A Community Called Atonement

This is a book review of A Community Called Called Atonement by Scot McKnight. This is a must read. I know this is a bit long, so if you must skip to "Part 2" of the paper.


Part I

The expressed intent of McKnight’s book is noted first of all in Tony Jones’ Introduction. Whereas in other books covering this same topic “the best theology is hidden under a bushel of academic jargon and myriad footnotes (ix),” McKnight addresses the topic of atonement with clarity that can be easily applied.

The analogy that is utilized throughout the book to illustrate the current mode in which atonement is addressed is that of a bag of golf clubs. In the game of golf there are a plethora of clubs that are used in different situations. All of them are needed to have a successful game. When it comes to atonement theories (or metaphors as McKnight would prefer) there are some who are playing golf with only one club. Many people can play well with only one club but they do their task with much more difficulty. With the metaphor in place, McKnight explains:

“Some atonement theories today are ‘one-club’ theories that have to be adjusted each time one plays ‘the atonement game.’ This is unfortunate because we have a big bag of images in our bible and we need to pull each from the bag if we are to play out the fulsomeness of the redemptive work of God (xiii).”

Having completed the book and looking at the highlighted portions in hindsight, there is a great deal of brilliance in the way that McKnight defines atonement from the onset.

“The atonement… is the good news of Christianity – it is our gospel. It explains how that gospel works (1).”

In this simplicity, McKnight leaves room to provide a bag in which all the atonement clubs can be held in tension with one another. Beginning with the perceived deficiency of theory in general to change those who believe them or work in the communities that affirm them, and in his vague yet complex way, McKnight illustrates with story how atonement:

“…shows that one person, emerging from the community of faith, can missionaly spend herself for ‘the neighbor’… (4).”

This illustrates that an incomplete view of atonement has led to a deficiency and/or anemia in the Christian community (my paraphrase and language, not McKnight’s per se).

Having made his powerful point, McKnight goes on to illustrate first the diversity of atonement language in the bible, second what the broader purposes of atonement found in the overarching narrative in which the scriptures build and to which they project, and finally (within Part 1 of the book) the communal nature of atonement.

McKnight begins with the acknowledgment that the history of atonement theories has been dominated by the literature of the apostle Paul, and more specifically the book of Romans. This has taken place so much so that to deviate from this atonement monopoly would “upset the entire conversation (9).” Having said this, McKnight proposes that the biblical thread of “The Kingdom” ought to be brought to the table of the atonement discussion. In a broad explanation of McKnight’s excellent work, the restorative nature associated with the Kingdom makes it intricately connected to the restorative work of atonement.

It is important to note that in this portion of the book a foundation is laid for what McKnight will consistently refer back to. McKnight explains that atonement (or “at-one-ment) is restoration of what he calls “cracked eikons”.

“Eikons are made for union with God, communion with others, love of self, and care for the world (found in numerous places throughout the book, but first on page 23).”

Atonement theory includes this restorative frame, which leads to the conclusion that atonement is highly relational and is not so much (as perhaps more traditionally believed) concerned with individual moral rectitude, but rather the restoration of those broken relationships from which we are estranged.

In Part two of the book McKnight once more demonstrates the multifaceted metaphors for atonement:

“Atonement language includes several evocative metaphors: there is a sacrificial metaphor (offering), and a legal metaphor (justification), and an interpersonal metaphor (reconciliation), and a commercial metaphor (redemption), and a military metaphor (ransom). Each is designed to carry us… to the thing. But the metaphor is not the thing. The metaphor gives the reader or hearer and imagination of the thing, a vision of the thing, a window onto the thing, a lens through which to look in order to see the thing. Metaphors take us there, but they are not the ‘there.’ (38)”

With this, McKnight begins to show the limiting nature of utilizing one theory and the ways in which pushing the metaphor can corrupt the metaphor. McKnight’s example was that of penal substitution. McKnight does not dismiss this theory as some are in a habit of doing in order to swing the scales, but rather he demonstrates how its utilization has come about because of its attraction and appeal to certain paradigmatic ways of thinking.

Metaphors are used in order to appeal or capture the depth of “the thing”. As was discussed in class, a person who was abused by the very same people that were supposed to care for them as a child may not respond well to penal substitution as a starting point. For this reason, McKnight goes on to detail atonement as imagery, particularly in the crucifixion, atonement as incarnation and as the second Adam, and the new life giving resurrection continued in the community of believers following Pentecost.

