Episode 484: Brent Peterson - The Back Side of the Cross Voices In My Head (The Rick Lee James Podca

Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head.

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad that you're here listening in on what I know is going to be another great conversation today. My guest this week on Voices in My Head is Brent Peterson. Brent is the Dean of the College of Theology and Christian Ministries and Professor of Theology at Northwest Nazarene University. He's a leading voice in the Wesleyan tradition on the sacraments and founded the Wesleyan Liturgical Society. His new book, which he co-wrote with Diane LeClerc, is called The Backside of the Cross: An Atonement Theology for the Abused and Abandoned. The cross has always been portrayed as the means of salvation and forgiveness for sinners, but what does it have— but does it have anything to say to those who have been sinned against? That is the subject of this new book. It is a fantastic read, and I'm so glad to welcome Brent Peterson. Brent, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Thanks so much for having me, Rick. It's a delight to be here and an honor to chat with you today.

Well, it's so good to have a chance to do this today, especially as I've been sharing with you, because I've been working as a chaplain this past summer. And now I'm in a residency program for the next year. And one thing that I've been focusing on is a theology of suffering. And I work with suffering people every day. And I think that this new book has so much to offer in ways that a lot of books on suffering don't. I love the idea that this concept of hon, which I, which I hope we'll get into a little bit, which I first found actually when I was I was on your campus a few years ago. And I picked up a book in the bookstore, The Other Side of Sin, Andrew Sung Park, which you refer to in your book, and I was fascinated by this whole concept. So before we get too deep into the weeds on this, just kind of give our listeners, if you would, kind of an idea of what this book is about, and what kind of makes it unique among this conversation about suffering.

Yeah, great. You know, I've written several books before and they've been fine. This book just feels like a really important conversation that I think pastors and laity kind of need to be attending to. It connects to the book The Other Side of Sin. I'll get to that a little bit later. But essentially, in the church largely and growing up in my situation, we focused on the Davids of the world. So, you know, Rick does bad things. And so the goal for the church is to help Rick to confess his sins, repent of his sins, and that God can provide Rick salvation, which is wonderful. And that's good. And we don't want to— we're not undoing any of that. The problem is, you know, the person that Rick hurt, we'll call her Susan, right? How is God going to help Susan? And so again, and I'll kind of do a graphic example with David and Bathsheba. You know, the Bible wants to name David's sin, which it does rightly, and David has done wrong as a place of power. We could argue there was a raping of Bathsheba and a killing of Uriah. And the focus really on the story mostly is always on David. And so Nathan confronts David and they have that exchange. Of course, the loss of the child that's conceived there. And again, all that in the church is thinking about the sins that we've done, we need forgiveness, and all those things are absolutely right. What I was struck by, and I was reading this book, Other Side of Sin, in my doctoral work, is, well, how does Bathsheba find salvation? How does Uriah find salvation? You know, you have Cain and Abel, right? So Cain kills Abel and God kind of protects Cain. Well, I mean, that's one of the great things about the Genesis text. It says that Abel's bloods cry out to God. And so one of the things that I just think we've missed in our teaching and our preaching and our worship is how do we help those who've been the sinned against? And I think, you know, in the church we— and this is not undoing the call that David needs help, but again, too often our theology, and especially our atonement theology, has focused on the perpetrator, the oppressor, and rightfully so. There's emphasis there, but has failed, I think miserably, to pay attention to those who've been sinned against. So if I get into this, where's the place of lament? What is God doing?

This is—

what is God doing when others suffer? Um, because you can think about the layers of Bathsheba. Number one, God allowed David to do all these things to Bathsheba and Uriah, and then David's gonna— then God's gonna forgive David for doing these things. So I think one of the things we've not paid attention to is how even God's forgiveness of salvation for the perpetrator can actually offer another layer of wounding upon the— those who've been sinned against. And so I think again, it's a category I think in my experience that we need to really broaden our conversation. The technical term is hamartiology, doctrine of sin, and soteriology, doctrine of salvation. We need to have a more broad opening to pay attention to in our singing and our praying and our theology about how is God present and with those who have been sinned against. So that's kind of a quick overview.

