Deeper understandings Salvation
A conversation between—and for—Lutherans
Editor’s note: This series is intended to be a public conversa- tion among teaching theologians of the ELCA on various themes of our faith and the challenging issues of our day. It invites readers to engage in dialogue by posting comments online at the end of each article at
www.thelutheran.org. The series is edited by Philip
D.W. Krey, president of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadel- phia, on behalf of the presidents of the eight ELCA seminaries.
By Shauna Hannan and Mark Swanson
Mark Swanson: Where shall we begin? “Salvation” is a big word. It encompasses what we believe and hope to be our final state of blessed- ness, when God’s good purposes for us are fully accomplished. Of course, we can’t speak about this without speaking about our par- ticular understanding of God, which
for Christians centers on what God has done in Christ. To talk about “salvation” is to tell the story of Jesus and how that story addresses our human plight—our captivity to the various realities and pow- ers (“sin, death and the devil”) that impede our life-in-God—as well as how it addresses our yearnings for wholeness, peace and meaning.
Hannan Swanson
Hannan is assistant professor of homiletics at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C. Swanson is professor of Christian-Muslim studies and interfaith relations and associate director of the Center of Christian- Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
Shauna Hannan: “God acted (note the past tense) in Christ” had been my “go to” understanding of salva- tion as a Lutheran—salvation once for all time and for all people. God sent (past tense) God’s Son into the world that the world might be saved through him. While I believe this statement to be true, it is more help- ful to change the tense of the verb to the present: God is acting (now) in Christ that the world might be saved through him. We often think of salvation as a gift we will receive in the future, once we die. That is, whether God acted to save “way back then” or is acting now, the benefits will be received in the future. And yet, the Bible offers a number of ways to imagine salvation as a gift with ben- efits even as we now live. Consider that in numerous biblical stories the same word that is used for “salva- tion” is used for “healing.” (Think of the word “salve.”) Although we would not say either that a healthy life is necessarily evidence of salva- tion or that disease is a sign of a lack of salvation, we would say there is indeed a relationship between sal- vation and healing, salvation and well-being.
18 The Lutheran •
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The change in verbal tense regarding God’s saving action and our receiving the benefits of such action in the here-and-now changes the way we think about who God is and how God is in relation to us, God’s people.
Swanson: Certainly it should be apparent in our preaching, where what God has done, is doing and will do for us and for the entire cosmos is proclaimed and enacted. I am always struck by the grand variety of ways that preachers have done this through the history of the church. The church never said you must talk about the salvation accomplished by Christ in this or that way. The New Testament itself offers us an array of concepts for think- ing about what Christ has done: sacrifice, redemption, justification, victory, etc. As a result, Christian preachers (and the theologians who try to analyze and guide their preaching) have been free in every new age and situation to ask how the biblical story of Jesus Christ—the story of God-with-us for our present and ultimate good—intersects with the lives of their hearers. How does that story reflect and affect their concrete reality, their anxieties and fears, their hopes and dreams?
Hannan: What an important ques- tion. In addition, I would encourage preachers (and hearers of sermons) to consider the words that follow our use of the word “salvation”: salva- tion for …, salvation from …, salva- tion by …, salvation if …, and salva- tion when …. Considering these pos-
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