Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ substitutionary atonement

May 29, 2024 • 9:00 am

The latest Jesus and Mo strip, called “brain 2,” is called “a resurrection from 2007.”  According to Wikipedia, “penal substition” is this:

 

Penal substitution, also called penal substitutionary atonement and especially in older writings forensic theory, is a theory of the atonement within Protestant Christian theology, which declares that Christ, voluntarily submitting to God the Father’s plan, was punished (penalized) in the place of (substitution) sinners, thus satisfying the demands of justice and propitiation, so God can justly forgive sins making us at one with God (atonement).

 

And of course that doesn’t make any sense; it’s as opaque as the Trinity. But Mo gives away the game (and the whole of theology) in the last panel.

11 thoughts on “Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ substitutionary atonement”

  1. I was raised Protestant. I assumed this was Christian theology. Why do Catholics believe he was crucified?

    1. Catholics believe pretty much the same. It’s encapsulated in the constant refrain, “Jesus died for our sins.”

  2. New Age occult theosophist Alice A. Bailey named this “at-one-ment”. Example (bold added):

    “Third, the gap between the lower mind and the soul has to be bridged, and curiously enough humanity has always realised this and has talked therefore in terms of “achieving unity” or “making the at-one-ment” or “attaining alignment.” These are all attempts to express this intuitively realised truth.

    VI. Education also should concern itself during the new age with the bridging of this gap between the three aspects of the mind nature: between the soul and the lower mind, thus producing at-one-ment between soul and personality; between the lower mind, the soul and the higher mind.”

    -Alice A. Bailey
    Education In the New Age
    Lucifer Publishing / Lucis Trust
    1954

    1. New agers like to monkey with words this way, as in dis-ease.

      Regarding this: “But Mo gives away the game (and the whole of theology) in the last panel.” — just so, and succinctly.

      1. At his “Million Man March,” Louis Farrakhan was babbling about how the first monotheists were the Egyptians who called God “Aton,” and how God is the first note of the scale, or “the A-tone.” “So if you atone, you are at one with the A-tone.” George Will said that the speech proved “Farrakhan isn’t just an anti-Semite and a racist, he’s a loon,” and predicted people would stop taking him seriously.

  3. All this seems ridiculous for sure, especially for people who were not brought up believing this nonsense. But I am interested: is the Catholic doctrine of atonement different from the Protestant one? If so, how?

    1. See response to my question post #1. Jesus died for our sins, including Catholics. Per dogma.

  4. Isn’t penal substitution what is going through the scapegoat’s mind, shortly before the knife goes through it’s neck. (Or it experiences free fall, briefly, before experiencing acceleration, negatively.)

  6. I find it’s quite a good way to shut Christians up (when they are banging on about this) to say “I didn’t ask Jesus to die for me. I’ll take responsibility for my own actions, thank you”.

    1. Or in the words of the great Patti Smith, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.”

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