I love Michael Gungor, I really do. Fifteen years ago, he was among the most talented singer-songwriter-bandleaders in Christian and worship music. “Beautiful Things”, “Be My Strength”, etc., were amazing worship songs, true and deep. He is an amazing guitarist, layering parts worthy of Jimmy Page (the equal of Phil Wickham), and a great lyricist and singer as well.

(And he is married to Lisa, who grew up in Deming NM, not too far from where I grew up, in the deserts of southeastern New Mexico.)

As he deconstructed, I continued to follow him. The music he made after leaving the evangelical-industrial complex was also amazing, and sometimes incredibly perceptive. “Vapor”, for example. Probably my favorite song from this period is his “Us for Them”, from the album One Wild Life (2016). I think it captures the dynamics of our current culture war better than any other song from this period.

So last weekend, he tweeted THIS, and it just irks me.

Here he echoes a familiar progressive post-Christian trope: the traditional view of Jesus’ death is divine child abuse. On the cross, God is outside Jesus, punishing Jesus for the sins of the world. Come to think of it, that particular statement is found in places other than progressive post-Christians. I’ve heard similar statements from conservatives describing their view of substitutionary atonement.

THIS IDEA COMPLETELY MISSES ONE OF THE MAJOR ASPECTS OF THE ATONEMENT, namely that the cross of Christ is an act of divine SELF sacrifice. Paul says, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5.19). In the cross, God is not outside Jesus, a third person punishing his child. God is himself there, suffering and dying for his creation. The creator sacrifices himself for his creation.

Any other view fails to give full power to the incarnation. Jesus was every bit a man; he bled and sweated and got sick and faced the same physical and mental limitations we face. But he was also fully God, and God was acting through him and in him in a unique way.

It makes me wonder what Gungor was deconstructing when he decided he couldn’t call himself a Christian any longer. What was he reacting against? Biblical Christianity (I know, I know) in all its complexities or systematized scholasticized straight-jacketed bottom-line evangelical theology?

It also makes me wonder how Gungor got to this point, where he could go into a Christian worship service and then complain about how Christian it is.

It also makes me wonder about the path of Gungor’s deconstruction, the theological decisions he made. Think this through with me.

• Some of Gungor’s songs indicate that he no longer sees Jesus as unique. For example, “You”, also from One Wild Life, refers to “Jesus, teacher, brahmin, light”.
• If Jesus is no longer unique, but only one spiritual teacher among many, then the incarnation is meaningless. God can be incarnate in any ethical human in the same way he was incarnate in Jesus.
• Which means that the cross loses its power, because it is no longer the self-sacrifice of God in a unique, meaningful, world-changing way.

AFAIC, Jesus’ uniqueness is essential. It’s necessary because the self-sacrifice of God on the cross, the Creator suffering to redeem his creation, is the pin that holds all of Christianity together. If we lose that, we lose everything.

The self-sacrifice of God on the cross is also our way forward through a lot of the noise and strife of the current moment. More on that another time.