Atonement Theology

Our discussion group meets this Wednesday again (November 7, 8:00 pm, House of Aromas on Clinton St. downtown), and we'll definitely be fulfilling our founding mandate to discuss "relatively controversial" issues. This time we're looking at a recent development among Trinitarian theologians: a closer look at the nature of Christ's atonement. This group raises serious questions about the common tract formulation that on the cross, Jesus took upon himself the Father's just wrath for the sins of humanity. Instead, these thinkers propose that Jesus' sacrifice was not a penal or juridical substitution that frees us of responsibility, but an act that subverted the entire system of retributive violence and scapegoating upon which humanity had come to depend. Instead of replacing us on the cross, then, Jesus was inviting us into our own risk-taking revolutions, that we too might overcome the temptations of vengeance.