-being actually damages us. It is one thing to build your life on a shaky foundation, quite another to actively tear the house down.

But what do I mean by a “neoliberal vision of hedonic well-being”?

First, before the “neo” in neoliberalism there was liberalism itself, often called classical liberalism. At the heart of classical liberalism was a vision of freedom from. Two freedoms were especially critical. The first, which began with the Protestant Reformation, was freedom from religious authorities and their moral traditions. Within liberal societies, people became free to adopt or reject religious beliefs or moral codes as they saw fit. Beyond harming your neighbors, no one can tell you what is good versus bad or right versus wrong. The second freedom was freedom from the coercion of the state. According to classical liberalism, citizens are bearers of “natural rights,” and the state cannot violate those rights. Exhibit A here is the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence.

Given this, how does classical liberalism shape and direct hedonic well-being? As critics of liberalism have long pointed out, liberalism privileges the individual over religious authority, moral tradition, and communal obligation. Hedonic well-being reduces to “what’s good for me,” “what makes me happy,” and “what I want,” free of communal duties or moral constraints.

To be sure, freedom from coercion is a great good. But recall that eudaimonic well-being has a normative aspect, a life lived in relation to the good. Liberalism explicitly and aggressively sidelines the good as a communal duty, religious obligation, or moral rule. In the midst of that normative vacuum, the liberal individual is asked to select their own vision of the good. The self asks, “What is good for me?” And more often than not, the answer to this question is, “What is good for me is what I want.” The good suffers hedonic capture. Well-being becomes the pursuit of pleasure. Eudaimonic normativity is exchanged for hedonic happiness. The good life is exchanged for the pleasant life.

The advent of neoliberalism happened when democracy, rooted in classical liberalism, became fused with capitalism. Building upon the individualism of classical liberalism, neoliberalism brought the logic of free markets to bear upon cultural life. Two critical aspects of this neoliberal vision concern maximization and competition.

At the heart of capitalism is the notion of “utility maximization.” Free markets work when everyone pursues their own self-interest, attempting to maximize their “utility,” an economic abstraction that captures the ranking of our preferences, getting what you most want.

Maximization supercharges the pursuit of hedonic well-being. Pleasure and happiness become optimization problems This creates hedonic restlessness and craving, especially in a consumeristic culture where hedonic pleasures are a moving target. Bigger and better products and experiences are persistently set before you, undermining contentment and engendering dissatisfaction. As a maximization project, hedonic well-being is a receding horizon that we can never quite reach.

Worse, the maximization of our happiness is taking place in a competitive context. We call this the “meritocracy.” Happiness is something we must “win.” For example, parents want their children to be happy, so in order to achieve that they help their children compete in grades, sports, and the arts. From elite college admission, to travel sports teams, to who gets to be Sugar Plum Fairy in the annual Nutcracker performance, parents fight against other parents in a zero-sum battle. The game continues on from there, through college and into adulthood. Our pursuit of happiness is haunted by rivalry, envy, jealousy, and constant social comparison.

Stepping back, when we tell people to “Choose Joy” or “Find Happiness,” those imperatives are taking place within a neoliberal context. A context characterized by:

1. Radical individualism: Happiness is what I want over against communal duties and moral obligations.

2. Maximization: Chronic dissatisfaction and craving within a consumeristic culture.

3. Competition: Happiness is something I must win in competition against others.

As described above, when our pursuit of happiness is captured by neoliberalism, our deeper flourishing is compromised. Tragically, neoliberalism is the air we breathe. Or rather, neoliberalism is a poisonous gas we cannot see or smell. We tell people to “Choose Joy.” They deeply inhale.

And then they die.

For the second time I was able to teach a positive psychology class for our graduate program. Like every class you get to teach for a second time you make adjustments and improvements in response to your first go round.

For this second class I added a lecture on hedonic well-being. Across four posts I'll share the contents of that lecture.

A common date for the beginnings of positive psychology is Martin Seligman's 1998 APA Presidential Address where he called for "a new science and profession of positive psychology." As Seligman described: 

[We psychologists] have scant knowledge of what makes life worth living. For although psychology has come to understand quite a bit about how people survive and endure under conditions of adversity, we know very little about how normal people flourish under more benign conditions.

This is because since World War II, psychology has become a science largely about healing. It concentrates on repairing damage within a disease model of human functioning. Such almost exclusive attention to pathology neglects the flourishing individual and the thriving community. True, our emphasis on assessing and healing damage has been important and had its important victories...But these victories have come at a considerable cost. When we became solely a healing profession, we forgot our larger mission: that of making the lives of all people better.

Psychology, however, was a late arrival to this conversation. Every great religious, philosophical, spiritual, and wisdom tradition has meditated upon what makes life worth living. And there were precursors within psychology itself, especially from the humanistic tradition. Abraham Maslow, for example, talked about self-actualization and peak experiences. The work of Carl Rogers was also influential. But what Seligman called for was uniquely empirical in nature, a science of flourishing. Rogers and Maslow were theorists. And the great religious and wisdom traditions were metaphysical and philosophical. The data collection Seligman called for was the novelty. 

The scientists, however, immediately confronted a problem of operational definitions. What do we mean, precisely and empirically, by the "positive" in positive psychology? The wisdom traditions posed a contrast here between hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. 