In the chapters that follow, McKnight pursues atonement as narrative. In this, the specific (perhaps more systematic) language of atonement is placed within the larger narrative(s) of scripture. This is where McKnight exercises some of the greatest insight of biblical authorial perspective. In observing the many different narratives offered on atonement he suggests that:

“The first thing we need to admit is that what Jesus thought and what Paul or the writer to the Hebrews or Peter thought are not always identical. When we begin to make Jesus think like the later New Testament writers we fail to see the importance of how New Testament thinking about Jesus’ death developed (81).”

With this McKnight goes on to tell the atonement story in light of the last supper and Passover, the story in which Jesus frames what he is anticipating in the day to come. In grappling with how Jesus understood his own death McKnight makes this provocative statement:

“We need to reconsider why it was that Jesus chose Passover (a night of celebrating and remembering liberation) rather than Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (a day of affliction and a day when sins were atoned for) (85).”

In this way McKnight returns to the theme of the Kingdom in which restoration and deliverance are taking place while not demanding a Pauline understanding of Jesus’ passion.

Tackling next the narrative of the Apostle Paul, and early church thinkers, a collection of summary statements of each of these narratives are presented in harmony with each other and reduced to “identification for incorporation (107).” Having this frame, the atonement metaphors are compiled to form a complete “bag of clubs”:

• Recapitulation
• Ransom / Christus Victor
• Satisfaction
• Substitution
• Representation
• Penal Substitution
• Abelard (with extensive clarification that in its fullness, it is a deficient model of atonement, but serves as an acceptable application of sacrifice)

Having made the case for atonement as being highly restorative of relationship (“in all four directions”), orthopraxy becomes the natural outer working. The conclusions entail explicit fellowship, justice, missionality, the narratival continuation of atonement in community; and lastly the summation of the atonement narrative for identification, participation, and relation to be found in Baptism, Eucharist, and Prayer.


Part II.
A Community Called Atonement is a book which has reconstructed my theology, and has helped me to harmonize the seemingly contradictory theories of atonement that polarize various Christian traditions. Before reading this book I had been made to realize that there was more than one theory of atonement, yet was unable to reconcile the fact that diversity of biblical imagery may in fact exist. My time at Biblical Seminary (mostly my first year) exposed me to the various theories which in turn left me without one. McKnight has helped me to realize that all of them are viable and needed.

The way in which he has done this was not so much a concession of plurality in which atonement theories become a jambalaya for the sake of ease. Rather, for me this was a challenge of my epistemological construct which only allowed for one theory of atonement to exist at a time. All other theories had to be harmonized under the umbrella of this one theory.

As we discussed in class, it is the fallacy of atomization at work in my original atonement theory (singular). That by atomizing, reducing, and extracting certain biblical concepts, we are able then to create broad headings under which and in which all other theologies must adhere. This gives us a sense of security and, dare I say, a false sense of total comprehension.

The irony that I would adhere to a particular atonement theory is that my conversion experience had nothing to do with the reception of penal substitution. I was, as abridged as I can be, told that Jesus wanted me to invite him to give me a hug. Jesus loved me. That was enough for the Spirit to break into my life and overwhelm and transform me. McKnight’s engagement with multiple metaphors of atonement has helped me to be at peace with this experience once again.

I must say of McKnight that there are those who stand out in a particular period of time because they are great articulators of the time period. John Calvin is a great example of a theologian who captures well the style and thought of his time period, yet transcends time with his words. McKnight says with clarity that which I think, yet am unable to give words. I believe that we are in the midst of a dramatic shift in time, and McKnight is a voice who captures the thoughts of my generation well.

Having listened to numerous lectures in which McKnight illustrates his point from conversations with his students, I think what makes him such a good communicator is that he is an excellent listener and interpreter of people and culture. Having said this, McKnight offers biblical critique of much that plagues the church in the West not in a full frontal assault but with the depth of biblical imagery that is so often lost. Atonement as explained by McKnight, whether intentional or unintentional, not only challenges such issues as individualism and privatized conversion in Western Christianity, but it also calls its reader into a better way. In this, McKnight has found the balance of a prophet who not only defines the injustices of the current system at work within the people, but he casts a vision and beckons his audience into a better way, Jesus’.