A vaccination

Last year, in my intro to theology class, I wrote a paper on atonement, specifically on a version of atonement called "recapitulation." Just so you guys get some of how I think sin and redemption works in the world, here's my take on it in this paper.


"...If one is willing to think of it as a divine healing, then let’s indulge in an extended metaphor of Christ as a series of vaccinations, and sin as the disease that it treats. A vaccination is given to strengthen the body’s natural resistance to a disease. As time goes on, and more vaccinations are received, one would become more and more resistant to the condition of sin. This is very much the way in which recapitulation works. Depending on whether one believes in original sin or not, sin is either an inherited disease or one that one is infects from an outside source. Either way, this sinful condition can be treated by an association with and acceptance of Christ. If someone ignores the condition, sin might very well become fatal, and this fatality is the means of divine judgment. It very much reflects the sentiment made by Kathleen Norris, that hell is defined as “God’s absence.” By choosing to deny the treatment, one runs the risk of separating themselves from God, fully succumbing to the condition of sin; in essence, the condition is of self-imposed imprisonment, activated by learned or inherited self-centeredness, constantly being expressed by actual sin. However, by recognizing this condition and actively seeking treatment, one can in effect become healed, and made full and complete.

The other claim of the model, that the church is the body of Christ, is related to sanctification. In the medical metaphor, Christ becomes a part of us. More historically, the way recapitulation is set up is that we become a part of Christ, and that the church is Christ’s body. This is more than just a connection to the divine; being a part of the body of Christ means that we are also connected to everybody else that is associated with and is a part of this body. One could go even further with this concept and say that everything is connected, even beyond the church, since “at some level and in a remote or intimate way, everything is related to everything else.” All of creation is interrelated, and the body of Christ is the reflection of this interrelatedness. The church is, or should be, the most visible and direct presence of this connection..."

(Footnotes:

Norris, Kathleen, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), 315.

Schmiechen, Peter, Saving Power: Theories of Atonement and Forms of the Church, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdsmans Publishing, 2005), 232.

McFague, Sally, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology, (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1993), 27.