That is so good and such a good, very concise description of what you've done in the book with Diane. One thing that I love, even right from the beginning of the book, you start to deal with this. You say, "Victims of all kinds are in the church, but we never look them in the eye and ask about their stories." And I love that, especially in the work I'm doing in chaplaincy right now, because one thing that I am finding so powerful is for so many years I thought my job was to witness to people. But I'm really finding there is great power in what God will do when we are a witness of a person instead of a witness to them. We allow them to tell their stories. It's amazing how God takes over in the midst. And so one thing that we need to make clear about your book, and you make it clear in the book, is that this is not a theodicy. It's not something that's trying to defend God and find ways to say, well, you know, this is all, you know, that you have to defend God and make sure we protect him because you don't want your theology wrong. This truly is on behalf of the victims, something that is sorely needed, I think, in the church today. I wonder if we could ask you to describe where did this even idea, this thought of the backside of the cross, kind of how did that come to your mind in the first place? I'd love to just hear a bit more about that, of who you see on the backside of the cross.

Yeah, well, and this is where I, I, we were missed by having my colleague Diane LeClaire. We each have a unique way we come to this together. I'll tell my side of the story first. Okay, I'll kind of give, tell her story for you because it very much matters. Um, so as I mentioned, in my doctoral program I had a class on basically liturgies of healing and anointing, and, uh, I did the doctorate, PhD in liturgical studies, and it sounded like an interesting book class. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, but this book was introduced, The Other Side of Sin, which you mentioned. The reason it was in our bookstore is I— that's one of my main texts I use for my systematic theology class for my students. When I read that book, it was like lights just opened up to me. I was a pastor, youth pastor, that again, as I mentioned before, we paid all attention to those who've been the sinners, but those who've been sinned against have been ignored. So that book is a collection of a lot of essays. We've actually been consulting Andrew Sung Park with the book as he got in the concept of han.. But it was that class that just kind of opened up for me in my pastoring at the time. Basically an opening of theology to say the church has just not given the proper space to those who've been victims. Diane's story is a little bit different. She will tell that she was a victim growing up in the church. A perpetrator had some abuse to her. And so this is something she's been working on really for most of her career. How do we think about those who have been abused? The comment you made earlier is really important. Everybody's story matters. Absolutely. But often in the church, we have not paid attention to the stories of victims. Most of our testimonies have been about how God delivered me from a bad person that I was or addictions that I have done. Again, that's all good. But one of the things we know about being a victim is often our stories are silenced.. And the power of telling those stories is crucial. So for her, you know, we— I kind of had some theological framework, and she had these kind of visceral experiences. And we kind of had a conversation, it was probably about 7, 8 years ago, where we just said, we got to do a book here. And for both of us, this is a passion and calling. It took us a long time, you know, that we were writing it for a while. And we heard it got hard to get a publisher, which is a whole different conversation. But for each of us, for me, from a pastoral point of view, recognizing, oh man, as pastors, we're not training our pastors, our worship is not creating enough space for the syndegance. And for Diane, all those things were true. But also for her, it was learning out of her own story, how God began to find and give her healing along the way. And how can we express this and give this give this new imagination for pastors and teachers and Christians that we have to tell the stories of the victims. And then what's God's response there? So that's where kind of Diane and I got together, kind of in different ways. But there was a— to be honest, the writing of the book and the publishing of the book was a long journey as well. But that's how the kind of germination, the idea kind of came to fruition. I will say that Diane will tell you that she can now die in peace. I mean, the burden of this book for her as was for me, but for her, it was crucial for her as she's living out her story and recognizing how many other victims in the church have not been heard or silenced. And so for her, this book was really central to her bones, you might say. And we're just thrilled that we're able to get it out there. And again, I just think it's a really important conversation for pastors and church leaders to be aware and encompassing and enlarging how we think about church.

Yeah, that's wonderful. And thank you for sharing both sides of your stories. I really appreciate that. Again, I'm sorry to keep bringing chaplaincy into this, but I feel like there is such a connection here. One thing, one phrase that we often use is the phrase that Anton Boyson came up with, that we look at lives as living human documents. That we see the way that they are telling a story, and it's a story that's important and rich. And, and part of this story that, as you have said, the church is not doing a very good job of telling because we aren't listening. And one concept— I almost feel like it's a, it's a dual book conversation today because we're between like The Other Side of Sin, which really introduced me as well to this concept of han, and then you develop it even, even more in your book. I wonder if you could talk to us a bit about this, this Korean concept of han, because it's not just suffering. It actually has to do more with the mental and spiritual response when a wrong has been done to a person. And I think this might be a new and very helpful concept to our listeners today.

