Imagining Redemption by David H. Kelsey – Readers’ Guide by Patrick Johnson
Chapter 1: What Earthy Difference Can Jesus Make Here?
 What Does Redemption Mean?
 Kelsey begins with a story about a friend, Milt, who asked a group gathered in a church,
“What does redemption mean?” Expecting a theological debate, instead he heard
silence. This silence has haunted Kelsey, and thus is the genesis of this book.
 Where We’re Talking From
 There is no one “Christian” meaning of redemption. Its meaning arises from concrete
personal circumstances, denominational identity and social/historical context. What
redemption means will be unique to a person, to Christian tradition, or to a time and
place. That is why Kelsey is exploring redemption through the lens of a concrete story of
a friend’s tragedy, and acknowledging his own social and historical location as a white,
North American Protestant theologian.
 As we begin to imagine redemption, it’s important that we understand that we are not
thinking about this from a neutral standpoint. There is, in fact, no neutral standpoint!
We are embedded both in a specific Christian communities and traditions, and in a
wider social context. Our Christian traditions and our social contexts are comprised of
language and practices and activities that shape our thoughts and beliefs. One of the
features of Kelsey’s work, as we will see, is that he tries to bring these two spheres
(religious and cultural) into dialog. He uses the ordinary everyday meanings of redeem
and redemption relates them to the more theological meanings of redemption.
 Speaking of Redemption Christianly
 Kelsey recasts the question “what does redemption mean,” to read, “What earthly
difference can Jesus make here?” How does he get from one to the other? Here is a
summary of his reasons…
 1. When Christians have spoken of redemption, they have usually meant an active
relationship that makes a difference and is characterized by grace. Redemption is
not something that just exists – like a biological process or a business arrangement –
but is a relationship that comes into being as an act of grace and makes a difference
in the life or situation of the person “being redeemed.” So… “What difference…”
 2. Since we’re talking about a relationship, it’s important to know who is doing the
redeeming. Often when speaking theologically, Christian communities say God is
doing the redeeming. More often, however, they say Jesus Christ is doing the
redeeming – or God in Jesus. In other words, it’s not just God-in-general. In fact, the
way the gospels tell the story, what Jesus does is in fact what God does, and what
happens to Jesus is in fact what happens to God. So, from a Christian standpoint, we
need to clarify that it is not God-in-general or an abstract divine being who is
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redeeming someone or something. Rather, it is God-in-Jesus or simply Jesus who is
doing the redeeming. So… “What difference can Jesus make…”
3. What is it about the human scene that needs redeeming? One might say that,
“the human scene as such and as a whole” needs redeeming. In other words, it’s all
a mess and we humans are trapped in a very bad world, and we have a very good
God who is fighting to set us free. That might ring true, but the problem with that
view is that scripture teaches us that God is good, and God – not some other evil
being – created the world and pronounced it good. Scripture does speak about the
whole “creation groaning” under the weight of sin, but that’s not the deep down
nature of creation. Deep down creation is good, and flows from the good God who
made it.
 For this reason Christians have historically shied away from describing the whole
world as a mess that needs redeeming, and rather have talked of concrete
people in particular circumstances who need redeeming. This is the pattern we
see in the gospels and in the letters to the church – Jesus is healing specific
people of specific problems, and Paul is writing to specific churches with specific
challenges. Therefore when we imagine redemption, it’s important to keep our
eyes on the concrete and particular. So… “What difference can Jesus make
here?”
4. When Christians talk about specific people in particular circumstances who need
redemption, we usually refer to two general situations: 1) when people actively sin
and are guilty; or 2) in a situation when horrific evil has befallen them. Theologically,
if we’re talking about active sin and guilt, we describe redemption in terms of
estrangement, atonement, reconciliation, forgiveness, and salvation. On the other
hand, if we’re talking about a tragic situation, then we point to the theological
theme of eschatology: the promise of the kingdom of God, God’s final victory over
evil, God’s reign of peace of justice, and the wholeness that God promises will
ultimately descend upon creation.
 On the one hand, it’s helpful to distinguish these different situations because
they bring to light different meanings of redemption. Redemption means one
thing if a person has harmed a marriage and family through addiction and seeks
forgiveness. Redemption means something else if a child is seriously disabled in
a car accident. In this sense separating these kinds of situations out is helpful.
 On the other hand, life is complex and usually these two types of redemption are
enmeshed in one another. For instance, imagine the person with the addiction
was raised in an abusive home and so his addiction is and is not his fault. Or,
imagine that the accident that harmed the child happened because the driver
was careless and ran a red light, so there is both tragedy and guilt. When we
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understand deeply this intertwining of what we do and what happens to us, we
will understand better what is meant by “original sin.” Original sin indicates the
deep and interpenetrating ways in which the world is broken and we are broken,
the ways in which the world breaks us and we break it.
 In this book, Kelsey will focus exclusively on the second kind of situation that
needs redeeming. He will attend to the tragedy that befell a family, but not to
the ways in which their mistakes and sin might have contributed to or resulted
from the tragedy.
 5. Redemption needs to be understood in terms of time. Redeeming people and
situations takes time, often lots of time. Moreover, Jesus makes a redemptive
difference only through the movement of time – this is the whole reason for the
incarnation! Most often Christians speak redemption as happening in the
“hereafter,” and that is part of our Christian hope. But we shouldn’t limit our
thinking about redemption to the hereafter – God is relating to us redemptively
now! So… “What earthly difference can Jesus make here?”
 Some Senses of Redemption
 So far, Kelsey has been talking about the meaning of redemption in Christian language
and thinking. But redemption is also a word of everyday English and has lots of
meanings in the wider culture. In fact, Kelsey argues, by metaphorically extending the
everyday meanings of redemption, we will paint a theological picture of what
redemption means – of what earthy difference Jesus can make here. Kelsey identifies
three everyday meanings of redemption.
 The first ordinary meaning of redemption is making up for a bad performance. A
basketball player that misses 10 free-throws in a row “redeems himself” by making the
11th free throw that also wins the game! Metaphorically, God relates redemptively to us
when God makes up for the world’s bad performances.
 The second meaning is to redeem from alien control. Suppose you take a guitar to a
pawn shop. They loan you $200 and keep the guitar. When you repay the money, you
“redeem” the guitar. You set it free, and return it to its rightful owner. In the same way,
God relates to us redemptively by setting persons and situations free from the
oppressive powers that distort and imprison them. (No offense to pawn brokers!)
 Finally, the third meaning of redemption is a promise made good. Suppose you get a
flyer in the mail with a coupon for $10 off of an oil change. When you go to get the oil
change, you “redeem” the coupon. The company that offered the coupon makes good
on the promise. In everyday speech, we also describe this kind of redemption as keeping
a promise. By extension, we can say that God relates redemptively to humankind by
keeping the promises God makes to us.
 Each of these meanings of redemption will be explored in a separate chapter.
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