Over the last few decades, a new wave of criticism has emerged against substitutionary atonement. These objections come not primarily from professional philosophers or biblical scholars but from feminist theologians, liberation theologians, and advocates of nonviolent theology. Their concerns are deeply felt, and their questions deserve a serious hearing. When someone argues that the doctrine of the cross has been used to justify the suffering of women in abusive marriages, or that it encourages passive acceptance of systemic oppression, we cannot simply brush those concerns aside with a proof text and move on. These are matters that touch the lives of real people — and real suffering.
At the same time, I want to be honest from the start about where I come out on these questions. After careful study, I believe that the contemporary objections examined in this chapter — while raising important pastoral concerns that the church must take seriously — ultimately fail to overturn the doctrine of substitutionary atonement when it is rightly understood within a Trinitarian framework of divine love and self-sacrifice. The solution to the misuse of a doctrine is not to abandon the doctrine but to correct the misuse. And as we will see, the cross of Christ, far from being a justification of violence and oppression, turns out to be the most powerful critique of violence and oppression the world has ever seen.
This chapter examines four major clusters of contemporary objection. First, we revisit the "cosmic child abuse" accusation in its contemporary cultural context. Second, we engage the feminist critique that substitutionary atonement glorifies suffering and reinforces patterns of abuse. Third, we examine J. Denny Weaver's argument for a "nonviolent atonement" that rejects any model making God complicit in violence. Fourth, we consider the liberation theology critique that substitutionary atonement is too individualistic and ignores systemic evil. In each case, we will state the objection as fairly and forcefully as possible, acknowledge what is valid in the concern, and then explain why the objection does not finally succeed against a carefully articulated theology of the cross.
No contemporary accusation against penal substitutionary atonement has gained more cultural traction than the charge that it amounts to "cosmic child abuse." The phrase entered popular discourse through Steve Chalke and Alan Mann's 2003 book The Lost Message of Jesus, in which Chalke described certain versions of penal substitution as presenting a picture of "a form of cosmic child abuse — a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed."1 The accusation struck a nerve. It was vivid, emotionally powerful, and it captured something that many people — both inside and outside the church — had long felt uncomfortable about.
But Chalke was not the first to frame the objection in these terms. In 1989, Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker published an influential essay titled "For God So Loved the World?" in a volume called Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse. They argued that the theology of the atonement, especially in its satisfaction and penal substitutionary forms, amounts to "divine child abuse" — a theology that glorifies the suffering of the innocent and teaches people (especially women) that redemptive suffering is God's will.2 Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker later developed this critique at length in their 2001 book Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us, weaving together personal narratives of abuse with a thoroughgoing rejection of atonement models centered on Christ's suffering and death.3
So the accusation is not merely a sound bite. It comes from a sustained theological and pastoral tradition that is genuinely concerned about the way the cross has functioned in communities where abuse is present. We need to engage it with both intellectual rigor and pastoral sensitivity.
There is a reason the "cosmic child abuse" label has gained such remarkable currency, and it would be a mistake to attribute its success merely to rhetorical cleverness or theological ignorance. The charge resonates because some popular presentations of penal substitutionary atonement genuinely have depicted the cross in ways that sound abusive. When preachers describe the Father as pouring out His white-hot fury upon His helpless Son — when God is portrayed as an angry deity who can only be satisfied by inflicting violent punishment on someone, and who directs that punishment at the one person who did nothing wrong — it is not surprising that thoughtful listeners recoil. That picture does sound like abuse. And in a culture increasingly and rightly sensitized to patterns of domestic violence and child abuse, especially in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement and widespread exposure of institutional abuse within churches, the charge carries enormous emotional and cultural weight.4
Fleming Rutledge acknowledges this cultural shift with characteristic honesty. She notes that the feminist critique of "divine child abuse" has been "very successful" as a corrective, even though the critique itself has largely "had its day" as a theological argument. The real accomplishment of the criticism, she suggests, is that "we can never again read certain statements in the tradition in the same way. All of us, across the spectrum of theological opinion, have been well reminded to be much more careful in the future to avoid language that appears to separate Father and Son."5
I think Rutledge is exactly right. The "cosmic child abuse" objection has served the church well as a corrective — a warning bell that should make all of us more careful about how we speak of the cross. But a corrective and a refutation are two different things. The fact that the doctrine can be distorted does not mean the doctrine itself is distorted. Medicines can be abused, but that does not make them poison.
Key Point: The "cosmic child abuse" accusation resonates because some popular portrayals of penal substitution have separated the Father from the Son, depicting God as an angry deity punishing an innocent victim. The solution is not to abandon substitutionary atonement but to correct the caricature by recovering the Trinitarian heart of the doctrine: the cross is God's self-substitution, not the abuse of a third party.