Yeah, and again, I don't pretend to be an expert on this, but I'll tell you what I've learned as a continual student on han. But it was also fascinating. By the way, I think life's very interesting. And I think of our Star Wars nerds friends, the idea of Han Solo, think about that idea of a lone sufferer as we go forward, that George Lucas had a lot going on there, by the way. Yeah, I would say about this. So Han is basically kind of basic notion. Again, if I sin against you, Rick, right, and then, and so you, I wound you in an intense way. But we don't talk about that. We don't deal with it. Your ignoring that is not going to make it better or go away. Now, there are levels of intensity, right? So, if I am mean to you one day and say something, and that is just not great. There is intensity of the injury, right? But there is a place of wounding and some level of wounding by which, if it is not addressed, it is going to fester. Kind of an easy example we can all imagine. If, you know, if you— if I were abused as a kid and I grew up to be an abuser, we would recognize that, hey, first of all, it's a very important idea. When folks hear the idea of han, they feel like we're getting victims a kind of green light and pass to do whatever they want to do no matter what. And we're not saying that. It's a really important idea. But if you have been sinned against and we don't deal with that sin, simply telling you, Rick Lee James, hey, Rick, you know, I'm sorry what happened to you, but you're a sinner after all. Just confess your own sins and the other stuff is too bad. It's like putting cancer on a Band-Aid. And what we know about harm, when you've been sinned against, if you don't deal with it, it's going to come out, right? Positively or negatively. It doesn't mean that someone is stuck. And this is the great thing of the gospel. Even if you were victimized, it doesn't mean you will become a victimizer. But if we don't deal with the ways you've been sinned against, it will come out negatively in many, many powerful things. Again, we're not releasing you from the culpability of the bad things you would do. But again, my analogy is putting the Band-Aid on cancer, right? There's a sense in which, when you've been wounded, when you've been hurt— there's a great book, you'll know the name of it, Rick Lee James, The Body Keeps the Score. Yeah, that book. Yeah. Very much a similar way. And again, I think in the church, we've not paid enough attention to the role of bodies and stories. And there's a whole field there that's beyond my pay grade. But we just know that the bodies remember the good and the bad. And especially in the church, we don't deal with the bad. Um, ignoring it does not go away. So han is this notion that han will either come out, um, and can be redeemed, or can come out retributively. And hence the notion of a victimizer— those who are victims become victimizers. So it's that concept of how can we break that chain, break that cycle. And again, the church If all we're telling folks, Rick, is just confess your sins, um, but my real problem is I've been wounded and hurt, um, I have sins to confess, we're not dealing with the root of the problem. That I feel broken, I feel damaged, perhaps I don't feel worthy. And so the whole concept of shame and guilt, right? So guilt is a good thing about— I can— I've done something wrong, I feel bad about that. The danger of shame and toxic shame is that I feel broken, I feel I am— I am bad. Versus I feel bad, right? And often in those situations, folks do not feel worthy of healing, worthy of redemption. And so it's a vicious cycle that we have to address. And this is why, again, your point earlier about how do we let folks tell their stories? And in the church, that has just failed to occur. So han essentially is this result of being a victim of sin. And then the question is what we do with it. But again, this is where when I kind of came across this concept, I thought, how many decades and centuries have we not listened to the— we've made folks suppress how they've been hurt. And so therefore, when they sin, we're just dealing with the symptoms and not the real course of the problem.

Yeah. Excellent explanation of Han. Thank you for describing that. And even thinking through the Star Wars references is pretty great with all, you know, talk about pulling pop culture into the conversation we're having today. You know, it would be impossible in the short time we have together today to cover everything in your books, which is why I want to recommend people read it. But one thing you do, you and Diane, you both cover these different atonement theologies. And it's actually a really good resource for people who might just be wondering, well, you know, I always thought there was only this one way of looking at what atonement was. And I think it's an excellent resource just to look through and say, no, there's this one, and there's another, and there's another, and all of them have different implications. There's strong points, there's weaknesses to each one. And as we are working out this salvation, it's important to look at those. But To me, one of my favorite parts in the book is chapter 3, when you are talking about Jesus entering the baptismal waters and using that as a metaphor for the way that Jesus enters into chaos and death. And because so often the waters in scripture don't necessarily represent cleansing as much as they represent chaos, you know, we see that from the very beginning in Genesis where chaos has to part and water is sort of that metaphor. And I love the idea that you bring about, and it carries through in chapter Chapter 6, where you say this forsakenness, you know, the same forsakenness that Jesus enters into, it's not a sign of God's absence from us. But it's actually a moment of intense communion with those people who are suffering. And that's, that's not a direct quote, but it's, it's close to, I think, what you had said.

I think you said it better than we did there.

