Do
I Need to Reconsider?
Donald
Trump and the Ransom Theory of Salvation
There have been at least three different soteriologies, that
is, three different theologies of salvation, in the Christian tradition. One of
them, the classical theory of atonement, also called substitutionary
sacrificial atonement, is truly terrible theology though it has virtually swallowed
the Christian faith whole. Another of them, theology of the cross, is my
soteriology. I have developed it rather extensively on this blog and in my
books. The third one is called the ransom theory. It is the most common
soteriology in the New Testament. It says that we humans are captive to sin
because the devil has kidnapped us away from God. Our problem is that the devil
holds us in bondage to sin, and there is nothing we can do about it on our own.
We will be free from sin, or at least be able to be free from sin, only when a
price is paid to the devil higher than any price we mere humans can pay. The
ransom theory asserts that the suffering and death of God’s own Son on the
cross is that price. God sent the Son to the earth in the person of Jesus of
Nazareth for the purpose of suffering and dying to pay a price. It has that
much in common with the classical theory of atonement. The difference between
the two soteriologies is that while in the classical theory of atonement Christ
suffers and dies to pay a price to God, in the ransom theory Christ suffers and
dies to pay a price to the devil. He becomes the ransom that God must pay in
order to obtain humanity’s release from the devil’s grasp.
I have never accepted the ransom theory of salvation. I
haven’t for a couple of reasons. One is that it is too easy for us to take the
theory literally. The church has taught Christians for centuries that there is
an evil, fallen angel named Satan, called the devil, who causes humans to sin.
He supposedly resides in a fiery hell in the depths of the earth, whence he emerges
to entice us to do that which we ought not do. I do not believe that there is
such a being. I do not believe that there is a hell in the depths of the earth
or anywhere else. It is too easy for people, myself included, to see the ransom
theory as requiring the literal, factual existence of Satan.
The other reason I have never accepted the ransom theory is
more important. It makes this devil too powerful. According to this theory, God
does not have the power simply to command the devil to release God’s people
from their captivity. God has to give the devil something the devil does not
have before the devil will release us. That something is the ransom greater
than anything any human could pay that this theory posits is required to
procure our freedom from sin. God has to do something the devil wants done not
something God wants done on God’s own in order to secure human salvation. The
ransom theory very nearly makes Christianity a dualistic religion like
Zoroastrianism with two gods, one good and one bad, who battle continually for
control of the earth. It even makes the devil in some ways more powerful than
God, for it says that God had to do what the devil wants, the devil doesn’t
have to do what God wants without God paying the devil an enormous ransom, the
suffering and death of God’s own Son.
I cannot accept such a theological dualism. Even if there is
such a creature as the devil, that creature cannot be equal to or even more
powerful than God. My Christian faith is monotheistic, and so am I. I confess
one God not two. I confess a God of limitless love and forgiveness. I confess a
God more powerful than anything God has created. How God exercises God’s power
is a thorny question I won’t go into here. The point for now is only that God
has such power. There is nothing in creation that can overcome it when God
chooses to use it directly and effectively. The devil, of course, if the devil
exists, is something in creation. Our tradition calls the devil a fallen angel.
Angels, if angels are real, may be heavenly beings, but they are not gods. They
are creatures. Fallen or not, they do not have the power to resist God in any
way God does not allow them to resist God.
There are numerous things going on in the world today that
are pushing me toward reconsidering my rejection of the ransom theory of
salvation. I’ll focus here on just one of them. It is the one that first got me
thinking about that reconsideration. It is the way millions of Americans maintain
their belief in and commitment to the indicted felon Donald J. Trump. It is
utterly irrational for anyone at all to support Donald Trump. He is a
narcissistic liar of the first order. He does not operate within the categories
of true and false. He cares only about himself. He is perhaps the most cynical
American politician ever. He will use anything and anyone to achieve his ends and
has no loyalty to anyone but himself. He is personally immoral, especially
sexually immoral. He has no actual political agenda. The only thing he really
wants is personal power and ego gratification. He doesn’t understand his
country’s security arrangements and threatened those arrangements when he was
president. He is Vladimir Putin’s lapdog. He wants to rule the United States
the way Kim Jung-un rules North Korea, that is, as a dictator with unlimited
power over people’s lives. He plays fast and loose with classified information.
He has been indicted in four different jurisdictions for 91 felonies. It is
obvious to any who will just look at the facts that he is guilty of those
felonies, or at least he’s guilty of most of them.[1]
He is the least qualified and most dangerous national politician in American
history or at least one of them. He is an American fascist. He neither
understands nor gives a damn about the country’s constitutional system of
government. He does not believe in democracy. He does not believe in the rule
of law. He has made it perfectly clear that he intends to politicize the
Department of Justice is he ever gets the chance. He’s already tried to do that
once before. He organized a vast conspiracy in an effort to overturn the free
and fair result of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost. His efforts
to stay in power though he lost culminated in him sending a violent mob to
attack the US Capitol in a last-ditch effort to stop Congress from certifying
the results of that election. In doing so he engaged in an insurrection against
the government he supposedly led. It is simply beyond comprehension how any
person with a functioning brain could want him in the White House when he so
obviously belongs in prison for his multiple felonies. Yet the polls today, in
October, 2023, show him in a dead heat with President Biden in the 2024
presidential election. Tens of millions of Americans want to put him back in
power. How is that possible? There is no rational explanation. There must be
some other way of understanding that baffling phenomenon.