For all its emotional power, the "cosmic child abuse" accusation collapses when examined against the actual theological content of substitutionary atonement properly understood. Simon Gathercole identifies three crucial points in response. First, the charge neglects the obvious Trinitarian reality that Christ's death "is not that of a third party but is the 'self-substitution of God.'"6 The Father is not punishing some other person's child. God the Son, the second Person of the Trinity — fully God, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father — voluntarily takes upon Himself the consequences of human sin. This is self-sacrifice, not child abuse. As John Stott memorably put it, the doctrine of substitution is ultimately about "God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us."7
Second, as Gathercole emphasizes, Jesus offers Himself as a sacrifice entirely in accord with His own will. The New Testament is emphatic on this point. Paul writes that the Son of God "loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20, ESV). Jesus Himself declares, "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again" (John 10:18, ESV). Whatever else we say about the cross, we cannot say that Jesus was a helpless victim. He was not passive but supremely active — the agent, not merely the object, of His own sacrifice.8
Third, we must reckon with the sheer experiential testimony of centuries of Christian believers. Gathercole notes that it is "all very well caricaturing certain atonement theories as cruel, violent, unjust, and the like, but this is not how millions of Christians over the centuries have experienced such teaching."9 The doctrine of substitutionary atonement has brought comfort, hope, and liberation to countless people — including many survivors of abuse — precisely because it proclaims a God who enters into suffering rather than standing aloof from it.
The Catholic theologian Philippe de la Trinité makes a closely related point from within the Catholic tradition. He argues strenuously against any formulation that depicts God the Father as acting with anger and violence against the Son. The cross, Philippe insists, is an act of "vicarious satisfaction" rooted in love and mercy, not in retributive wrath. Jesus is a "victim of love" acting "in union with His Father" — not a victim of His Father's rage.10 This is not a uniquely Protestant or Catholic insight; it is a fundamental requirement of Trinitarian orthodoxy. Any account of the cross that pits the Father against the Son has violated the doctrine of the Trinity before it ever reaches the doctrine of the atonement.
As I argued at length in Chapter 20, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit acted in unified love at the cross. The Father did not pour out rage upon the Son. The Father loved Jesus throughout the crucifixion. The Trinity was not fractured at Calvary — it was most profoundly displayed. The "cosmic child abuse" caricature depends on splitting the Father from the Son in a way that is fundamentally incompatible with Trinitarian theology. When we recover the Trinitarian heart of substitutionary atonement — what Stott calls "the self-substitution of God" — the charge of abuse dissolves.11
The feminist critique of substitutionary atonement goes deeper than the "cosmic child abuse" sound bite. At its most serious and sustained, it raises a genuinely difficult pastoral question: Does a theology centered on the redemptive suffering of an innocent victim encourage or normalize the suffering of other innocent victims — particularly women, children, and marginalized people?
The most prominent voices in this conversation include Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker, Rita Nakashima Brock, and the womanist theologian Delores Williams. Their arguments take several distinct but related forms. First, they argue that when the church teaches that God required the suffering and death of His innocent Son in order to forgive sins, it communicates a deeply troubling message: suffering is redemptive, and the innocent may be called upon to bear suffering for the benefit of others. In communities where domestic violence is present, this message can function as a theological justification for abuse. "Bear your cross" becomes "endure your husband's violence."12
Second, critics like Brock and Parker argue from personal experience. In Proverbs of Ashes, Parker narrates her own story of growing up in an abusive home and finding that the theology of the cross — as it was presented to her — seemed to sanctify the suffering rather than condemn the abuser. The theology she inherited said that suffering was God's will, that bearing it patiently was Christlike, and that redemption comes through innocent suffering. For Parker, this theology did not bring liberation; it kept her trapped.13
Third, Delores Williams, writing from a womanist perspective, argues that the image of a surrogate who suffers on behalf of others has been particularly destructive for Black women, who have historically been forced into surrogate roles — as wet nurses, domestic servants, and sexual objects for their oppressors. A theology of surrogacy, Williams contends, does not liberate Black women; it perpetuates the very patterns of exploitation from which they need to be freed.14
These are not abstract academic arguments. They emerge from real pain and real pastoral concern. Any response that does not take this pain seriously will be — and should be — unconvincing.