On the one had was hedonic well-being. "Hedonic" comes from the Greek word ἡδονή (hēdonē), meaning pleasure, delight, or sweetness. Hedonic well-being is the pleasurable life, the pleasant life, the happy life. 

Eudaimonic well-being, by contrast, as described by Aristotle, comes from the from the Greek εὐδαιμονία (eudaimonia), eu (εὖ) meaning “good" or "well” and daimōn (δαίμων) meaning “spirit.” Eudaimonia means the "good life" and is often translated as "flourishing" or "living well." 

In contrast to hedonic well-being, eudiamonic well-being has normative overtones. Eudaimonic well-being describes artfulness, excellence, fittingness, and a general orientation toward the good. To achieve eudaimonic well-being one "ought" or "must" live a certain way. If life is like playing a violin, one could do that poorly or excellently. 

Hedonic well-being, by contrast, is descriptive rather than normative in nature. Hedonic well-being tracks experiences of pleasure, positive affect, and satisfaction as they are felt, without requiring a judgment about whether those pleasures are worthy, well-ordered, or conducive to a good life. One can coherently speak of high hedonic well-being in a life we might still judge as shallow, disordered, or even vicious. 

This hedonic versus eudaimonic contrast affects the issue of measurement in positive psychology, the way we operationalize "positive." Does positive mean pleasurable or does positive mean good? 

For the most part, positive psychology has focused upon hedonic well-being, the pleasurable life. For example, by far the most common measure of "positive psychology" in the research literature has been Diener et al.'s, (1985) Subjective Well-Being Scale. Rated on a 1-7 likert scale, the items are:

1. In most ways my life is close to my ideal.
2. The conditions of my life are excellent.
3. I am satisfied with my life.
4. So far I have gotten the important things I want in life.
5. If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.

Notice how the measure assesses "satisfaction" unrelated to any normative good. This is a measure of hedonic well-being rather than eudaimonic well-being. For example, Elon Musk, I expect, would rate himself highly on this scale, as extremely satisfied with his life. As the richest man in the world, he's totally winning! But would we say that Elon Musk is the paradigm of the life well lived? Is Elon Musk living a good life? Is his life the life we should be aspiring toward? From a hedonic perspective, some might say so. But from a eudaimonic, normative perspective, other might demur. Good is different from pleasure and satisfaction

You get the point. When we talk about "the good life" are we talking about hedonic well-being? I don't think so, and in the posts to come I'll share why.

"His deareworthy passion"

I've shared here how last summer Jana and I were able to visit Julian of Norwich's church, St. Julian's Church in Norwich. During that visit, I picked up a copy of Revelations of Divine Love in Middle English, with the hope that I'd read it through. But a year has passed, and I haven't done it. And so, I thought I'd publicly commit myself to the task, using Fridays to work through the eighty-six chapters of Revelations of Divine Love, highlighting a line or passage from each chapter in the Middle English along with an accompanying translation into modern English.

And to be clear, there is no real reason to share Julian's Middle English other than whimsy on my part.

To start, a little background about the text we call Revelations of Divine Love.

We don't know much about Julian's life prior to her becoming an anchoress. Anchoritism was a distinctive practice of medieval Christianity, where the anchorite, often a woman, would have a cell built that was attached to an exterior wall of a church. The anchoress lived enclosed in her cell for the rest of her days. A window made in the church wall, called a "squint" or "hagioscope," allowed the anchoress to see the altar and participate in the Mass from her cell. Another window in the cell opened to the outside. At this window, the anchoress could receive visitors. It was common for people to seek out an anchoress for prayer and spiritual counsel. We know Julian engaged in this practice because we have a firsthand account from Margery Kempe, who made a pilgrimage to Norwich to visit with "Dame Julian."

What eventually became Revelations of Divine Love comes from two different texts, the Short Text and the Long Text. Julian fell ill in 1373 and experienced a series of sixteen visions she called "showings." We believe she wrote down a brief summary of these showings—the Short Text—shortly after her illness and prior to her enclosure. After her enclosure, Julian returned to her showings and expanded upon them, reflecting on their deeper meanings. This produced what is called the Long Text, which we know as Revelations of Divine Love, consisting of eighty-six chapters and originally written in Middle English.

In Chapter One Julian takes a quick walk through her sixteen showings, the outline of all that is to follow. Here are the opening sentences of Revelations of Divine Love which describe the first two visions:

This is a Revelation of love that Jesus Christ, our endless blisse, made in sixteen Sheweings or Revelations particular. Off the which, the first is of His pretious coroning with thornys; and therewith was comprehended and specifyed the Trinite with the incarnation, and unite betwix God and man soule, with many faire sheweings of endless wisedome and teacheing of love, in which all the sheweings that follow be grounded and onyd. The second is the discolloureing of His faire face in tokenyng of His deareworthy passion.

Translation from Fr. John-Julian: 

This is a revelation of love that Jesus Christ, our endless joy, made in sixteen showings or revelations, in detail, of which

The first is concerning his precious crowning with thorns; and therewith was included and described in detail the Trinity with the Incarnation and the unity between God and man's soul, with many beautiful showings of endless wisdom and teachings of love in which all the showings that follow are based and united.

The second showing is the discoloring of His fair face in symbolizing His dearworthy passion.

