Atonement Theology in the Church

Recently I engaged in an internet conversation with other Mennonite pastors over the issue of atonement theology and evangelism. The responses were significant and not surprising. Most had real trouble with the substitutionary penal model. A simplistic rendering of this approach is that because God hates sin, God's wrath and judgment are directed toward that which is sin or sinful. Humankind sinned at the beginning by disobeying God's commandment and thereby comes under God's wrath and judgment. Jesus' death turns God's wrath away from sinful humanity by taking the penalty of human sin, which is death, upon himself and absorbing God's punishment in the place of humankind thereby reconciling humankind with God.

There was a strong reaction against this notion of the appeasement of an angry God. For some, it suggests that God needs to be placated like a divine and arbitrary bully and therefore pastorally difficult to apply positively to those coming from abusive or self-destructive backgounds.  Others saw it as contrary to a non-violent God whose love for humankind is expressed in Jesus' action of self-sacrifice. And for others there was too much of an individualistic sense about it outside of the community of faith, and an 'alien' work of God as it were, a forensic declaration but not a transforming reality. As Robert Friedmann would describe it in his book A Theology of Anabaptism, too much 'gerechterklaerung' and not enough 'gerechtmachung.'

In the next number of posts, I hope to write more about the atonement in the Anabaptist/Mennonite context.  Books like J. Denny Weaver's A Non-violent Atonement and Scot McKnight's A Community Called Atonement are recent attempts to address these issues. Other models such as the 'Christus Victor' or the 'Exemplar' models have also been advanced recently and have distinguished theological and historical pedigrees. How can we engage in this conversation profitably and without tearing ourselves apart? Next post I propose to look at the Confession of Faith from a Mennonite Perspective.