Before offering a theological response, let me say plainly what I believe must be acknowledged. The misuse of the cross to justify abuse is real and deplorable. It has happened. Pastors have told battered women to go home and "bear their cross." Churches have counseled victims of abuse to submit, suffer, and forgive without ever confronting the abuser. The theology of "redemptive suffering" has been weaponized against the vulnerable — not because the doctrine of the atonement requires this, but because sinful people twist even the most beautiful truths to serve their own purposes.15
We must also acknowledge that the feminist critics are right to identify a problem in certain presentations of the cross. When the crucifixion is narrated primarily as the Father's violent act against the Son — when the emphasis falls on divine punishment inflicted on the helpless innocent — it is not difficult to see how this narrative can be mapped onto human patterns of abuse. If God the Father demands suffering from His innocent Son, then perhaps human fathers (or husbands) are entitled to demand suffering from their families. This logic is twisted and theologically illegitimate, but it is not hard to see how people arrive at it when the cross is presented in a Father-versus-Son framework.
John Stott himself, one of the strongest defenders of substitutionary atonement in the twentieth century, was deeply sensitive to this danger. His entire argument in The Cross of Christ is structured to prevent precisely this kind of distortion. The cross, for Stott, is never the Father acting against the Son. It is God acting as His own substitute — the Triune God bearing in Himself the cost of human sin. "The concept of substitution may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation," Stott writes. "For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man."16
Pastoral Sensitivity: The misuse of the cross to justify abuse is real and must be condemned in the strongest terms. No one should ever be told that God requires them to endure violence as a form of "bearing their cross." The cross condemns the abuser — it does not sanction abuse. Any pastoral application of the cross that silences victims or protects perpetrators has betrayed the gospel, not embodied it.
Having acknowledged the legitimate concerns, we can now explain why the feminist critique — for all its pastoral importance — does not succeed as a refutation of substitutionary atonement. Several considerations are decisive.
First, and most fundamentally, the misuse of a doctrine does not invalidate the doctrine itself. Every Christian teaching can be distorted. The doctrine of God's sovereignty has been twisted to justify fatalism and passivity. The doctrine of forgiveness has been abused to enable predators. The doctrine of submission has been weaponized against the vulnerable. But no one seriously suggests that we should abandon the doctrines of sovereignty, forgiveness, or ordered community life simply because sinful people have misused them. The same principle applies to the atonement. The fact that the cross has been misappropriated to justify abuse is a reason to correct the misappropriation — not to discard the cross.17
Second — and this is the most important theological point — the cross of Christ, rightly understood, is actually the most powerful critique of abuse that exists. Think carefully about what the crucifixion reveals. At the cross, God identifies with the innocent victim, not with the powerful abuser. Jesus is the one who is beaten, humiliated, stripped, mocked, and killed by people with power — the religious establishment, the Roman government, the mob. And the resurrection is God's thundering verdict that the abusers were wrong and the victim was vindicated. The cross does not sanctify violence; it exposes violence for what it is — the work of Sin, the Enemy, the powers of darkness — and then defeats it.18
Rutledge makes this point with characteristic force. She observes that the feminist critique, while it served as a needed corrective, has largely "had its day" because the charge does not hold up under theological scrutiny. She points out that "it is not 'Anselmian' doctrine or even penal substitution that has stood behind the suffering of women at the hands of patriarchal society." Rather, other scriptural passages — the curse on Eve, the household codes, the injunction in 1 Peter to follow Christ's example of patient suffering — "surely have had more to do with the subjugation and suffering of women, slaves, and children than theories of atonement."19 In other words, the feminist critics have identified the wrong culprit. The doctrine of substitutionary atonement is not the source of the problem; the problem lies in the misuse of entirely different texts and traditions.
Third, Christ's suffering is unique and unrepeatable. This is a point of absolutely critical importance. The New Testament never teaches that believers should seek to replicate the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Jesus' death on the cross was a once-for-all event — unique in its nature, its purpose, and its accomplishment (Heb. 9:26–28; 10:10). When the New Testament calls believers to "take up their cross" (Matt. 16:24), it is not calling them to become atoning sacrifices. It is calling them to a life of self-denial, faithfulness, and costly discipleship in the service of love — not to passive acceptance of abuse. As the author of Hebrews makes clear, Christ's sacrifice needs no repetition and has no analogy. It is sui generis — one of a kind.20
Fourth, the cross actually empowers victims rather than silencing them. When we understand that God Himself, in the person of His Son, entered into the experience of unjust suffering — that the Creator of the universe knows what it is like to be beaten, abandoned, and killed by abusers — we discover not a justification of abuse but a profound solidarity with the abused. The God of the cross is not on the side of the powerful. He is on the side of the crucified. And the resurrection is His promise that suffering and injustice do not have the last word.21
David Allen captures the core issue well. The feminist objection, he argues, fundamentally misreads the theological structure of the atonement by failing to grasp the Trinitarian self-giving that lies at its heart. The cross is not a transaction between an angry Father and a passive Son. It is the unified act of the Triune God, who in love bears the cost of our reconciliation. Allen insists that the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, when properly articulated, provides the strongest possible theological ground for opposing abuse and defending the vulnerable — precisely because it reveals a God who refuses to stand by while the innocent suffer.22
I want to pause here and speak directly to anyone who has experienced abuse and been told that the theology of the cross means they should endure it. That was a lie. Whoever told you that betrayed the gospel. The cross of Jesus Christ does not teach that you should remain in an abusive relationship. It does not teach that God is pleased when you are beaten or humiliated. It does not teach that your suffering is redemptive in the way Christ's was. Your suffering at the hands of an abuser is not "carrying your cross." It is injustice, and God hates it.
