“You are all black” and the assembly said, “How’s that going to work?” The effect of Atonement in a mixed race community. – Reflections on Brian Bantum at the Symposium (REVISED)

Brian Bantum presented at the North Park Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture. He teaches at Seattle Pacific University. Bantum utilizes Leviticus 16 and the Scapegoat tradition to consider the ecclesia as a dynamic Christ-formed community – inaugurated by Jesus returning from the wilderness with “his new friends.” He has some textual issues at stake in his work that cause complications, and he will need to respond to the nuances of the texts he is using. Also, I may not be committed to the Scapegoat model of the atonement, exactly, yet I welcome the biblical play and contemporary practices the conversation invites. The following reflection continues his playfulness with the Scapegoat tradition.

Bantum poetically moved through his paper, citing Karl Barth, race theory, and Anselm. He utlizies these voices as he works through the Scapegoat tradition (Leviticus 16). The tradition is the practice of sending a second lamb out to the wilderness to bear sin of the people on the day of Atonement. The Scapegoat is sent outside the camp in place of the pure lamb. The Scapegoat – the Azazel (literally goat of escape) – bears the sins of the people. The scapegoat is sent away to the torturous wilderness never to be seen again meaning that the sins of the people have been forever expelled from the community forever). The pure goat remains in the temple as a sacrifice to the Lord for the purification of Israel.

The cross-event of Christ invites that Jesus is first the Scapegoat who is sent into the torturous wilderness and “cursed for hanging on a tree” (Deuteronomy 21 and Galatians 3). In the assumed death of the Azazael - what remains is the pure lamb in the city. Symobilically speaking, in the death of Jesus, what remains is the Jewish community (and Rome), including the Pharisees – who might as well consider themselves the pure lamb – recipients of the Lot of the Lord. To simply say it - Historically, Jesus was the scapegoat and the Jewish community (and Roman empire) was pure and holy. But this is not the end of the story....

Bantum takes seriously yet playfully the Scapegoat model as he moves toward the “effect” of atonement. The Jewish community, indeed the entire Roman world, believed that the death of Jesus on the cross was the annihilation of the Scapegoat. However, the scapegoat is never eternally gone, both mimetically and physically (remains remain), and this is even before we consider the resurrection. As William Brown says, “there is no true elimination, for the scapegoat never really leaves. Nothing is ever destroyed. Just ask the physicist.” (See Symposium, William Brown). In the entire death event, Christians confess that the scapegoat never really leaves….. especially when the Scapegoat – the Azazael – is the resurrected Christ.

The Scapegoat “was sent” to the torturous wilderness, (was crucified, dead and buried, he descended into hell) but he then returned to the surprise of everyone. He returned in Sommersby fashion, and this time he comes with his friends. And his friends are not the normal pure lot, but a whole host of others – Gentiles, Samaritans, women and children, etc. The resurrection - the fullness of the atonement - occurs, and the pure community says “Oh No, what now?" What the community cannot accept is that Azazael returns and appears to be the lamb of the Lot of the Lord (Leviticus 16) – pure and spotless.

This conception of the Scapegoat tradition has substantial ecclesial/church connections. The community – the people of God - is transformed when the Scapegoat returns with his friends. Bantum proposes that when the Scapegoat returns with his friends to the temple, he announces we are different – even if we still think we are the same – there is an expansion that occurs and a reconciliation that is expected. Bantum, a theologian concerned about race says, the Scapegoat model of atonement is as saying to a predominantly white room at NPTS today, “you are black.” The white folk in the room would say, “How is that going to work?” The black folk in the room might say “Yes I am, but what about the white folk around me?” The returned Scapegoat says, “You are all the people of God.” The original Jewish man-folk say, “yes” yet suspiciously glance at the Gentile and the Samaritan and say, “How’s that going to work?”

In the atonement – there is an incorporation of multiple peoples into one community (not one ethnos, per se) but one reconciled community, for which division, hatred, and exclusion is not-possible. The Scapegoat has become the “lot of the Lord,” and he always returns with his friends.

The atonement ecclesia is a church of those who have always been and never have been. All are given a name in the Atonement community, for which all are welcomed into its effect. The people of God is now the circumcised and not; the man and woman; the slave and free; the Gentile and Jewish community. This is a new humanity – a new people of God broader and more complicated than before. And those who were here before and never before ask in unison, “How is that going to work?”