As you can see from the first two showings—the crowning of thorns and the discolored face of Jesus—Julian’s revelations focus upon what she calls Christ’s “dearworthy passion.” “Dearworthy” is a Middle English word describing something of “dear worth,” as in “precious” or “valued.” As Julian will reveal in Chapters 2 and 3, as she lay dying due to her illness her priest gave her a crucifix to gaze at. As she did so, the “showings” came to her. Thus, much of Revelations of Divine Love is taken up with meditating upon the blood and agony of Jesus and what his passion reveals about God’s love and the human predicament.

I bring all this up at the start because this very medieval aspect of Julian’s spirituality, her focus upon Christ’s “dearworthy passion,” sits in tension with many “spiritual but not religious” appropriations of her revelations. To be sure, there is an optimism in Julian that stands in stark contrast with much within medieval Christianity. But at the same time, Julian's focus upon Christ’s death, agony, and blood contrasts with progressive Christian takes on Julian. For many progressive Christians, the passion of Christ is an obscene scandal.

For Julian, in all its bloody agony, the passion is dearworthy.

Having just finished a series reflecting on how the vision of high-handed sin in Numbers 15 might affect how we think about the relationship between punishment and atonement in the narrative of Scripture, another thought occurred to me after I brought those reflections to a close.

Specifically, Jesus’ authority to forgive sins.

In my soon-to-be-released book, The Book of Love, I share a story from college. I was in my Gospel of Luke class, and we encountered one of those stories where Jesus forgives a man’s sins. The arrogation of authority alarms the Jewish leaders. Who does Jesus think he is?

As we discussed the story in class, I raised my hand to ask a question: “I thought blood was necessary to forgive sins. But Jesus was forgiving people by fiat. He just declared it so, and it was so. What gives?”

My comment about blood being necessary to forgive sins comes, as you know, from Hebrews 9:22: “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” So if that’s true, what’s going on with Jesus forgiving sins just by saying a word? Is blood necessary or not?

What I’m wondering here is whether the category of high-handed sin in Numbers 15 helps clarify some of what is happening in Jesus’ ministry. Specifically, think about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. Think about Jesus going to the house of Zacchaeus. Think about Jesus’ mission to seek and save those in Israel who were lost. Who were these lost people? Many of them would have been high-handed sinners, according to Numbers 15, those who had been “cut off” from the community.

As I described in the recent series, such sinners would have been cut off from the temple cult, deprived of any sacrificial remedy for their guilt. The provocation of Jesus’ ministry, therefore, was his going to these high-handed sinners in order to restore them to community. But as we reflected on in the last series, this restoration could not be accomplished through the Levitical system or the temple cult. Restoration, akin here to a resurrection from the dead, could only be accomplished by a direct act of God.

And that is precisely what Jesus does. Jesus assumes the authority to restore the high-handed sinner, an authority the Jewish leaders rightly note only God possesses. And relevant to my question in my college class, this forgiveness does not involve blood, because it is a restoration happening “outside the camp,” beyond the imagination and purview of the sacrificial system.

I have not comprehensively stress-tested this idea across Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but I am floating it as a hypothesis that might clarify, more precisely, what was so controversial and provocative about Jesus’ actions and ministry. In his restoration of high-handed sinners, he was doing something only God could do.

Okay, having walked through some biblical texts, let me stop and try to pull on some threads.

One of the triggering things, I expect, over the last few posts has been the constant references to punishment and divine chastisement. The high-handed sinner must “bear the guilt” of their sin, and that means enduring a season of suffering. David experiences this penalty, and so does Israel. That said, both stories end in restoration and resurrection. A sinner “bearing the guilt” is not a terminal situation. Hope is not extinguished. Dead bones can live again.

Still, the notion of God inflicting pain and suffering raises some issues, even if that punishment has a restorative and hopeful outcome. So what do we do with that concern?

Let me return to my brief reflections on space at the end of the last post.

Again, in Numbers 15 the high-handed sinner is excluded from sacrificial remedy. There is no cultic solution, no offering that can repair the breach. The sinner is “cut off” from the community and must “bear the guilt.” The consequence here is exposure. To be cut off is to stand unprotected, to exist outside the covenantal haven where life is sustained.

This spatial logic runs deep in the biblical imagination. Inside the camp is order, mediation, remedies for sin, and life. Outside the camp is danger, curse, and death. Sacrifice presupposes presence within the camp. Once exclusion occurs, sacrifice cannot help. All this is vividly illustrated by the scapegoat, who is expelled from the camp into the surrounding demon-infested wasteland.

The camp of Israel in relation to the surrounding desert is a mirror of the cosmos. In Adam, humanity is expelled from the garden. Separated from God, the cosmos is exposed to finitude and futility. Acting to rescue the cosmos, God creates another zone of protection, a haven of safety. That space is made visible and available to the cosmos in the life of Israel, “the camp” in the midst of the wasteland. Israel’s vocation was to draw the cosmos into this space. But due to her high-handed sin, Israel finds herself cut off from the land of the living. As Israel’s representative, Jesus goes “outside the camp,” into the demonic wasteland, to suffer the consequences of Israel’s separation, which is death. Jesus steps away from divine protection and suffers that death. Properly speaking, this is not cultic atonement. Jesus is not providing decontamination from within the camp. Jesus is outside the camp, bearing the guilt, bringing the term of Israel’s penalty to its completion. By dying, Jesus exhausts the judgment.