What the cross does teach is that God sees your suffering, that He entered into the worst of human cruelty on the cross, that He identifies with victims rather than abusers, and that He raised Jesus from the dead as a sign that evil and violence will not have the final word. The cross is your ally, not your enemy. And anyone who uses it to keep you in bondage has profoundly misunderstood the God who hangs upon it.
In The Nonviolent Atonement (2001; revised edition 2011), the Mennonite theologian J. Denny Weaver argues that all traditional models of the atonement — including penal substitution, Anselm's satisfaction theory, and even some versions of Christus Victor — share a fatal flaw: they make God complicit in violence. If God planned the cross, willed the cross, or required the cross, then God is an agent of violence. And a truly nonviolent theology, Weaver insists, must reject any such picture.23
Weaver's alternative is what he calls "narrative Christus Victor." On this model, Jesus' life and teaching represented God's nonviolent reign breaking into a world ruled by the powers of evil. The powers — political, religious, and spiritual — responded to Jesus' challenge by killing him. The cross, on this view, is not God's act at all. It is the act of the powers. God's act is the resurrection, in which God vindicates Jesus and defeats the powers that killed him. The atonement, for Weaver, is not about the cross per se but about the entire life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, understood as God's nonviolent victory over the forces of evil.24
Weaver's model is attractive in several ways. It takes seriously the New Testament's language of cosmic conflict and victory over the powers. It connects the atonement to Jesus' life and teaching, not merely to His death. And it addresses a genuine concern: Christians should never use theology to justify or celebrate violence. These are real strengths, and any response to Weaver must acknowledge them.
Weaver's Core Claim: J. Denny Weaver argues that any model of the atonement in which God plans, wills, or requires the death of Jesus makes God complicit in violence. He proposes instead a "narrative Christus Victor" in which the cross is the act of the evil powers, not of God, and the resurrection is God's nonviolent victory.
Despite its strengths, Weaver's nonviolent atonement faces serious difficulties — difficulties that are ultimately fatal to his project. I will focus on four.
First, and most fundamentally, Weaver's model cannot account for the New Testament's own interpretation of Jesus' death. The problem is not that Weaver is wrong to emphasize Christ's victory over the powers — he is absolutely right about that, and as we argued in Chapter 21, the Christus Victor motif is a genuine and essential dimension of the atonement. The problem is that Weaver wants victory without substitution, and the New Testament consistently presents them together. Paul does not merely say that Christ defeated the powers; he says that Christ "gave himself for our sins" (Gal. 1:4), that God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21), and that "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us" (Gal. 3:13). Peter writes that Christ "bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Pet. 2:24) and that "Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" (1 Pet. 3:18). The author of Hebrews says Christ was "offered once to bear the sins of many" (Heb. 9:28). The New Testament interprets Jesus' death in substitutionary, penal, and sacrificial terms — not as a later theological invention but as part of the earliest Christian proclamation.25
A theology that cannot affirm the New Testament's own interpretation of the cross has a deeper problem than any of the problems it seeks to solve. As Gathercole has argued, the substitutionary interpretation of Jesus' death is not a secondary theological overlay on the New Testament but is woven into the fabric of the earliest Christian confession: "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3).26 If Weaver is right that we must reject any model in which God wills or intends the cross, then we must reject not merely the Reformers' formulation but the apostles' proclamation.
