The good news of the Christian gospel is that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:19) so that through him those who are separated from God can be made at-one with him. But how is the atonement supposed to work, exactly?
atonement
The Atonement in Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino”
A few years ago I was having an email exchange with atheist Ken Pulliam about his speciality, the atonement. Ken was a rare individual who had no antipathy toward the evangelical Christianity he’d left behind. He had none of the condescension one often finds in the atheistic blogosphere (and, it must be said, the Christian blogosphere). […]
41. Robin Parry on Universal Salvation
The Christian story has one simple, beautiful and extraordinarily powerful claim: despite all the evil, suffering, and pain that grips this creation, the good catches up. That promise is found in the very prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray: thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. And […]
God was in Christ reconciling the world … but how exactly?
Note: this article was originally published at The Christian Post in April, 2010. According to Paul, God was in Christ “katallass” or “reconciling” the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). But what exactly is that supposed to mean? The Greek word refers to an exchange of equivalent values, a settling of accounts, with the result […]
20. Theologian Michael Hardin on violence and atonement
This time on The Tentative Apologist Podcast we sit down for a conversation with theologian Michael Hardin. Michael is a scholar who has studied the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rene Girard and who also counts Girard as a personal friend. Michael is also a visionary and activist, and together with his wife Lorri he founded the […]
A vacuous defense of penal substitution
Today I was listening to the “Unbelievable” broadcast from this past Easter weekend in which Steve Jeffrey (co-author of Pierced for our Transgressions) and Alan Molineaux debated the penal substitution view (theory? metaphor? it wasn’t clear) of atonement. Halfway into the discussion Molineaux, who objected to penal substitution, centered in on one of the central […]
Christianity is not built on the rock of hell
The other day I received an email from a reader of my Swedish Atheist book. “Pat” was writing to express concern at the fact that the apologist in the book (an apologist fortuitously named “Randal”) was endorsing the doctrine of annihilationism according to which hell is understood to be the final destruction of the unregenerate rather […]
A breathtakingly larger canvas: The Cross in cosmic perspective
In my last article I pointed out that the New Testament (Paul specifically) seems to view the atonement as having truly cosmic implications. Thomas Torrance describes the cross as a “world altar” and says it “has cosmic significance in that it claims and suborns the world for its redeeming purpose.” (Atonement: The Person and Work […]
The Cross and the eXtreme Deep Field
Imagine that you are a geologist in the late nineteenth century. Your goal is an ambitious one: develop a theory that can explain the following geologic features: volcanoes, moutain ranges, earthquakes, and the puzzle-piece like fit of Africa and South America. A single, over-arching theory to explain all these varied phenomena? That would be ambitious […]
A few shades the other side of silly: Jerry Shepherd defends Tim Keller
In “Is the light of the cross brightened by the flickering flames of hell? ” I critiqued a portion of an essay by Tim Keller defending hell as eternal conscious torment which presented the following thesis: “The doctrine of hell is important because it is the only way to know how much he loved us […]
Is the light of the cross brightened by the flickering flames of hell?
A reader sent me the following excerpt from an article by Tim Keller on the doctrine of hell and asked me to comment. (The full article is available here.) So here’s the excerpt with my comments to follow: 4. The doctrine of hell is important because it is the only way to know how much […]
What in hell is going on? A Review of Sharon Baker’s “Razing Hell” (Part 2)
Sharon L. Baker. Razing Hell: Rethinking everything you’ve been taught about God’s wrath and judgment. Westminster John Knox Press, 2010. 222 pp. ISBN: 0664236545 This is the second installment (hence “Part 2”!) in a three part review. For Part 1 click here. Chapter 5 The second part of the book, which seeks to lay a […]
When is doxology theology? A response to Jerry Shepherd
In December-January I had some rather spirited exchanges in the blog with my colleague, Old Testament professor Jerry Shepherd. Then Jerry fell silent as the business of the semester took over once again. But now he’s back with some spirited comments in response to my article “What is the atonement at least? Lessons from the ascension“. […]
What is the atonement at least? Lessons from the ascension
It is no secret that atonement theories abound, each one vying to be the account for how God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. In this discussion it seems to be de rigueur these days to explain the abundance of atonement theories in terms of the fact that there is an abundance of metaphors of […]