Having returned Israel to the camp and restored relationship with God, Jesus’ blood provides perpetual decontamination for the sinful community. As in Leviticus, atonement maintains relationship with and proximity to God. We can draw near with boldness.

Okay, the furniture here has been slightly rearranged. I have labored to make a distinction in the work of Christ: atonement made for those within the camp (cultic decontamination to maintain relationship) versus going outside the camp to “bear the guilt” in suffering death. Is this a contrast that does not make much of a difference? Or does it open up new pathways of insight?

Minimally, it opens the possibility that high-handed sin can be forgiven and that high-handed sinners who have been cut off from God can be restored. Jesus extends a mercy that the Levitical system does not imagine. The dead coming back to life.

This seems to be one fruitful insight from this line of speculation. When we reduce Jesus’ death on the cross to “atonement,” we miss the radical implication of Christ dying “outside of the camp.” We are beholding a grace that transcends atonement.

I also think these reflections make clear that atonement does not have, and never had, forensic and penal aspects. The issue with atonement was ritual decontamination, not the resurrection of the dead (those cut off from the land of the living).

That said, does not Jesus “bearing the guilt” outside the camp pull forensic and penal images back in? Yes and no. Yes, in that one is exposed to death outside the camp. A consequence of sin is experienced. Guilt brings about this eventuality. But also no, in that death is the natural consequence of separation from God, life outside the camp. That is life in the demonic wasteland. And the high-handed sinner chooses that life. They remove themselves from the camp. They contemptuously throw off the yoke of the Torah. So while there are “consequences” and “penalties” here, in the vision of Numbers 15 these are self-selected. This is the life we have chosen for ourselves.

Lastly, to return to the point above, in the lives of David and Israel we see sinners bearing their own guilt leading to eventual restoration. Witness the trajectory of the sinner in Psalm 51. The punishment we find in that psalm, mirroring the life of David, is not retributive but restorative. David bears his guilt, suffers the consequences, and is embraced by mercy on the far side. We see a similar pattern in Isaiah 40, where God declares that Israel has finished the term of her punishment. Even death, as seen in Ezekiel 37, is limited. And it is here where I will get really speculative. Can the high-handed sinner experience mercy after a term of bearing their own guilt? And might a part of that guilt-bearing be their death?

Let me put it this way. You don’t need to leave the camp. And if you remain, the sacrificial remedies protect you from bearing the natural consequences of your sin, life outside of divine protection. But if you do leave the camp, you will “bear the guilt” of that rebellion to experience the consequences of an unprotected life, life “cut off from the land of living.” But here’s the critical move: That term of punishment, even for the high-handed sinner, can come to an end. As Isaiah 40 puts it, the sinner’s “hard service” can be “completed” which “pays for” his sin. This is a grimmer and darker path compared to life inside the camp, but the prophets dared to imagine that restoration was possible at the end of this journey.  

To illustrate what I am talking about, think about the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The older son never leaves the camp. He is never cut off and never dies. The younger son does die. He chooses to leave the camp. And outside the camp he bears his own guilt. He suffers the consequences of his sin in a far country. And those experiences bring the high-handed sinner to a Psalm 51 conversion, a state of contrition and repentance. The son returns to the father, who exclaims, “This son of mine was dead and is alive again.”

Might every high-handed sinner who dies, who finds themselves in the demon-haunted wasteland, come to that same moment of conversion? A salvation that comes after their death? We know such a thing is possible. 

It has happened before.

Okay, so I want to start making a turn toward Christology in this serial speculation. We'll start with Isaiah 53.

In the last post, I described how Israel is saved from high-handed sin, enduring a penalty and bearing her guilt after she had been cut off from the Lord. This vision is that of a punishment becoming exhausted, a term of service having been completed.

And yet, the vision of Isaiah 53 is that of a "Suffering Servant" who is the one who, as Israel's representative, endures the punishment and serves the term. This is well-trod territory. But the point I'd like to make is how the Suffering Servant is restoring Israel from high-handed sin. I think many readers of Isaiah 53 assume the framework is the Day of Atonement. The rupture, however, is more severe. The rebellion has been high-handed and, as a consequence, falls outside of the sacrificial system. The Suffering Servant isn't offering atonement for insiders but bearing the guilt and punishment for those who have been cut off because of their contemptuous, high-handed rebellion. Such a restoration isn't envisioned by the Levitical system.

Let's look at the text from this framework.

First, why consider this a case of high-handed sin? A critical line comes from verse 8:

For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

This isn't a cultic moment, a sacrificial gathering around the tabernacle or temple. The sinner has been "cut off" from the land of the living. This is the high-handed sinner of Numbers 15. Following from Numbers 15, we don't see the mercy and forgiveness of atonement but "bearing the guilt" of divine chastisement:

Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases,
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.

Again, this isn't sacrificial, cultic, or atonement imagery. This is bearing one's own guilt, bearing one's own infirmities, carrying one's own diseases, wounded for one's own transgression, crushed for one's own iniquities. The vision isn't of atonement, but of a punishment that, after its term, come to an end.

This all might sound familiar, but everything is being cast in a slightly different light. 