Second, the New Testament is explicit that the cross was not merely an unplanned catastrophe to which God responded with the resurrection. The cross was God's deliberate plan. Peter declares at Pentecost that Jesus was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23, ESV). Paul teaches that God "did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all" (Rom. 8:32). Jesus Himself says, "For this purpose I have come to this hour" (John 12:27) and describes His death as a ransom given "for many" (Mark 10:45). These texts do not describe a God who is surprised by the cross. They describe a God who purposed the cross — not because God loves violence, but because the depth of human sin required a cost that only God could pay.27
Third, Weaver's model actually introduces a more serious theological problem than the one it claims to solve. If the cross is merely the act of the evil powers, and God's contribution is limited to the resurrection, then the cross itself has no salvific significance. It becomes nothing more than a particularly unjust execution — terrible, tragic, but ultimately no different in kind from the deaths of countless other innocent people throughout history. But the New Testament insists that the cross itself accomplished something. "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses" (Eph. 1:7). "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" (Heb. 9:22). "The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). The New Testament assigns saving significance to Jesus' death, not merely to His resurrection.28
Fourth — and this addresses Weaver's central concern about divine violence — the cross involves voluntary self-sacrifice, not imposed violence. This distinction is absolutely critical. Violence, properly understood, involves the use of harmful force against someone against their will. But the New Testament portrays Jesus' death as the supreme act of voluntary love. "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). "I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:17–18). As Rutledge puts it, the cross was simultaneously "a conspicuous act of violence by the authorities" and "an equally conspicuous act of nonviolence by Jesus, who allowed himself to be unjustly condemned, tortured and executed without resistance, let alone retaliation."29
The violence at Calvary was real, but it was inflicted by human sin and the powers of evil — not by God. God's act was not the violence but the loving, voluntary self-giving of the Son, accepted by the Father in sorrow and love, not in rage. Philippe de la Trinité is emphatic on this point: the cross is not about "the execution of violence following upon a tyrannical verdict" but about the self-offering of the Son who, "in union with His Father," gives Himself as a "victim of love."30
Self-Sacrifice Is Not Violence: Weaver's central concern — that God must not be made complicit in violence — is addressed by the Trinitarian and voluntary character of the cross. The violence at Calvary was inflicted by sinful humanity and the hostile powers. God's act was self-giving love, not coercion. Voluntary self-sacrifice for the sake of others is not violence; it is the highest expression of love.
Even as we reject Weaver's conclusion, we should retain several of his insights. He is right that the Christus Victor theme deserves a central place in atonement theology — though I would argue it stands alongside substitution rather than replacing it (see Chapter 21). He is right that Jesus' life and teaching, not just His death, are part of the saving story. He is right that the church has sometimes presented the cross in ways that minimize the horror of violence or even baptize it. And he is right that Christians must be people of peace, not violence.
Where Weaver goes wrong is in constructing a false dilemma: either the cross is God's act of violence, or it is not God's act at all. The New Testament offers a third option that Weaver's framework cannot accommodate: the cross is God's act of voluntary, loving self-sacrifice, in which the Son willingly bears the consequences of human sin while the hostile powers unknowingly serve a purpose they did not intend (Acts 2:23; 1 Cor. 2:8). Victory and substitution are not alternatives. They are two dimensions of one saving event.31
Rutledge captures this integration beautifully. She argues that Christus Victor and substitution belong together, and that isolating either one produces a distorted picture. The cross is simultaneously Christ's victory over the powers and His substitutionary bearing of the consequences of sin. To have one without the other is to have only half the gospel.32
Closely related to but distinct from Weaver's nonviolent proposal is a broader objection that has gained significant traction in recent theological discussion. Influenced by the French literary theorist and anthropologist René Girard, as well as by Mennonite peace theology and feminist criticism, a number of scholars argue that the substitution motif introduces "violence" into the very being of God. If God requires a death — even a voluntary one — to forgive sins, then violence is built into the divine economy. The "violent grammar of atonement," as it has been called, shapes how Christians think about conflict, power, and justice — and the results, critics claim, have been catastrophic.33
This critique takes two related forms, as Rutledge helpfully distinguishes. First, some argue that the substitution motif provides a rationale or even encouragement for Christians to commit violence. If the cross is the supreme act of salvation, and the cross involves the death of an innocent person, then perhaps violence against the innocent can serve God's purposes. Second, and more philosophically, some argue that the substitution-satisfaction theme introduces an element of violence into the very being of God: God is a God who solves problems through blood and death.34
Rutledge demolishes the first form of the objection with a devastatingly simple observation. If we are worried about atonement models that inspire violence, then Christus Victor is at least as dangerous as substitution — probably more so. The image of Christ as a conquering hero, victorious over His enemies, lends itself all too easily to a Crusader mentality. Constantine's motto In hoc signo vinces ("In this sign you shall conquer") "has had a bloody history."35 When Serbian Orthodox forces erected crosses during the Bosnian conflict to celebrate their "victories" over Muslim communities, they were not thinking about penal substitution. They were thinking about conquest and supremacy. Human beings need no theological rationale for violence — we are perfectly capable of finding one in any narrative, or in no narrative at all. Blaming substitutionary atonement for Christian violence is like blaming the doctrine of divine sovereignty for human passivity. The connection is not intrinsic to the doctrine but imposed upon it by sinful human nature.36
The second form of the objection — that substitution introduces violence into the being of God — requires more careful attention. Here we must insist on a fundamental Trinitarian point that we have made repeatedly throughout this book. The cross is not an event in which God inflicts violence upon an unwilling victim. The cross is an event in which the Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — acts in unified love. The Son voluntarily accepts the consequences of human sin. The Father does not coerce the Son but sends Him in love and receives His self-offering with grief and love, not with vindictive pleasure.
