Once upon a time there was a kingdom of children, with a
wise and celebrated leader. The leader
was a healer by trade and he brought these children from abusing families to be
his children, and he cared for them with sweetness and gave them a wonderful home
with all his vast resources at their disposal.
At one point the children, still very young, decided that
they were old enough and that they could take care of themselves. The leader said, “You are still very young
and need someone to guide you. You can
feed yourselves, but you can’t get along together.” The children rose up in protest and anger and
demanded that they be left alone to take care of themselves. The leader said, “You are ultimately in
charge. If you want to leave my house
and take care of yourselves, you can.
But I would rather you stayed in my house and lived with me and let me
care for you. I love you so.” These words fell on deaf ears, and the
children, as a group, decided to leave that night and rule themselves.
You could guess what happened. The children, at first, were focused on
surviving together and figuring out how to eat and build their shelters. But soon little squabbles broke out. Broken bones happened that weren’t healed
correctly. Some children wanted what
they did not make, and if they were bigger, they took it. More and more children got hurt, and
everything was a mess. They chose some of the children to be in charge, to
bring some order and stability, but all they did was cause more hurt.
But rather than think to themselves, “We should go back to
our leader’s house” the children blamed the leader for all their troubles. “The leader could heal my hurts, but he didn’t,”
some would say. “The leader said he
loved us, but look at how miserable we are!”
“The leader could feed us better than this, but he abandoned us.” “The leader is angry at us because of our
misdeeds and so is causing us to suffer so.”
Of course, the leader never took his eyes off of them. He loved them so, but he knew that they
wouldn’t welcome him. Finally, he couldn’t
stand seeing them in their misery so he went and visited them. Right away, he saw a child who was covered
with sores and so he brought out a bottle of salve and made him feel better
right away. He saw another child who was
irrational with anger and he spoke to him and calmed him and gave him
peace. He saw another child who was
suffering with a broken bone that never healed, so he gave the child a local
anesthetic, reset the bone and carefully wrapped it. He saw two children fighting and he separated
them, listened to them and loved them.
Soon many children flocked to him, realizing that he didn’t
come to punish, but to love. And he told
them, “You all need to learn how to care for each other. Take the effort you put in your anger, in
your punishment of each other and put it into love. Stop studying how to be in charge, and study
how to help each other better. You have everything you need to care for
everyone.”
The chosen rulers of the children could see their power
slipping away, and that children would soon choose the leader to be in charge
of them again, he was so kind and caring.
So they arrested the leader, beat him up to an inch of his life, and
told him he had to leave. He turned to
the children and said, “I have to go.
But I will always be here. Any of
you can choose to have me as your leader again.
All you have to do is ask me, and I will guide you to love and care for
each other. Just call out my name, and I
will be there to lead you.” At this, the
rulers of the children stabbed the leader, causing him to bleed, and he left.
Some of the children wondered if the leader was too weak to
lead them. Some of the children wondered
if they should go to him, and try to find the house where they all once
lived. Many of the children said that
the leader was just selfish and he was trying to trick them. But many of the children listened to the
leader, called out to him and he did lead them.
We aren’t sure how, but he did.
They would say, “Leader, your kingdom come.” Then he would come,
secretly, and lead those children to love and to care for the other children,
even if the other children didn’t deserve it.
And the world became a better place because the king came, if only for a
little while.
This is a representation of Peter Abelard's soteriology. I don't believe that it is a complete theology of salvation, but I do think it represents a better theology than substitutionary atonement.
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