For example, am I describing here "penal substitutionary atonement"? Well, not quite. Recall from the first post in this series, atonement doesn't restore a lost relation but maintains a relation. Atonement was a part of the Levitical system, the means that allowed the sinful community to maintain proximity to God in light of God's holiness. Atonement is not the vision of Isaiah 53. The vision is of something that Leviticus doesn't even imagine, the restoration of the high-handed sinner. In that vision, as seen in the story of David and in the prophetic vision of Israel's resurrection, the sinner bears their own guilt, serving the full term of the punishment. In the imagination of Isaiah 53, the Suffering Servant stands in as Israel's representative to bring Israel's punishment to its completion. The Suffering Servant "bears the guilt" of the high-handed sinner, restoring the sinner to the covenantal relation. In the language of Hosea, those who were Not My People are restored to My People. In the imagination of Ezekiel, the dead bones come back to life.

I've described this restoration as eucatastrophic, borrowing from Tolkien, because the restoration we're beholding comes from beyond the Levitical imagination. 

I think this clarifies some of the confusions about penal substitutionary atonement. As many have noted, Levitical atonement was never "forensic" or "penal." Nor was atonement "substitutionary." This is true! The goats and bulls were not being "punished" in the place of the Israelites. Nor were the "lost" being "saved." As I've described in this series, what was being provided on the Day of Atonement was cultic decontamination, life (blood) wiping away sin and death. There was nothing forensic or substitutionary about the ritual, only the provision of the necessary decontamination to allow a sinful community to remain in relation and proximity to God.

In contrast, the vision of restoration in Isaiah 53 isn't Levitical, cultic, or priestly. The action is not happening at the Mercy Seat. Therefore, the vision of Isaiah 53 isn't a vision of "atonement." And yet, a vicarious substitution that restores and heals is being described. This isn't penal substitutionary atonement, since it's not a cultic activity, but a wholly new and radical vision: A figure who willingly leaves the camp to suffer the curses of separation and death in order to save and restore the high-handed sinners. This trans-Levitical restoration seems to be what Hebrews is envisioning when it describes Christ as dying "outside the camp." 

So: Does this contrast between atonement and Isaiah 53 rearrange any of our debates about penal substitutionary atonement? 

Maybe? 

(Remember, I thinking out loud here over the keyboard.) 

Here's a question: Is God punishing the wasteland? Is God punishing those who choose to live in the wasteland? It would be strange to think so. The wasteland is cursed, and so are those who choose to live there. But that curse is simply the natural consequence of being found outside the cultic oasis of the camp, the safe space carved out by the sacrificial system around the presence of God. 

So, if Jesus goes outside the camp, into the demonic wasteland, which is the land of Sin and Death, we would consider him “cursed” and observe him being “cut off from the land of the living.” We would watch him suffer demonic assault outside the camp. We would watch him die. All because he had stepped away from the sustaining and protective presence of God. He would be “bearing the guilt” of those found outside the camp, as either vicarious replacement, search crew, or both. And crucially for my purposes, we don’t need to think of that guilt- and curse-bearing as being inflicted by God. It’s just the spatio-sacrificial reality of seeking and saving those found “outside the camp,” the experience of existence exposed and unprotected by the presence of God.

The other place where we see high-handed sin forgiven in Scripture concerns the people of Israel.

There are many places where we can see this play out in the prophets, so I'll just select a few examples.

First, in Hosea, due to Israel's high-handed sin, the Lord cuts her off, just like Numbers 15 describes:

She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all..." When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”

Due to her high-handed sin, Israel is cut off from sacrificial remedies. Israel is separated from community with God, a closeness made possible by atonement. Because Israel now falls "outside of the blood," there is no longer any mercy or forgiveness. Consequently, Israel must bear the guilt of her own sins and suffer the divine chastisements. From Hosea 2:

Therefore I will take back
my grain in its time,
and my wine in its season,
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.
Now I will uncover her lewdness
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
And I will put an end to all her mirth,
her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths,
and all her appointed feasts.
And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said,
‘These are my wages,
which my lovers have given me.’
I will make them a forest,
and the beasts of the field shall devour them.
And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals
when she burned offerings to them...

Pretty grim stuff. And yet, after this season of suffering, as Israel bears her guilt, the Lord moves and extends mercy:

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

“And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.

“And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord,
I will answer the heavens,
and they shall answer the earth,
and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel,
and I will sow her for myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

Another example of where we see the high-handed sinner restored is Ezekiel 37, the Valley of Dry Bones:

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people."

Notice the echo of Numbers 15. The people of Israel are dead because they have been "cut off." Consequently, they have had to bear their guilt in deadness and suffering. And yet, God restores them, bringing the dead back to life.

Finally, as I shared in my recent series, there is also Isaiah 40:

Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.

After a long and painful season of bearing her own guilt, God extends mercy. Israel has "served her term" and "paid her penalty." 

Stepping back, this is similar to the pattern we observed in David's restoration for his high-handed sin. The sinner is cut off from atonement and sacrificial remedy. Without access to atonement, found "outside the blood" where mercy and forgiveness is enjoyed, the sinner must bear their own guilt and suffer chastisement. And then, having suffered the judgment, paying the penalty, and serving the term, divine mercy returns.

"Let everything that breathes praise the Lord"

The Psalms end with a final call to praise. There is no narrative. No petition. No confession. No lament. Just crescendoing imperatives to praise:

Hallelujah!
Praise God in his sanctuary.
Praise him in his mighty expanse.
Praise him for his powerful acts;
praise him for his abundant greatness.