It has occurred to me that the ransom theory of salvation
may provide that other way of understanding. Before it can do that for me, I
need to make my understanding of that theory more nuanced and intellectually
acceptable. I try to see the devil not as a factual creature but as a symbol
for evil. He represents the way evil seems to have such power in the world. He
is a symbolic explanation of why we humans are so persistently sinful. He is a
way of talking about the presence and power of evil in the world. It makes no
sense to take what Christianity has long said about the devil literally, that
is, factually. It makes a lot more sense to take the devil as a symbol for
evil.
Making the devil a symbol for evil does not lessen his
power. Symbols are actually more powerful with us humans than facts are. Symbols
function at a level in the human psyche deeper than the ego. The ego wants to
see everything as fact because seeing everything as fact makes it easier for us
to think we can manipulate everything for our own benefit; and the ego is
concerned only with its own benefit. Yet we act more from hidden psychological
and spiritual powers than we do from mere facts. Carl Jung called those
negative realities from which we operate our “shadow.” That shadow is very real
and very powerful. It controls our thoughts and actions especially when we are
not aware of it and do nothing to deal with it in a constructive way. I can see
the devil as a symbol for humanity’s shadow, that is, humanity’s seemingly unconquerable
propensity for evil.
The only explanation that makes any sense for the Donald
Trump phenomenon is that tens of millions of Americans are being held captive
by their shadow. They have not dealt with it in any constructive way. Instead,
they have let it stoke their fear and their anger about what they think is
their position in the world. They have made Donald Trump, not the devil per se,
their symbol for that fear and that anger. Donald Trump as symbol demands their
loyalty despite all of the indisputable facts, and tens of millions of
Americans give it to him. I find the ransom theory’s image of humans kidnapped
and held captive by evil to be a compelling explanation of how that utterly
irrational act is possible.
So what do we do about it? I wish I knew. The ransom theory
says God paid the ultimate price to the devil to free humanity from bondage to
sin. Yet it is undeniable that human sin remains one of the most powerful
forces in the world. Sin, that is, evil, is one of the most powerful forces in
the world. If the ransom theory is at all correct, it should be possible to
bring people an understanding of how God has freed them from that power. We
people of faith can preach that truth at people, but I doubt that that would
have much effect. Most Trump supporters think they are Christians already. Psychologists
would say we must get people to do the inner work necessary to come to terms
with their shadow. I’m sure that is correct, but I don’t expect it to happen on
any large scale. It never has, and I see no reason to think it will now.
So what are we to do? The only legal and moral thing I can
think of to do is to crush the Trump movement at the polls. Perhaps Trump’s
supporters will give up their commitment to American fascism if they become
convinced that American fascism is not going to solve what they perceive to be
their problems. I know of no way of crushing Trumpism at the polls other than
the tried and true methods of democratic politics. Raise money. Put out
appealing position papers. Go door to door passing out campaign literature. Get
anti-Trump voters to vote in whatever way their jurisdiction allows them to
vote. It all sounds so weak, so potentially completely ineffective. Yet it is
all we’ve got. I am not at all confident that we can defeat Trump in the 2024
election. The Democrats will almost certainly nominate Joe Biden for reelection.
I think he is a rather good president, but he is far from the compelling,
charismatic candidate we need if we are going to beat Trump.
I am nearly in despair over the prospect of another Trump
presidency, but the work of democracy is the only way we have to prevent it. I
live in Washington state, and Washington state will never give its electoral
votes to Trump. The 2024 election will come down to the same swing states that
have determined the outcome of every presidential election at least since 2000.
People who get the peril Trump represents in states like Nevada, Arizona,
Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin must be the ones who do the work
required to keep Trump out of the White House. Those of us who live in
relatively safe blue states can support them from afar. We can send money. Perhaps
we can mount a postcard campaign urging well-intentioned people to vote against
Trump. And it all sounds so weak. I’m not at all sure it will work, but it’s
all we have. Will it free the Trumpists from their captivity to evil? Only time
will tell.
[1] Yes,
he has a presumption of innocence. But the presumption of innocence is a legal concept
that applies to the parties involved in a criminal trial. It does not apply to
any of us when we consider the merit of any particular person. We are all
perfectly free to say Trump is guilty as long as we’re not on the jury for one
of his criminal trials, and Trump is obviously guilty of a lot.
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