Options on atonement in Christian thought (original) (raw)
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Perspectives on the Atonement: seeking an agreed way forward
Search: A Church of Ireland Journal, 2018
Perspectives on the Atonement: seeking an agreed way forward KNOWLEDGE is furthered by disagreement; but how that disagreement is expressed is crucial. Both ordained for the province of Armagh in 2012, but with contrasting perspectives, two Church of Ireland clerics engage with one another below on one of the most hotly debated topics in the Church today: that regarding nonviolent and cross-centered theories of atonement. Andrew Campbell: WHEN we look across the spectrum of western theological discourse over the early years of this century we see that the nature of atonement is a dominant subject for debate. Behind much of this debate is rejection of violence (namely the cross) as a means by which atonement is won. Over the last years of the 20th century and the early 21st century thinkers such as Rebecca Ann Parker, Rita Brock, Rosemary Radford Ruether and J. Denney Weaver have highlighted their problems with cross-centred atonement theologies. (By 'cross-centred' I refer to any view of the atonement in which the death of Christ is divinely ordained.) These nonviolent theorists reject the idea that atonement was achieved through a violent act perpetrated against Christ, leading to the now infamous claim that " divine child-abuse is paraded as salvific. " 1 This has given rise to nonviolent atonement theologies that deny that the death of Christ was divinely ordained. This shift away from atonement thinking centred on the cross can be traced to an ethical concern for those vulnerable to violence, due to its use to support violent and oppressive behaviour. 2 In light of these ethical concerns many of the nonviolent theorists in question offer variations of an atonement theology that rejects the notion of
The Moral Theory of the Atonement: An Historical and Theological Critique
Scottish Journal of Theology, 1985
In 1892, Hastings Rashdall delivered a University Sermon at Oxford entitled ‘Abelard's Doctrine of the Atonement’. In this sermon, he outlines with increasing enthusiasm what he considered to be ‘as noble and perspicuous a statement as can even yet be found of the faith which is still the life of Christendom’. The central theme of his sermon is that in the twelfth century figure of Peter Abailard can be found a theory of the Atonement which meets the demands of an age shaped in the spirit of Darwinism and historical criticism. What Rashdall understands by the ‘Abelardian doctrine of the Atonement’ is expounded at much greater length in his 1915 Bampton Lectures, The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology.
The Problems of Atonement: Justification and Substitution
Matthew Darby, 2020
Atonement theology is quite controversial. Each tradition has its own way of explaining the historic and salvific event of the death and resurrection of Jesus. However, even within the realm of atonement theology there are a couple of issues that reign supreme as the center of most atonement controversies. These two subjects being: justification and substitution. What does it mean that sinners are justified by the blood of Christ? How is Christ a substitute for sinners? These two aspects of the atonement have received considerable scrutiny over the last century. These doctrines have been called unjust, incoherent, and many other slanderous terms. The question is though, are they right? In this essay I intend to give a defense for both the coherence and morality of both of these issues.
For the past two millennia, the death and resurrection of Jesus have dominated the thought of Christian theologians and exegetes, particularly when it comes to Paul’s perspectives on the matter. There have been theories and propositions to systematic theologies that have tried to make sense of what the New Testament (hereafter NT) writers were attempting to communicate regarding Jesus’ death, and what they envisioned it to have accomplished. This controversy raged on for centuries, each side having their set of texts that supposedly proved theirs to be the “correct” opinion. It is not the purpose of this essay to enter this controversy regarding atonement theories, but rather examine texts and cultural phenomena that antedate the epistemological presuppositions of the later arguments and compare these with familiar speech found in the NT. Rather than read these texts eisegetically through a systematized theological paradigm, I want to try and make sense of what those in the Second Temple period saw as having atoning or salvific qualities through the martyrdom of a righteous individual.
The Atonement In Historical Review
Traditional theologians view with alarm the changing understanding of the atonement within evangelical thought, with its rejection of penal substitution and an emphasis on participation, and rightly identify it as the renewal of a historical interpretation rather than a complete novelty, an interpretation recognized to date at least as early as Abelard. Though much has been written by traditionalists in response, at present a coherent defense of the traditional doctrine is still lacking.