As Rutledge argues, "It seems perverse to argue that the theme of substitution assigns violence to the being of God. If the Son of God submits to a violent death by 'the hands of sinners' (Matt. 26:45), how is that violence in the being of God? God is not committing violence. God in the person of the incarnate Son is himself a willing and purposeful victim of the violence that entered the creation as a result of the fall."37 The violence at the cross comes from below — from human sin, from the powers of evil, from the brokenness of a fallen world. It does not come from above, from God. What comes from God is love — a love so deep and costly that it is willing to enter into the very worst of human violence in order to defeat it from within.
Furthermore, the New Testament itself draws a stark distinction between the human agents of violence at the cross and the divine purpose accomplished through it. Peter makes this point with extraordinary clarity: "This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men" (Acts 2:23). The violence was done by "lawless men." The plan was God's. But the plan was not violent; the plan was redemptive. God used human wickedness — without approving it — to accomplish the salvation of the world. This is not violence in the being of God. It is the mystery of divine sovereignty working through and in spite of human sin.38
William Hess, though he argues against penal substitutionary atonement, actually helps to make this point in an unexpected way. Hess emphasizes that the focus of Christ's sacrifice in the New Testament is not on violence but on dedication, self-offering, and love. The sacrificial system of the Old Testament, he argues, was not primarily about violence or bloodshed but about the dedication of a life to God.39 I disagree with Hess's conclusion — I believe the substitutionary dimension of the sacrifices is real and important, as argued in Chapters 4 and 5 — but his emphasis on the non-violent character of sacrificial self-giving actually supports the point being made here. The self-offering of Christ is an act of love, not an act of violence. That the enemies of God responded to this love with violence does not make God a violent God.
Liberation theology, which emerged in Latin America in the late 1960s and 1970s through the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, Jon Sobrino, and others, raises a different kind of objection to substitutionary atonement. The concern here is not so much about violence or abuse but about scope. Liberation theologians argue that substitutionary atonement — particularly in its penal form — focuses narrowly on individual sin and individual salvation while ignoring the structural and systemic dimensions of evil.40
The argument runs something like this: Penal substitution is a legal transaction between God and the individual sinner. My sins are transferred to Christ; His righteousness is transferred to me. The result is that I, as an individual, am forgiven, justified, and reconciled to God. But this entire framework — so the critics charge — is blind to the fact that sin is not only a personal matter between an individual and God. Sin is also embedded in structures, systems, and institutions. Racism, poverty, oppression, colonialism, economic exploitation — these are corporate sins, structural evils that cannot be reduced to individual guilt. A theology focused exclusively on individual forgiveness through penal substitution has nothing to say about these realities.41
Connected to this is a further concern about praxis — about what Christians actually do in the world. Liberation theologians argue that a theology centered on the judicial transaction of substitution tends to produce passive, otherworldly Christians who are content to have their sins forgiven and their heavenly destiny secured while the poor continue to suffer. A theology centered on Christus Victor or on Jesus' prophetic confrontation with the powers, by contrast, mobilizes believers for active resistance against injustice. As Weaver argues, penal substitution "encourages passivity," while models that emphasize Christ's victory over social evil "rally Christians to resist."42
The Liberation Theology Concern: Liberation theologians worry that substitutionary atonement is too individualistic — focused on personal forgiveness while ignoring systemic evil. They call for an atonement theology that addresses corporate sin, structural injustice, and the call to active resistance against oppression.
The liberation theology critique identifies a genuine weakness — not in the doctrine of substitutionary atonement itself, but in the way the doctrine has sometimes been presented and applied. It is true that many evangelical presentations of the atonement have focused almost exclusively on individual salvation: "Jesus died for your sins so that you can go to heaven." This is true as far as it goes — personal sin is real, individual forgiveness is essential, and the reconciliation of individual sinners to God is at the heart of the gospel. But the New Testament vision of the atonement is far larger than this. The cross addresses not only individual guilt but also cosmic corruption. Christ's death and resurrection inaugurate the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), reconcile all things to God (Col. 1:20), defeat the powers and principalities that enslave humanity (Col. 2:15), and establish the kingdom of God in which justice and peace will reign forever (Isa. 9:6–7; Rev. 21:1–5).43
It is also true that some presentations of substitutionary atonement have been so focused on the forensic transaction that they have neglected the ethical implications of the cross. But this is not the fault of the doctrine; it is the fault of a truncated version of the doctrine. The New Testament never separates what God has done for us from what God calls us to do in the world. Paul's great exposition of justification in Romans 1–11 leads directly into his call for transformed living in Romans 12–16. The indicative (what God has done) always grounds the imperative (what we must do).
