Title

Rethinking the Grammar of the Atonement: Forgiveness, Judgment, and Apocalyptic Recapitulation

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

Abstract

This essay offers a constructive proposal holding together two classical atonement motifs too often pried apart: the cross as deliverance from enslaving powers and as (non-penal) sacrifice through which Christ bears our sins. These themes are held together by situating atonement theology within a broader apocalyptic soteriology. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s lived theology, which embodied a “grammar of atonement” to be found in patterns of enemy love, judgment, truth-telling, accountability, and resistance to evil, all of which were ordered toward the ends of justice and reconciliation, will offer a lens for appropriating scripture and insights from both Irenaeus and Anselm.

Comments

Originally published as: Crane, R. (2019). Rethinking the Grammar of the Atonement: Forgiveness, Judgment, and Apocalyptic Recapitulation. Perspectives in Religious Studies, 46(1), 55–77.

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