Praise him with the blast of a ram’s horn;
praise him with harp and lyre.
Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and flute.
Praise him with resounding cymbals;
praise him with clashing cymbals.

Let everything that breathes praise the Lord.
Hallelujah!

In the final lines the worship breaks out. At the start of the psalm, the setting is cultic and liturgical, focused upon Israel and the temple. "Praise God in his sanctuary." But at the end of the song, the praise has spilled out and becomes universal. "Let everything that breathes praise the Lord." 

That is how the Psalms come to an end, with a vision of the destiny of every human life.

Recall the description of high-handed sin from Numbers 15:30–31:

But whoever acts high-handedly [i.e., "defiantly" (NET), "brazenly" (NLT)], whether native-born or an alien, affronts the Lord and shall be cut off from among the people. Because of having despised ["treated with contempt" (NLT)] the word of the Lord and broken his commandment, such a person shall be utterly cut off and bear the guilt. (NRSV)

As I've described, the high-handed, brazen, and defiant sin falls outside of sacrificial remediation. The individual was to be "cut off" to "bear the guilt."

Now, if such a calamity befell a person could that person ever be welcomed back into community? The answer seems to be yes, and one place where we see that happen is in the case of David and Psalm 51.

You know the story of David and Bathsheba, and how David conspired to have Uriah killed. In 2 Samuel, David's sin is described as being high-handed. As Nathan says to David:

"Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.”

As set out in Numbers 15, David despises and utterly scorns the Lord. The sin falls outside of sacrificial atonement. And yet, the Lord elects to extend grace. However, as Nathan recounts, David must, in the words of Numbers 15, "bear the guilt" of his sin. David will face hard consequences, consequences that will haunt him for the rest of his life. 

Psalm 51 is described as being the prayer of David in light of his sin with Bathsheba and against Uriah. Scholars have noted that the prayer is that of a high-handed sinner. Without sacrificial recourse, the sinner must appeal directly to God for mercy: 

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!

The lack of sacrificial remedy is also highlighted later in the prayer:

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

The relationship is not repaired with sacrifice but through a profoundly repentant posture and broken spirit. 

Also, as described in Numbers 15, the high-handed sinner of Psalm 51 fears being "cut off" from the Lord:

Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Finally, the sinner of Psalm 51 "bears the guilt," suffering punishment from the Lord:

Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

I'll have more to say about the restoration of the high-handed sinner in the next post. But for now, the case of David and Psalm 51 illustrates a few things I'd like to underline for the purposes of my train of speculation:

1. The vision of a sinner being cut off from the covenantal community and the sacrificial remedies for sin.
2. How, without sacrificial remedies, the sinner must "bear the guilt" of their sin and suffer the painful consequences.
3. The sinner's return requiring a profoundly repentant posture and broken spirit.
4. Finally, the sinner making a direct appeal to God for a mercy that comes from outside of the sacrificial system. There is a grace at work here that falls beyond what Leviticus and the Day of Atonement imagines.

Since my recent reflection on "falling from grace," bringing Numbers 15 into that conversation, I've been ruminating and messing around with a very speculative reflection about the relationship between atonement and punishment and how all that might be translated into an eschatological framework. This one of those series that I'm beginning where I don't know where I'm going or how it'll end. Experimental theology ahead. 

To get started, in this post let me recap some of the things I recently shared about atonement, filling those thoughts out a bit, and nudging forward.

First, in the Levitical imagination atonement did not restore a broken relationship but rather maintained an ongoing relationship. This insight, right here, flips the script on how we tend to think about atonement. In a penal, forensic framework we are "lost." Atonement is made for us and we become "saved." But that's not how atonement functions in Leviticus. On the Day of Atonement the Israelites were not lost. They were already in relation with God. Atonement was made to maintain that relation. 

Simply put, in Leviticus atonement wasn't forensic, it was cultic. Atonement decontaminated the space allowing Israel to maintain proximity to the holiness of God. 

In the book of Hebrews Jesus is described as providing a "better sacrifice" than the blood of bulls and goats. But the Levitical framework is carried over. Jesus' blood decontaminates the space allowing the faithful yet sinful community to maintain proximity to the holiness of God. Again, the issue isn't forensic but cultic. Due to the decontamination provided by Jesus, we can draw near to God, even into the Holy of Holies. A previously unimaginable closeness. Hebrews 10: 

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

The distinction that Hebrews makes between Jesus' blood and the Levitical sacrifices doesn't concern the function of atonement. It concerns, rather, how the ongoing decontamination is provided. The decontamination provided by the Levitical sacrifices could only be achieved via repetition. Jesus, by contrast, provides a once for all decontamination that doesn't have to be repeated. The decontamination provided by Jesus is ongoing because it is perpetual. Hebrews 10:

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Again, notice that the function of atonement--a decontamination that maintains relation--is the same. Atonement isn't a forensic verdict. It is, rather, a cultic act that allows the sinful community to maintain proximity to the holiness of God. See, for example, 1 John 1:

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

It's the same cultic framework from Leviticus, atonement providing an ongoing decontamination, a continual cleansing, that maintains relation to God's holiness in light of our sinfulness. Atonement is less about moving outsiders to insiders than keeping insiders on the inside. 