Several considerations show that the liberation theology critique, while raising valid pastoral and practical concerns, does not actually succeed as a theological objection to substitutionary atonement.
First, substitutionary atonement does address individual guilt, and rightly so, because personal sin is real. Liberation theology's emphasis on systemic evil is important, but it becomes theologically dangerous when it minimizes or eliminates individual moral responsibility. The Bible teaches that every person is accountable before God (Rom. 14:12). Structural sin is real, but structures are created, maintained, and perpetuated by individual human beings who make individual moral choices. A theology that dissolves individual guilt into corporate categories ultimately undermines moral agency. People are not merely victims of systems; they are also participants in systems, and they bear responsibility for their participation.44
Second — and this is the crucial point — the multi-faceted model of the atonement that this book proposes already includes both the individual/forensic dimension and the corporate/cosmic dimension. As argued in Chapter 24, the atonement is not a single, flat idea but a multi-dimensional reality. Substitutionary atonement addresses the problem of individual guilt and the need for forensic justification. Christus Victor addresses the problem of cosmic evil and the bondage of humanity to the powers of sin, death, and the devil. Reconciliation addresses the broken relationship between God and humanity — both individually and corporately. Recapitulation, as Irenaeus understood it, addresses the renewal of the entire human story. When we hold all these facets together, with substitution at the center, we have an atonement theology that is simultaneously personal and cosmic, individual and structural, forensic and liberating.45
The liberation critique, then, is not an objection to substitutionary atonement per se. It is an objection to a reductionistic version of substitutionary atonement that treats the forensic dimension as the whole story rather than as the central facet of a larger, richer picture. When substitution is integrated with Christus Victor, reconciliation, and the cosmic scope of Christ's redemptive work, the supposed individualism of the model disappears.
Third, the claim that substitutionary atonement produces passive Christians while Christus Victor produces active ones does not stand up to historical examination. Rutledge makes the telling observation that "there has been a strong thrust toward resistance and social justice in many Reformed circles where substitution is a theme."46 Think of William Wilberforce, whose campaign against the slave trade was driven by his evangelical conviction that Christ died for all people. Think of the Clapham Sect, the abolition movement, the founding of hospitals, orphanages, and schools by Christians whose theology was deeply substitutionary. Think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who held to a robust theology of substitution and was executed by the Nazis for his resistance to tyranny. The suggestion that belief in substitutionary atonement produces complacent, passive Christians is refuted by the historical record.47
As Rutledge tartly observes, the argument that "my branch of the church has behaved better and been more righteous than yours" is "self-serving" and "undermines the radicality of the cross, where all such distinctions become meaningless" (Rom. 3:23). She asks a pointed question: "Can it really be shown that abandoning the substitution motif results in more resistance and more charity? If one believes that the very essence of God is shown forth in the Son's death on our behalf and in our place, then the logical outworking of this faith would be a style of living for others, even taking their place if necessary. How does the motif of substitution not teach that?"48
That is exactly the right question. If God Himself, in the person of His Son, took our place and bore the worst for our sake, then the logical response is not passivity but radical, self-giving love — love that identifies with the suffering, confronts injustice, and is willing to pay a personal cost for the good of others. Substitutionary atonement, rightly understood, does not undermine the call to justice; it grounds and empowers it.
The charge of individualism deserves one more line of response, because it connects to a broader pattern in the contemporary critique of substitutionary atonement. Rutledge identifies this as "one of the most important criticisms of the way that the substitution motif has been used in the church."49 She acknowledges that the church has sometimes erred by presenting salvation as a purely private transaction — "Jesus died for me" — without sufficient attention to the corporate reality of the people of God. But she also insists that the corrective is not to abandon substitution but to recover the communal and cosmic dimensions that were always part of the doctrine. God in Christ was calling to Himself a people, not merely discrete individuals. The goal was not just personal forgiveness but the creation of "a holy people, a royal priesthood" (Exod. 19:6; 1 Pet. 2:9).50
Stott makes a similar argument in Part IV of The Cross of Christ. The atonement creates a new community — the body of Christ — that lives under the sign of the cross. This community is called to embody the self-giving love displayed at Calvary, to pursue justice, to serve the poor, to resist evil, and to work for the renewal of all creation. The cross does not merely save individuals; it constitutes a new social reality. Stott writes powerfully about the implications of the cross for how Christians relate to one another, how they engage with suffering, and how they confront evil in the world.51
The multi-faceted atonement model defended throughout this book already addresses the liberation theology concern at its root. By holding substitution, Christus Victor, reconciliation, and recapitulation together as complementary facets of one saving event (see Chapter 24), we produce an atonement theology that is both deeply personal and genuinely cosmic — one that addresses both individual guilt and structural evil, both the sinner's need for forgiveness and the world's need for liberation.
