A Sojourner's Quest

1 9 6 / A S O J O U R N E R ’ S Q U E S T

When I look a Buddhist friend in the face, I cannot say with integrity: “Our story about Jesus’ virginal birth is true and factual. Your story that when the Buddha came out of his mother’s womb, he was walking, talking, teaching, and preaching (which I must admit is even better than our story) – that’s a myth. We have the truth; you have a lie.” I don’t think that can be said any longer, for our insistence that our faith is fact and that others’ faith is a lie is, I think, a cancer that eats at the heart of Christianity.

~ William F. Buckley, Jr. Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? Paul Copan, ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998. p. 39.

Christus Victor: The Warrior Who Is Messiah

Ps. 68.10 – You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there. Ps. 110.1-2 – The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! [ Christus Victor’s ] central theme is the idea of the Atonement as a Divine conflict and victory; Christ – Christus Victor – fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the ‘tyrant’ under which mankind is in bondage and suffering, and in him God re conciles the world to himself . . . . The background of the idea is dualistic; God is pictured as in Christ carrying through a victorious conflict against powers of evil which are hostile to his will. This constitutes Atonement, because the drama is a cosmic drama, and the victory over the powers bring to pass a new relation, a relation of reconciliation, between God and the world; and, still more, be cause in a measure the hostile powers are regarded as in the service of the will of God the Judge of all, and the executants of his judg ment. Seen from this side, the triumph over the opposing powers is regarded as a reconciling of God himself; he is reconciled by the very act in which he reconciles the world to himself.

~ Gustaf Aulen, Christus Victor. New York: MacMillan Publishers, 1969. pp. 20-21.