Word: theologicall
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Yet, oddly enough, in many churches the issue of why Christ died is inert, if ever-present. One reason is that any deviation beyond the rote "He gave his life for us" quickly plunges into metaphysical formulations for which all but religious scholars lack the basic vocabulary. "Most people don...
Some modern atonement theorists maintain that only one answer--theirs--flows inevitably from Scripture. But more agree with Chicago Theological Seminary's Theodore Jennings Jr. "The New Testament is just all over the map" on the question of why Christ died, he says. Its writers "are all persuaded that something...
Still others (current Orthodoxy included) were content to leave the transaction's precise nature a mystery. But they were emphatic in their understanding of a decidedly nonvictimized Christ as a great champion against an evil that is a real and formidable supernatural force--of invisible kingdoms battling above our heads...
Others see a double disempowerment--first of a humanity whose redemption is being negotiated well above its collective head and, more important, of Christ, the child of a father whose moral universe somehow seems to require his death. Even if one ignores literalist claims that substitution espouses divine child abuse...
Of more concern to those interested in the health of American faith was--until last February, at least--the large proportion of Christians who really didn't think of Jesus' death much at all. "In most Protestant churches," says the Chicago Theological Seminary's Jennings, "there's hardly anything of...