Oh, I doubt that for sure. But I love how you bring us to that place where we're again coming back to Jesus. I tell my patients all the time when the opportunity arises, the way— if we have a chance to talk about it as they are feeling alone— to understand and hopefully know that God is not distant from them or forsaking them in these things they are going through, but God is the one who is drawing near. To us, suffering with, you know, embodying this compassion, that this forgiving God that we see in Jesus. So I came away from this book when I read it just profoundly encouraged. You would think a book that is so heavy—

yeah—

would be one that would weigh you down, but you encouraged my heart in a way that I needed it. And I, and I wanted to tell you that today because if people are thinking, oh no, a book on suffering, I don't know if I want to hear this, it's amazing that the way hearing these stories and the way that you have set up each chapter with beginning with a story, whether it be a story retold from a different perspective in scripture or actual stories that we know of from people like Diane, and the way that we get into hearing people's stories can actually be a way to lift us out of the mud rather than pull us into it. And I really love that about your book. So, um, because our time is short today and I want to make sure we cover things you want to cover about it. Is there something that, that you wrote into the book that for you as an author you feel like, oh, I'm just burning to tell people about this? If I had one thing that I really wanted to say from what I wrote, or what we wrote together, um, can you just talk to us a little bit about that? Because I, I really want you to share your heart on this.

Well, thank you. I mean, I'd be, I'd be curious to hear what Diane would say about that. I think there are similar and different things. Um, let me go backwards, like, a couple steps.

Sure.

I first want to give a lot of credit to Al Truesdale. Al Truesdale was my professor at Nazarene Seminary. He wrote a very important book, kind of on what is theodicy, essentially, under two different kind of examples. One was the bombing in Oklahoma City, and then on September 11th, If God Is God, Then Why? And one of the things that Al does in that book is he tells it through the lens of stories. And I think what's so crucial, and I think the chaplaincy model that you have is so crucial for us, this is not a theoretical exercise. This is not simply a cognitive idea about how to throw around propositional truths. This is— suffering is about real life stories are embodied. And I think the scriptures do this, right? The scriptures are all about embodied joys and hardships and suffering. So I think what Al did in that book is actually he tells it through stories, but also he ends— as a spoiler alert, but the book's like 20 years old— with there's no good solution, right? There isn't a theodicy, but what we have is the death and resurrection of Christ. And again, in some regard, for many of my students, it's so frustrating because they want the final answer. And I would say, and the points you just raised, an area that is crucial for us in the book, as you think about the atonement theologies, Often there are certain theologies that really it's, um, the Son and the Father doing a divine dance, whether it's paying of debts or whether it's restoring honor. And, and again, all, as you said, all atonement theories— and there are many, and the church, as you said, has never settled on one. I think that'd be a surprise to some Christians. But especially those who they sinned against, I think some atonement theories are better than others or more helpful than others. And so I also want to give credit to a really important author for me, Jürgen Moltmann. In his book, The Crucified God. That one of the chapters really leans in there. And that goes right to the point, Rick, of what you've just said. What does it mean? And I love the idea you mentioned too, that I think the whole incarnation is God in Christ entering into the human experience. As you know, our Eastern Orthodox friends, while Calvary is awesome, what is salvific for them is Bethlehem, right? That God becomes flesh, God enters into our real humanity, to restore it and redeem it. So the recapitulation theory is a part of this, is that God enters into our brokenness. And so again, because we think that theodicy and getting God off the hook isn't the problem, what do we say? As you said it so well, we think God in Christ and his entire incarnation is God entering into our forsakenness. So one of the lines that we just steal from Moltmann is that God becomes the God of those who have been God-forsaken. And what that means is this, is essentially God— and this is a kind of problem we have in our theology— we think God could have stopped evil from happening and does not. So God willing versus allowing, a whole different conversation. But God does not stop the evil from happening. And so for those folks for whom God does not stop evil from happening, Moltmann names as the God-forsaken. Now, God-forsaken does not mean God hates them and God doesn't love them. But it does mean God allows evil to occur. And we see this most powerfully in the entire incarnation, but especially, of course, on the cross. So Moltmann's line is that God entered in Jesus Christ. God enters into those spaces of God-forsakenness. So that you said earlier that we are not alone. And by the way, this is crucial. By God entering in there does not mean now God's off the hook. Like, say it happened to Christ, so no big deal is happening to you. That's not what we're saying. We are saying, though, is that you are not alone. Jesus Christ understands. And again, one of the things I think, and I, you know, Rick, we have other conversations about this, it's really important for me, and this gets to answer your question, is recovery of lament. Lament absolutely is something the church has totally lost, I think. And as you know, Rick, it's the largest category of songs in the Psalter, in the Bible.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, when was the last time in worship, Rick Lee James, we were saying, "God, you have failed us." You know, I mean, the song over and over again, right? And the laments are not pious whining. Laments are an act of worship that are crying out to God, "God, where are you?" And what we see in Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ is right there with us joining our lament. And of course, we see this climax, of course, in Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That Christ on the cross is calling this out. Moltmann says, and I agree, most Christians have not taken that seriously. What does that mean? But this gets to the central part of what I want to emphasize to answer your question. The church must recover the gift of worship, and actually it's a worship of lament, to allow folks to name their anger at God. So Rick, when we sing our— I said to my students all the time, If we don't allow folks to lament, our praise becomes shallow and hollow, right? Our lives are full of praises and laments, but I think in the church we found lament to be illegal worship. But in our lament, it's not simply a wasteful time because we know that in our laments, God in Christ is present and lamenting with us.

