Evangelical Christians also believe in the real body of saints that surround us in our daily lives. We need look no further than Scripture itself to see proof of this:
‘For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.’ Hebrews 11:32-12:2
We have here, in the Word of God itself, a fantastic litany of saintly exploits. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and as St. Paul tells us in Romans, by virtue of our shared membership in the Body of Christ, we are one with them in their lives and sufferings as they are one with us in our lives and suffering.
Evangelical Christians, however, don’t share in the cult of the saints in the same way that Roman Catholics do. We don’t call upon the saints—in this case, the members of the church triumphant—to intercede for us before Christ. We don’t pray to saints that they may go to Christ to offer up some goodness of their own for us. For we confess that Christ alone is enough for us. We confess that Christ is our sole mediator. Again, we look to Scripture to find ringing grounds for this confession:
‘For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all.’ 2 Timothy 2:5-6
| mediator- a person who attempts to make people involved in a conflict come to an agreement; a go-between |
What then do we make of the prayers that faithful Christians offer up on behalf of their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ—those they know and those they don’t know? Are these prayers somehow a faithless corruption of prayer? For if we have no mediator between Christ and us, why call for prayer from others? And if we ask of the living members of the body—that is, the church militant—to pray for us, why should we not also ask for the church triumphant also to offer prayer on our behalf—for we do believe we are surrounded by a great cloud of witness, both living and dead.
St. James tells us “the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” and calls for us to pray over sick brothers and sisters. Praying for others is biblical and a case can be made to call on the church triumphant to offer prayers in the same way the church militant does—prayers based on faith in Christ.
When we pray, we’re asking God to show mercy and graciousness toward us as promised of old by many and various ways and in these last days, by the Son. When we ask our fellow brothers and sisters to pray for us, we ask them to remember God’s promise made toward them as well as toward us—a promise effective through faith in Christ Jesus for all who believe.
Without faith that Christ hears and answers our prayers, everything is for nothing. We cannot, however, put our faith in the deceased members of the church, trusting that their goodness will somehow avail before Christ more than his assurance and promise to love us as much as any saint with a feast day. For we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses—many of whom are named and many more of whom go down nameless in the annals of our human history, but whose names are written in the Book of Life. Their names and ours aren’t written there because of any goodness or faithfulness of ours, but because of Christ’s love for all the saints—you, me, and all those called to be Children of God. When we pray, it’s with the same faith by which we and all other saints the name of Jesus before the world confess.
-DS
Let’s celebrate this moment when the arc has bent a bit more, but at the same time, let’s remember that our celebration is in Christ—the one in whom divisions are no more and barriers no longer matter. Let’s remember those around us, known and unknown, who can’t celebrate. Let's pray that they can still sense a welcoming presence reflective of God’s love within the body that is Christ. And lastly, let’s not lord it over those who can’t share in our joy and pray for unity and harmony in the church and in the world—because we’re all God’s children loved and cherished beyond conceivable measure.
This book has merits and demerits. That much could be said about any book, but this particular book makes the difference between these two extremes vast. What is good is superb; what is not so good is grating.
The book begins in familiar theological territory by examining the traditional doctrine of sin vis-à-vis the Augustinian model. Cheng insists that this way of understanding sin is important to understanding the new model he proposes.* In some ways, he seems his attempt at objectivity, however, is thwarted by what appears to be an outright disdain for the traditional model. He writes: “The traditional crime-based model of sin and grace has developed into a sadistic paradigm in which our first parents fell from a state of perfection into eternal damnation, and all subsequent human beings have suffered the consequences of their crime”—hardly the verbiage of an objective excursus.
Cheng is right to point out the shortcomings of the crime-based Augustinian approach to understanding sin. He also sets the development of this harmatology—i.e. the study of sin—within its historical context in an effort to elucidate why in fact Augustine proposed such radical depravity for all humanity. Without this foray into history, however, the criticisms would appear to just hang their on their own without any real reason why they matter.
In light of his subject area, Cheng points out how the crime-based model of sin has led people to read the bible, theology, and church history through a lens that condemns LGBT folks as malefactors against God. Insofar he is right; but the danger here is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Sin is not one-dimensional reality, and it can’t be reduced to our crime against God anymore than it can be reduced to “spiritual immaturity,” as Cheng would propose as a more appropriate alternative to the crime-based model. All people—whether straight, black, atheist, wealthy, poor, Christian, white, gay, etc.—have sinned against God and neighbor in the traditional Augustinian sense. To propose a model of sin that doesn’t account for human failing, conniving, and scheming is to remain silent about a very real part of the human experience. It’s foolhardy and myopic at best, and damning and murderous to souls at worst.
The Christ-centered model of sin and grace, however, that Cheng proposes has promise. Understanding our sin in relation to Christ’s sinlessness provides us good ground to go forward. Likewise, the list of new “seven deadly sins,” as well its corresponding “seven amazing graces,” offers fruitful food for thought as theologians struggle to speak of sin within the 21st-century postmodern reality. His lists, while focused primarily on the LGBT experience, are broad enough to address the realities of people who might not number themselves among the queer community. This reconceptualization of sin and its application within the contemporary context is the book’s most promising feature.
In addressing each of the seven sins and their corresponding amazing graces, Cheng systematically delineates seven different models for Christ for LGBT folks and others to consider when seeking to live faithfully to God and to themselves. In these models, he is routinely critical of the longstanding traditional modes of speaking of sin in a sweeping fashion. There seems to be no consideration for circumstance that might preclude particular individuals from living into the amazing graces he proposes (cf. the sins of “conformity” or “the closet”), and his amazing graces are offered up as unequivocal in and of themselves (cf. the amazing graces of “activism” or “coming out”). A bit more nuanced view—one that isn’t so categorically anti-tradition or so wholeheartedly pro-novelty—would be more reflective of the realities people find themselves in.
Take for instance his first Christological model: the Erotic Christ. Here Cheng makes the erotic about more than mere sexuality. It is about meaningful interaction with others and all creation in a way that touches—not merely metaphorically, but also directly and physically—the rest of the cosmos. In this model, Cheng proposes sin as exploitation—where we fail to recognize the unique humanity of others or the exquisite vitality of creation and seek only to bend “it” to our own will for own benefit. His proposed amazing grace in this model is mutuality—where we look others around us and see “thou” instead of “it.”
This is all well and good, but especially as it comes to bear on his understanding of sin as exploitation and again on his understanding of grace as mutuality, the model seems to fall short because of its extremity. He makes sweeping pronouncements about the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church as an example of the sin of exploitation at work, and goes on to extol the grace of “the Erotic Christ during an anonymous sexual encounter in a Hong Kong sauna with another gay Asian man.”
