Abstract
Discussions of Christ's work of atonement typically revolve around the ‘classic’ motifs of Christus Victor, Moral Influence, and Penal Satisfaction. In this work, the theologically trained barrister, David H. McIlroy, seeks to press the discussion in a new direction in two ways. First, he focuses on the biblical metaphors of ransom, redemption, and forgiveness. Second, of particular note is how McIlroy hones in on the fiscal dimensions of these terms—how these terms are not first and foremost religious but at least for the first audience of the proclamation of the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection, forthright economic terms, terms having to do with money and payment.
What is particularly striking (and compelling) about this treatment is the way the author weaves together his scholarly argument with contemporary realities. In particular, McIlroy brings these atonement metaphors to bear on the widespread problem of debt, in both individual and systemic or structural forms. Particularly poignant is the author's highlighting the reality of modern slavery, the dominant form of which is precisely debt slavery.
These economic metaphors of ransom, redemption and forgiveness point to how Jesus’ death rescues humanity from its bondage to the power of evil, how God in Christ pays the price or bears the cost of humanity's debt. With each metaphor McIlroy highlights a different dimension of this economic reality. The ransom metaphor emphasizes how humanity is trapped, captive, unable to free itself, and so reliant on a hostage exchange. The redemption metaphor is used to focus on the one who paid the price for our freedom and the high cost that was exacted. Finally, forgiveness brings to the fore the way in which the triune God absorbs into Godself the cost of our debt precisely by cancelling it.
This, in turn, leads to consideration of how we are to live as ransomed, redeemed and forgiven people? Or as McIlroy puts it, echoing Paul, how we are to live so as to avoid falling back into bondage. One might put this in terms of moral influence, to echo the classic atonement formulas, but McIlroy's treatment is no tepid moralism. Instead, he asks for what the Holy Spirit sets us free. His answer is that we are freed to set others free, to live in such a way that others are not enslaved.
Just as God in Christ ransomed and redeemed those in captivity, in debt, so should we. Just as God in Christ bears the cost of our debt, absorbs the cost/loss of our debt by canceling it, so should we cancel debts owed to us—literally and economically, McIlroy argues. We should be working to free people from modern slavery; we should examine our lifestyles to see how and where they depend on the enslavement of others; we should forgive debts owed to us; we should not take interest on our money, interest being one of the principal tools of debt captivity/enslavement. This last point about refusing interest, McIlroy qualifies a bit, suggesting that it should at least apply to family, fellow believers, and the poor. Still, it is a fine example of the author's relentless effort to push an abstract theological discussion of atonement into the concrete, economic realities of our daily lives.
Moreover, in one of the most promising moves of the book, McIlroy suggests that when the work of Christ's death works in our economic lives, the result is not a religious or theological gloss on economics as we know it—that is, on the world's economic order. Rather, Christ's atonement challenges the old economics. Christ sets us free from an economy (dis)ordered by self-interest and scarcity for an economy characterized by gift, mutuality, abundance. The memorable way McIlroy put this is that thinking of atonement in terms of how humanity pays God back for sin is to remain confined within the old, worldly economics. Rather, the proper economic way to think about both Christ's atonement and how we live out of that atonement is to think in terms of how our debt is paid forward. ‘Pay it forward’ has become something of a catchy cultural shibboleth; McIlroy succeeds in giving that phrase deep theological substance by appropriating it for a holistic way of life centered in Christ setting humanity free from its bondage to the power of sin and evil.
This argument is put forward in chapters peppered with engaging short takes from daily life, literature, history, biographies, and even lyrics from a song by Bon Jovi! The result is not an abstruse academic treatise but an engaging and provocative volume from which academics can learn but that is clearly geared toward a popular, lay audience. For example, this might be a wonderful text for an adult education program in a local congregation or perhaps an undergraduate theology or ethics course.
As for the argument itself, it is a fascinating and largely compelling effort to move Christian thinking and living from a theological and economic order of pernicious debt where the focus is on ‘paying back’ and the goal might be characterized as ‘owe nothing to anyone’ toward a theological and economic order where the rhythm of life is that of ‘paying forward’ and ‘owe nothing to anyone except to love’.
In this regard, early on in this work, McIlroy suggests theologians have tended to avoid the fiscal/economic nature of the atonement metaphors he engages. This might be the case because the prevailing notion of ‘debt’ is pernicious, linked as it is to ‘paying God back’ and an economic logic that enslaves and eviscerates. Yet McIlroy engages the economic dimensions of these atonement metaphors in service to a different economic order, one where debt—the debt of love to which he so cleverly assimilates ‘paying it forward’—is another name for the loving ties of creation, neighborliness, communion, where the debt in which we are caught up from the moment of creation is precisely a gift that saves us and ensures that we are never lost in a solipsistic hell where we are indeed left alone, not owing anyone anything. In other words, in recovering the economic dimension of the atonement metaphors he engages, McIlroy also reclaims the notion of debt, enabling us to distinguish between the pernicious debt that is life-taking and from which Christ sets us free and the debt of love that does not take life but gives and renews it as it is paid forward.
The soft spot in this work is the unresolved tension that remains between the old economic order of pernicious debt that insists everything be paid back in full, with (penal) interest, and the new order that cancels such debts and replaces them with the debt of love that is paid forward. In the course of this review I have hinted at correlations between McIlroy's argument and the classic or standard treatments of atonement. Christ as the victor who sets humanity free from its captivity to sin, death, and the devil, looms large in this work; the moral influence view correlates loosely at least with McIlroy's salutary emphasis on living free so others may live freely. The difficulty surfaces with regard to the penal substitutionary model of atonement, a model that is thoroughly rooted in a theo-economic order of pernicious debt and ‘paying back’. Several times McIlroy's treatment of the various atonement metaphors runs up to the edge of this pernicious logic: to whom is the ransom or redemption paid? Who demanded a blood sacrifice and why? What kind of justice is a perquisite for forgiveness? (And if justice is satisfied, why is there any need for forgiveness?)
When his argument comes up against the economic logic of pernicious debt, several times McIlroy simply terminates the argument, perhaps with an undeveloped nod to the limits of the metaphor or with a deferral to ‘mystery’. The trajectory of McIlroy's work is clearly away from a penal substitutionary logic, resting as such a logic does on a ‘pay back’ economy, but his refusal to fully spell this out leaves some doubt. And I fear this space for doubt is precisely the space that Christian readers will exploit to deflect the good, hard challenges McIlroy puts to them. After all, if the atonement can be faithfully read according to an economic logic of a pernicious debt that requires the spilling of blood and ‘pay back’ in full then perhaps the way of life to which McIlroy points is just one option among several; perhaps paying forward is not to be the tenor of the Christian life but is instead just an occasional dalliance alongside more retributionist modes of life? Such a conclusion would be a shame, not only because it avoids the challenge of this compelling work but also because it misses the true radiance of the gift of Christ's atoning work that gathers all into the priceless communion of love that is the triune life. Such a debt we should never want to pay back. Only forward. We are in McIlroy's debt for helping us see that.