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*screams in St. Paul stan* THIS THIS THIS https://twitter.com/northgalis/status/1197948591211339776
The reason I bring up St Paul is that I have this complicated hot take brewing about how the major unnamed factor in redemption discourse is the presence of specifically *vestigial* Christianity in our culture.
Like. I recently saw somebody talking about Christian redemption involved being declared a “good person” and like. That’s not entirely wrong, but also a major part of traditional Xian anthropology is “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
It’s a fundamentally paradoxical view, where nobody is righteous but also the blood of Christ cleanses is from all sin. And Christians fight a lot about how exactly to define that cleansing, but all agree that it’s an undeserved gift. “Righteous” is always linked to “sinner.”
But you take away that theology, and you’re left with a vague sense that it’s very important to be declared an objectively Good Person, but no real......map to how that happens, except maybe being like THOSE awful [insert out-group du jour]
And similarly with the redemption equals death trope, I think one of the things driving it is a vague genetic memory of “I no longer live but Christ lives in me” and the sense that an atoning death is somehow powerful. But again, take away the theology....
And all you’re left with is “welp, the only way to fix this is die and save us all a lot of trouble.”
And aside from my own theological problems with that, I think it’s such a less interesting story, you know? Living with your past hurts. Trying to forgive someone hurts. That stuff makes AWESOME stories.
(Also, now that I’m thinking about St Paul, I’m absolutely desperate for redeemed Ben Solo to get smuggled out of somewhere in a basket, can you IMAGINE that enormous dumbass trying to squish himself inside.)
