Atonement … aka, salvation. The whole point behind Christianity.  In fact, the main reason we have religions of any kind.  Atonement is basically about finding a way to God.

Given that this is so central, you might think that the Christian church would have had a unified understanding about this right from its earliest days, or that even Christ himself made this idea crystal clear.

Think again! 

Christian theologians have had all kinds of ideas on why Jesus needed to come to earth. Here are seven of the more popular views, some VERY different from the others.

One of the earliest views focused on Jesus’s life and teaching: he came to show us humans a better way to live (Moral Influence Theory)

Two other views also widely held from the earliest days of the Christian church focused on his death.  Jesus gave his life as a ransom payment for humans, paid either to Satan or to God himself (Ransom Theory), or as a trick to defeat the powers of evil and to free mankind from their bondage (Christus Victor).

A thousand years later, Anselm of Canterbury wrestled with Ransom Theory’s idea that God was in debt … either to Satan or to himself.  Anselm changed the direction of arrows: it was we humans who were indebted to God. We had robbed from God’s honor and inherited a stain of sin, and Christ’s death satisfied the justice of God. Hence: Satisfaction Theory of atonement.

A few hundred years later, Dante gave us vivid imagery of a fiery hell of torture, and John Calvin, Martin Luther, and the Reformation movement put a magnifying glass on God’s wrath. Out of this came a view of God as a vengeful monster who consigned humans to death, hell and eternal torment; Christ stepped in as a substitute to receive that penalty and appease God’s wrath … Penal Substitution Atonement.

Methodists later softened this PSA view into what is called Governmental Theory of atonement: Christ doesn’t take the full punishment that we humans actually “deserve,” but just simply gives his life as a recognition that a wrong had been committed and some kind of repayment was necessary (similar to a law-suit in which the plaintiff sues for only one dollar, as long as they get their day in court and the accused acknowledges their guilt).

Scapegoat Theory of atonement is built on an ancient tendency of humans to identify someone/something else as the cause of a problem within the community (they might even see this problem as a punishment inflicted on the community by the gods), and if that “other” can be ejected from the community or even killed, the problem will be solved. As such, Christ is simply an innocent victim killed by an angry mob.

This episode sets the stage for next week, when we’ll look at what science now tells us about human origins and human history, and see how that new perspective may cause us to re-examine these seven theories of atonement.

Stay tuned!

Tell us your thoughts on this in the comment box below …

If you want to play this episode later on your device, look for Recovering Evangelicals in the iTunes Store, Podbean, Spotify, GooglePodcasts, or GooglePlayMusic.

If you want to help grow this pod-cast, please like and share with a friend. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find me on Twitter or Facebook.

Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page