Unpicking Atonement’s Knots

I remember sitting in my truck, in the parking lot of a Baptist church, reading James Alison’s "On Being Liked," specifically the essay, Unpicking Atonement’s Knots, when the whole penal substitution thing finally collapsed for me and I was set on a path of trying to understand atonement, not as substitution theory, not as satisfaction of a debt, not as appeasement, not even as God’s suicide on our behalf, but as a liturgical undergoing. That is, as God’s occupying the place of victim of our wrath, exposing not God’s, but our victimizing and sacrificial ways.

Now, more than a couple years later, I’m still somewhat off-balance and dizzy from the emancipation, and no doubt the emancipation of my understanding of a semi-peaceable God.

That chapter, Unpicking Atonement’s Knots, to answer a previous question, is a wonderful (and accessible) place to start in understanding God as non-sacrificial. And in seeing the ongoing organic, creative, and lively connection between atonement and Creation as opposed to a more static Creation, Fall, Redemption schema.

(I’ve also listed related books on another post)

Technorati Tags: James Alison, On Being Liked, Atonement, Christianity, Peace, Violence