That said, as I described in my recent series, high-handed and defiant sin, throwing off the yoke of the Torah, would cause a person to be "cut off" from the community and covenantal relation with God. As described in Numbers 15, atonement would not cover such sin. Such a person was "lost" and "dead." The Levitical sacrifices provided no remedy. And once again the logic carries over in the New Testament vision. Again from Hebrews 10: "For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins."

In such a case, the issue is no longer cultic decontamination. Resurrection was necessary. 

I've been reading Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton. The book pointed me toward some of Chesterton's reflections about Satan, demonology, and exorcism in his Europe to Palestine travelogue The New Jerusalem. Chesterton's reflections echo much of what I cover in my book Reviving Old Scratch. These passages come from the chapter "The Battle with the Dragon":

For it is only when we understand that Christ, considered merely as a prophet...that we can feel that tremendous and tragic energy of his testimony to an ugly reality, the existence of unnatural things. Instead of taking a [single Biblical] text as I have done, take a whole Gospel and read it steadily and honestly and straight through at a sitting, and you will certainly have one impression, whether of a myth or of a man. It is that the exorcist towers above the poet and even the prophet; that the story between Cana and Calvary is one long war with demons. He understood better than a hundred poets the beauty of the flowers of the battle-field; but he came out to battle. And if most of his words mean anything they do mean that there is at our very feet, like a chasm concealed among the flowers, an unfathomable evil...

I say such things in no mood of spiritual pride; such things are hideous not because they are distant but because they are near to us; in all our brains, certainly in mine, were buried things as bad as any buried under that bitter sea [Chesterton was looking out over the Dead Sea plain where Sodom and Gomorrah are believed to be located], and if He did not come to do battle with them, even in the darkness of the brain of man, I know not why He came. Certainly it was not only to talk about flowers or to talk about Socialism. The more truly we can see life as a fairy-tale, the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the Dragon who is wasting fairyland. I will not enter on the theology behind the symbol; but I am sure it was of this that all the symbols were symbolic. I remember distinguished men among the liberal theologians, who found it more difficult to believe in one devil than in many. They admitted in the New Testament an attestation to evil spirits, but not to a general enemy of mankind. As some are said to want the drama of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, they would have the drama of Hell without the Prince of Darkness. I say nothing of these things, save that the language of the Gospel seems to me to go much more singly to a single issue. The voice that is heard there has such authority as speaks to an army; and the highest note of it is victory rather than peace. When the apostles were first sent forth with their faces to the four corners of the earth, and turned again to acclaim their master, he did not say in that hour of triumph, "All are aspects of one harmonious whole" or "The universe evolves through progress to perfection" or "All things find their end in Nirvana" or "The dewdrop slips into the shining sea." He looked up and said, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

There are some great lines here:

"the exorcist towers above the poet and even the prophet"

"the story between Cana and Calvary is one long war with demons"

"there is at our very feet, like a chasm concealed among the flowers, an unfathomable evil"

"such things are hideous not because they are distant but because they are near to us"

"in all our brains, certainly in mine, [are] buried things as bad as any buried under that bitter sea, and if He did not come to do battle with them, even in the darkness of the brain of man, I know not why He came." 

And the most famous of all these lines:

"The more truly we can see life as a fairy-tale, the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the Dragon who is wasting fairyland."

The late Henri Nouwen wrote a lovely book entitled The Selfless Way of Christ. The book seems timely and prophetic to me given how, on the Christian Right, the "downward mobility" of Christ is increasingly being stigmatized as a feminized Christianity for beta males. These voices have become acolytes of Nietzsche who railed against the slave morality of Christianity. For his part, Nietzsche saw the choice clearly: Christ or the Antichrist? Tragically, there are many on the Christian Right who have chosen the Antichrist. Against these Dark Christians, I stand with Nouwen on this one.   

In The Selfless Way of Christ Nouwen contrasts the cultural push for "upward mobility" with Christ's example of "downward mobility." Nouwen's description of the lure of upward mobility and how we work to support its mythology in our culture:

We are taught to conceive of development in terms of an ongoing increase in human potential. Growing up means becoming healthier, stronger, more intelligent, more mature, and more productive. Consequently we hide those who do not affirm this myth of progress, such as the elderly, prisoners, and those with mental disabilities. In our society, we consider the upward move the obvious one while treating the poor cases who cannot keep up as sad misfits, people who have deviated from the normal line of progress.

In contrast to this upward progress, Nouwen points to the downward mobility of Christ:

The story of our salvation stands radically over and against the philosophy of upward mobility. The great paradox which Scripture reveals to us is that real and total freedom is only found through downward mobility. The Word of God came down to us and lived among us as a slave. The divine way is indeed the downward way.

This downward way, thus, marks the path of discipleship and interrupts the mythology of our culture:

The disciple is the one who follows Jesus on his downward path and thus enters with him into new life. The gospel radically subverts the presuppositions of our upwardly mobile society. It is a jarring and unsettling challenge.

Nouwen goes on to discuss the three great temptations of upward mobility:

Three temptations by which we are confronted again and again are the temptation to be relevant, the temptation to be spectacular, and the temptation to be powerful.

Nouwen then reflects on each temptation. Mainly this becomes a discussion about how we form our identities. The desire to be relevant, spectacular or powerful are all attempts to justify our worth and existence before others. In the face of that desire Nouwen asks an unsettling question:

Who am I when nobody pays attention, says thanks, or recognizes my work?