Yes.

And inviting us into a hope this will not be eternal, and this is not right. I mean, that's the thing is what you're experiencing is not good. But your God is weeping and crying with you in those moments of communion of brokenness. So that really leans into probably what I would say is a central thing, both lament and the point you raised is that in our brokenness, in our suffering, we are not alone. So the church is then called, chaplaincy is certainly a part of this, to enter into and to sit with, in your word, compassion, those in their hard times, not just simply as a pity party. There is a naming of hope about the eternality of this suffering. But at first, we just sit and hear the stories and we cry and weep together. But also with the resurrection, there's a hope that our present suffering is not eternal.

Oh, that's so good, man. What a— that feels like it'll preach. Yeah, I feel like that was the best thing I could have heard today, actually.

Oh, man.

You know, I've struggled with how to end this conversation today, because there's so many places that the book takes us. But, you know, as we've been talking about the risen Christ, the resurrected Lord, who doesn't actually only speak through the pages of Scripture, although we know God does. I think I want to share a story that just— I just experienced about a week ago with one of my patients, not giving any information about her, but When we talk about the way God is still entering into suffering, this patient had told me that years ago her husband had passed away of pancreatic cancer. Said it was one of the most horrible ways of suffering she could imagine. You know, just things were going there, and this was not at all him being sinned against by another. This was just disease, and he was gone so quickly. And then she herself found herself in the hospital shortly after, and she expressed to me, and it was sort of in the midst of this conversation, she said she was holding her son's hand. And she, she doesn't know if she went to sleep, if she kind of blacked out what happened, but she had this vision of Jesus speaking to her. And, and, and when Jesus was in her presence, in that time of her suffering, she said to me, and this was what I thought was so powerful, she said, it was like a warm like a big hug from someone that just loves you so much. And I thought, what a beautiful description. And maybe as we think about this backside of the cross, the Savior who loved us enough to stretch his arms out and say, even teach us how to lament together. We have not only this God who suffers with us, but wow, what a beautiful description of our Savior that he comes to us in these moments moments of suffering. And one thing we know about people who often are suffering, we not only don't always hear their stories, we're not always there for them for an embrace when they may need it. And I think this book is an invitation to be like Christ in our world, to offer that warm hug, so to speak, to people who may need it, who frankly the church has sometimes blamed the victims for things they're going through, when what the church maybe needs to do is stop and say, "I am so sorry for what you're going through," to hold them and, and help them through these times. So, so I just want to thank you and Diane both, because this is going to be— going to continually be, I think, a resource for so many people in the coming days. Thank you for your hard work on this. Thank you for both of you you know, the hard tale that she had to tell, but which was freeing for her. I'm just amazed by, by the finished product and what you've presented. So thank you for being so faithful. Really appreciate it. So thank you, Rick.

I appreciate the chance to do it. And God bless you and your chaplaincy ministry. I guess the one thing I would add in conclusion is I think the invitation is that the church is the body of Christ, is to be an extension of Christ's hug. Rick Lee James. Right. Yeah, we're not to replace Christ, but we are the body of Christ. And I think we need to enter into the suffering of others. And again, I think, I think we don't like to tell those stories because we're nervous we might be next, right? The reason that we ignore the suffering and death, but I think we'll all find freedom and hope as we just participate in that embrace, that someone is loved and known, and we're weeping together. But there's a hope of redemption, but that Christ is with us. And so that's the call. The church can also be an extension of Christ's hug and embrace to those especially who are hurting and broken.

So good. Well, listeners, once again, the book is called The Backside of the Cross: An Atonement Theology for the Abused and Abandoned. It is written by my guest today, Brent Peterson, and his co-author, Diane Leclercq. I highly recommend it. We will have links in the show notes of Voices in My Head. So hopefully, if everything works in the way it's supposed to on the internet, you should just be able, while you're listening, go to the show notes and click on a link and get right to the book. So as I say to my guests every week, I get to say it to you. Brent Peterson, thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week.

Amen. God bless you, Rick. Take care.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

God bless you.

And thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.