A Community Called Atonement

by Scot McKnight

Book Overview

Over the centuries the church developed a number of metaphors, such as penal substitution or the ransom theory, to speak about Christ's death on the cross and the theological concept of the atonement. Yet too often, says Scot McKnight, Christians have held to the supremacy of one metaphor over against the others, to their detriment. He argues instead that to plumb the rich theological depths of the atonement, we must consider all the metaphors of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0687645549
• ISBN13: 9780687645541
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Length: 177 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Catch them being right

The nature of the Atonement has, unfortunately, become a rather hot button issue in many theological circles. I say unfortunately by no means because I think it unimportant, but rather because of the tenor of the debate with all sides picking one atonement theory as 'biblical' and attacking the rest. This might be most true of the penal-substitution camp, because they are most invested in their theory and so also have the most to lose. McKnight in 'A Community Called Atonement' carefully, clearly, and eruditely steers a path which while placing a heavy emphasis on penal-substitution, shows that the Atonement is bigger than any of our theories and so all of them have a place in explaining the deep mystery of God's atoning work. I appreciate the richness of the Atonement so much more after reading this book, and liked McKnight's focus on 'catching other people being right' instead of the usual 'find one area your opponent is wrong and drill that into the ground' approach one often sees. Also, I think his argument that the atonement is something to be lived in our relationship with God, others, and the world (rather than only believed) is quite a valuable insight. newwaystheology.[...]

extremely helpful book

've been looking forward to scot's book for a long time, as atonement theory has been one of the handful of theological areas i've really wrestled with in the past several years. it's a particularly sticky area to wrestle in, when you speak to teenagers as i do; because i'm constantly needing to talk about the gospel. that's great -- i love talking about the gospel. but i don't want to be dishonest about what i believe and only say words i've said in the past because they're easy to say and no one will be bothered. so... the basic premise of this book is that there are multiple metaphors of multiple theological explanations of atonement in scripture, and we need them all. penal substitutionary atonement (the primary understanding i grew up with for what took place at the cross) is only one of many helpful and important metaphors for understanding atonement. first, it was really helpful for me to think of these various explanations (theologies, you might call them) as metaphors. i guess i knew that; but it was a helpful reminder. evangelicals don't tend to talk about penal substitution as a metaphor; it seems it's usually talked about in more literal terms. it was also helpful to get a better understanding on the other, equally-valid and important (not only important to us, but important to paul and in whole of scripture) metaphors. mcknight talks about them as clubs in a golf bag: one would never go golfing with one club. you need the whole bag, but each is useful (even best) in different circumstances. . while not a purely academic book, it's a weighty book in terms of language and ideas; so i took a couple months to pick through it, bit by bit (while readying other books alongside).

Every Christian person should read this.

First let clarify and say that every Christian should this, though not every Christian person may easy follow. I think this book is a great time invested, but it can be "heady" at times and one may need a good grasp on OT history in order to really gain the full meaning of this book.

Brilliant Overview of the Atonement

Scot McKnight is slowly finding his way to the top of reading lists for many interested in theology, and rightly so [he is quickly gaining ground on my reading list]. "A Community Called Atonement" is both a sweeping overview of the divergent theories of atonement, and a proposal for bringing the divergent views of atonement under a single umbrella of Christ's redeeming work in the world to restore cracked Eikons. The atonement has too often been squeezed into a one size, one theory fits all box. Often times that box is determined by our denominational influence. McKnight points out that many atonement theories are seriously deficient because they lack any consideration or interaction with Christ's teaching of the Kingdom of God. "Atonement theories have been shaped by the history of atonement theories, and that history has been dominated by Paul's letter to the Romans so one-sidedly that opening the door to the kingdom upsets the entire conversation." [Page 9] McKight purports that atonement can only be understood when it is seen through the lens of the work of God to restore cracked Eikons in all interpersonal relations. Atonement must be broadened out from an individual, sin remission only view, to a view that encompasses the work of the entire ecclesiastical community of believers. Many of our atonement theories capitulate to the very thing that McKnight argues against. We view our problem in the world simply as individual sin. The remedy to this problem is simply an atonement theory that will cover our moral indiscretions, and restore our standing as right moral individuals. Sin however for McKnight goes beyond poor moral decisions. Sin is the "hyperrelational distortion and corruption of hte Eikon's relationship with God and therefore with self, with others, and with the world." [McKnight page 23] A broad view of the affects of sin will help to broaden out our view of the atonement. If we can move beyond our reformation influenced view of personal sin, we will be able to begin to put our arms around the breadth of the atonement. McKight offers a view that gathers divergent views of the atonement seeing them as vital parts of the whole. He uses the image of a golf outing. A golfer may have a favorite club, but cannot hope to play a full round of golf with only that club. The same can be said about our views of the atonement. We may have a preferred theory, but our theories in and of themselves cannot fully comprehend the broad scope of the atonement. It takes all the theories together to fully describe the work of Christ on the cross. McKnight closes his book with an important consideration of the affect of atonement on our praxis as the people of God. Atonement is not simply something that was accomplished 2,000 years ago on the cross, but rather is something that is working its way out through the called out ones. Believers work out the atonement through acts of fellowship, justice, community and prayer. The atonem

An Emerging View of Atonement

I have to say that this book is an excellent start to Abingdon Press and Emergent Village's new "Living Theology" line. The did well to tap Scot McKnight to kick it off. Scot's main point throughout the whole book can be summed up by his use of the golf club metaphor. He describes atonement theories as golf clubs, and suggests that just as you wouldn't want to use only one club on the golf course for any and every situation, we likewise shouldn't limit ourselves to only one way to understand the significance of the atonement. He suggests that different atonement theories (e.g. recapitulation, Christus Victor, satisfaction, representation, penal substitution, etc.) are useful for answering different theological questions - for instance all the multiple ways that we are oppressed by sin. He points out that how we think the atonement solves the "problem" depends very much on what we think the problem is in the first place, and that if the problem is multifaceted, then it makes sense that the solution would be as well. I think this "both/and" approach to atonement theories is a wonderful example of what those of us in the emerging church call "a generous orthodoxy" - in other words, embracing a multiplicity of perspectives and many different traditions of the church rather than defining our theology narrowly and excluding anyone who does not completely agree with us. And I think that Scot, as a theologian that has a foot in both the moderate evangelical world and in the emerging church, is an excellent "bridge" for traditionalists to start exploring broader possibilities while also keeping emergent folks connected to their heritage. Scot builds on this golf club analogy later in the book to suggest that we not only need all of the clubs, but we also need a bag that will hold all of the clubs, an embracive metaphor that includes all of these others. For this he suggests that we should think of atonement as identification for incorporation. In other words, Jesus becomes like us, identifies with humanity, to liberate us from sin so that then we can be incorporated into his new community where God's will is done. This is where the idea of a "community called atonement" comes in. Atonement means being part of a community through which God is at work to redeem the world. As Scot says at the end of Part 3: "We are now ready to explore atonement not only as the act of God but, as is the case with all emerging theology, as something we are invited to perform with God in this world. Atonement is praxis." In the final section Scot fleshes out this idea of "Atonement as Missional Praxis" in a number of ways, with chapters on "Fellowship", "Justice", "Missional", "Living the Story as the Word", and "Baptism, Eucharist, and Prayer". While Scot had many good things to say in each of these chapters (plus a few things I didn't quite agree with), there is too much for me to respond to entirely in this post (perhaps I'll post a few scattered reactions to variou