Atonement: Theological Perspectives and Historical Evolution
This chapter explores the concept of atonement, discussing its meaning and significance within different Christian traditions including Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox. It examines historical and contemporary theories such as moral influence, ransom, and Christus Victor, highlighting their implications on salvation and theological discourse. Through the analysis of various thinkers and narratives, the chapter illustrates the evolving understanding of atonement and its relevance in modern theology.
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Transcript
Episode notes
A sneak-peak at what’s in store for S6 …. and why!
Season Five ended rather abruptly, in part due to practical reasons (the Fall is always a busy time … teaching, hunting, shutting the property down for the winter). But there was also very much an internal, philosophical/theological thing going on: getting increasingly disheartened and disillusioned by things going on in the world. Western society seemed to be increasingly in upheaval (and that was months before what descended on us in January!?), the Evangelical world was getting more and more weird, social media becoming toxic, and we were struggling with re-evaluating what we still believed. Or didn’t believe. As we started the New Year, I [Luke] was resigning myself to the fact that I’d given up most of the Evangelical faith that I’d grown up in for fifty years, and was becoming more comfortable with the label “Liberal Christian.”
And then my social media offered up to me an article written by a highly-credentialed conservative theologian who had been THE Professor of Theology at the biggest Baptist university in the world, introducing his new book: Against Liberal Theology: putting the brakes on Progressive Christianity. Dr. Roger Olson described Liberal Christianity as not only unorthodox, but even heretical! It hit me like a slap in the face! Well, call me a sucker for punishment, but I felt I needed to talk to this scholar to see if my reasons for embracing Liberal Theology were solid and defensible. While preparing for that conversation, I discovered an equally highly-credentialed liberal theologian — Dr. Douglas F. Ottati — who wrote his own book: A theology for the twenty-first century. Well didn’t that title catch my eye!?
I contacted both scholars, and within hours … literally … both said they’d be happy to talk to us.
And thus, Season Six was birthed!
This episode sets the stage for that conversation with two titans on either end of the Christian spectrum. Scott and I discuss whether we need to re-brand: do we need to change the title of our podcast, given that we’ve given up on Evangelicalism? We polled our private Facebook discussion group about this and got a clearly decisive answer …. m’eh!? We also discuss whether the mission and trajectory of the podcast will be different in Season Six: we shared comments from our listeners, who see the podcast as a community, a support group, and providing role models, tools, and ideas. We’re going to lean more heavily into that.
We close out the episode with a sneak-peak at what’s coming down the Recovering Evangelicals pipeline. After we hear what Drs. Olson and Ottati have to say about Liberal Christian Theology itself, we’re going to hear from several people who themselves made the transition out of a Fundamentalist/Evangelical faith into something more liberal/progressive, but did so from very different perspectives: one as a professor in the Academy (Peter Enns) and the other as a pastor (Brian MacLaren).
As always, tell us your thoughts on this episode in the comment box below.
If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy several previous ones we referred to, covering the Gospel (#12), Atonement Theology (#19 and #20), a new understanding of Easter (#112), Jesus as the Jewish Messiah (#82) or Cosmic Divine Being (#83), as well as a collection of personal stories from listeners transitioning out of traditional conservative Evangelicalism.
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