Posts

Showing posts from June, 2011

Common Ground

If you've read the previous musings on atonement theory, you'll remember that the most common ways Christians have looked at this topic are known as:  the classical or ranson theory, moral influence, and substitutionary atonement.  Now I'd like to muddy the waters even more, before hopefully providing a clear path out of this where believers can live peacefully with each other without hurling theological handgrenades. In addition to the three views of atonement that looked at earlier, there have been any number of others.  In fact, one former member of the Conference Board of Ordained Ministry was well-known for reportedly asking ministerial candidates in interviews to list seven or eight different theories.  The great theologian Anselm of Canterbury was famous for promoting a theory known as "satisfaction."  In the early 20th century Gustav Aulen wrote of atonement in terms of victory of sin and death in Christus Victor .  The notion of atonement as victory ove