As I describe in The Shape of Joy, a question like that threatens my "superhero complex," the games of significance I play to justify by value, worth, and significance. We face here what Brené Brown has called "the shame-based fear of being ordinary." I'm mindful here of something St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 4.11):

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.

The juxtaposition here is interesting. Make it your ambition to lead an unambitious life.

One of the most impactful parts of the book is Nouwan's reflection on the temptations of power. As Nouwan observes, "There is almost nothing more difficult to overcome than our desire for power."

Why is that? Because our culture of upward mobility constantly tells us that power is a good thing and that powerlessness is a bad thing:

It seems nearly impossible for us to believe that any good can come from powerlessness. In this country of pioneers and self-made people, in which ambition is praised from the first moment we enter school until we enter the competitive world of free enterprise, we cannot imagine that any good can come from giving up power or not even desiring it. The all-pervasive conviction in our society is that power is a good and that those possessing it can only desire more of it.

And yet, the downward path of Jesus is the way of powerlessness:

Surrounded by so much power, it is very difficult to avoid surrendering to the temptation to seek power like everyone else. But the mystery of our ministry is that we are called to serve not with our power but with our powerlessness. It is through powerlessness that we can enter into solidarity with our fellow human beings, form a community with the weak, and thus reveal the healing, guiding, and sustaining mercy of God. We are called to speak to people not where they have it together but where they are aware of their pain, not where they are in control but where they are trembling and insecure, not where they are self-assured and assertive but where they dare to doubt and raise hard questions; in short, not where they live in the illusion of immortality but where they are ready to face their broken, mortal, and fragile humanity. As followers of Christ, we are sent into the world naked, vulnerable, and weak, and thus we can reach our fellow human beings in their pain and agony and reveal to them the power of God's love and empower them with the power of God's Spirit.

"a double-edged sword in their hands, inflicting vengeance on the nations"

We're coming to the end of this series! One more difficult psalm to deal with.

There is a tension in Psalm 149, with its sharp and abrupt pivot from jubilation to judgment. Here is the celebration of the opening five verses:

Hallelujah!
Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel celebrate its Maker;
let the children of Zion rejoice in their King.
Let them praise his name with dancing
and make music to him with tambourine and lyre.
For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
he adorns the humble with salvation.
Let the faithful celebrate in triumphal glory;
let them shout for joy on their beds.

This jubilation then turns toward vengeance and judgment upon the nations:

Let the exaltation of God be in their mouths
and a double-edged sword in their hands,
inflicting vengeance on the nations
and punishment on the peoples,
binding their kings with chains
and their dignitaries with iron shackles,
carrying out the judgment decreed against them.
This honor is for all his faithful people.
Hallelujah!

Historically, we can appreciate how Israel would have experienced triumph and vindication when they experienced victory or release from oppressive powers. The political worry, of course, is how Psalm 149 would be put to use (and can still be put to use) in justifying violence. This was a temptation that shows up in the Passion narratives. When the people are presented with a choice between Jesus and Barabbas, who was a violent insurrectionist/terrorist, they call for Barabbas. It's a choice we continue to face today: Jesus or Barabbas?

In light of the Incarnation, the interpretation of Psalm 149 shifts toward the cosmic and the eschatological. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens" (Eph. 6.12). On the cross Jesus "disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them" (Col. 2.15).

I wonder if the "divine council" backdrop of the Old Testament creates a bridge here. As moderns, we tend to view the conflict between Israel and the nations in a wholly disenchanted and material way. But ancient Israel saw this battle as cosmic and angelic in nature. The nations were held in thrall by malevolent "archons." Thus, "binding the kings" of the nations had a spiritual, angelic aspect. Pulling on this thread, you can see a continuity of imagination between Psalm 149 and the New Testament vision of Christ's battle with Satan, the god of this age. We go to battle with "the sword of the Spirit," the Word of God.

A sword remains in our hands, but it has been transformed.

Yesterday, the Global Flourishing Study made the data from Wave 1 and Wave 2 from their project available to the public. The dataset includes approximately 200,000 participants, across 22 countries, surveyed across six domains of flourishing, and with a longitudinal design.

To date, some of the headline findings from the Study are, quoting from the GFS press release:

Young people are struggling. Across countries, younger adults now report lower well-being than older populations. In many nations, the 18-to-24 age group reported the lowest flourishing scores...

The development paradox. One of the study’s most provocative findings is a negative relationship between a nation’s wealth and its citizens’ reported sense of meaning and purpose. Economic progress, it turns out, does not automatically translate into lives that feel meaningful...

Faith communities and flourishing. Across diverse cultures, religious participation emerged as one of the strongest predictors of overall well-being. The finding held even in highly secular societies, suggesting that faith communities cultivate something essential to human thriving that warrants serious attention from researchers and policymakers alike.

I bring the Global Flourishing Study to your attention to make the point that the GFS findings are tracing the shape of joy. As I describe in the book, transcendence is good for your mental health, an association that has been, as I put it, one of the best kept secrets in psychology. Truly, The Shape of Joy is one of the few books in this genre that makes this connection explicit, and works to explain why as it cites the research along the way. But thanks to research like that of the Global Flourishing Study, the secret is slowly starting to get out.