The Atonement

I am participating in some interesting dialog about the Atonement over at QuIRP. Rather than trying to retype everything I have said and formulate it into a single post for Reflective Faith, I thought I would just link to the page. My thoughts are as always developing and being refined, and I appreciate the chance to interact with a few others and hear their ideas on the concept of the atonement. The idea that Jesus' death and resurrection has something to do with forgiveness and sins and reconciliation to God is central to Christianity, but is also difficult to articulate and has led to inadequate explanations like the penal-substitution view.

Christian history is in my view a story in many ways of trying to make sense of just what Jesus did through his death and resurrection and who he was. We shouldn't be surprised if our thoughts are refined or if the ideas of earlier Christians are somewhat different. We are all in the process of trying to make sense of this dramatic and utterly transformative event that seems to defy perfect articulation. The power of Jesus' death and resurrection is not able to be limited to just any one view or perspective, though all of the different perspectives provide new and often fruitful ways of teasing more and more of the far-reaching implications and consequences of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. I hope the dialoging continues to be fruitful and I look forward to seeing it unfold.