No discussion of contemporary objections to substitutionary atonement would be complete without some attention to the enormously influential work of René Girard. Though Girard was a literary critic and anthropologist rather than a professional theologian, his theory of the "scapegoat mechanism" has profoundly shaped contemporary discussions of the cross, especially among those critical of substitutionary atonement.52
Girard argues that human communities manage internal conflict through the mechanism of scapegoating: they channel their collective violence onto a single victim, whose death restores social peace. All religions, Girard contends, are built upon this scapegoating dynamic. But the biblical tradition, and especially the death of Jesus, exposes and subverts the mechanism. The Gospels reveal the scapegoat as innocent and the crowd as guilty. The resurrection vindicates the victim and exposes the lie at the heart of all scapegoating. For Girard, the cross does not participate in the scapegoat mechanism; it unmasks it.53
Many scholars have drawn on Girard to argue against substitutionary atonement. If the cross reveals the scapegoat mechanism as evil, then any theology that describes God as requiring a sacrificial victim is simply perpetuating the very dynamic the cross was meant to dismantle. God does not need a scapegoat; God exposes scapegoating as the murderous invention of sinful humanity.
There is genuine insight in Girard's work. The cross does expose the evil of collective violence against the innocent. The Gospels are remarkable in their insistence on Jesus' innocence and the guilt of His accusers. The resurrection is indeed God's vindication of the one the world rejected. Christians can learn from Girard's analysis of how communities use sacrificial violence to maintain social order.
But Girard's framework, taken as a complete account of the cross, is deeply inadequate. It cannot explain why the New Testament consistently describes Jesus' death in sacrificial, substitutionary, and propitiatory terms — terms that are not merely describing the human scapegoat mechanism but declaring that God Himself was at work in Christ's death to accomplish salvation. Paul does not say, "The cross exposes the scapegoat mechanism." He says, "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3). The author of Hebrews does not say, "Jesus revealed the injustice of sacrifice." He says, "He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb. 9:26). The New Testament does more than unmask human violence. It proclaims that God acted through the cross — not as a participant in scapegoating, but as the one who transformed humanity's worst act into the instrument of cosmic redemption.54
Hans Boersma, in Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, offers a thoughtful engagement with Girard from a perspective sympathetic to substitutionary atonement. Boersma argues that Girard rightly identifies the cross as the exposure of human violence but wrongly assumes that this rules out any positive divine intentionality in Christ's death. The cross can simultaneously be the exposure of human sin and the divinely intended means of atonement. These are not contradictory claims; they are complementary descriptions of one supremely complex event.55
In recent years, the feminist and liberationist critiques have been further developed through the lens of intersectionality — the recognition that categories such as race, gender, class, and colonial history intersect to shape people's experience of theology. Womanist theologians like Delores Williams and M. Shawn Copeland have argued that the atonement must be understood not in abstract theological terms but in connection with the concrete experience of marginalized communities.56
This emphasis on concrete experience is valuable, and the church has much to learn from voices that have been historically marginalized in theological discussions. At the same time, theological truth cannot be determined solely by the experience of any particular community — even a marginalized one. Experience informs how we hear and apply doctrine, but it does not override the biblical witness. The question is not "How does this doctrine make me feel?" but "Is this doctrine faithful to the revelation of God in Scripture?"
And here we return to the fundamental point made throughout this chapter: the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, when properly articulated, does not serve the interests of the powerful against the weak. It reveals a God who identifies with the weak, who takes the place of the condemned, who bears the worst of human injustice, and who vindicates the victim through the resurrection. If anything, the cross is the most powerful theological resource available for critiquing structures of power and oppression — because it reveals that the God of the universe is not on the side of the oppressors but on the side of the crucified.
As Jürgen Moltmann argues in The Crucified God, the cross reveals God's solidarity with all who suffer unjustly. The God who hangs on the cross is not the God of the status quo but the God who overturns the status quo. The resurrection is not the restoration of the old order but the inauguration of a new creation in which justice, peace, and the flourishing of all will finally prevail.57
As we step back and look at the contemporary objections examined in this chapter, several common threads emerge. The "cosmic child abuse" charge, the feminist critique, the nonviolent atonement proposal, and the liberation theology concern all share certain assumptions and certain weaknesses.
What they share, positively, is a genuine pastoral concern for the vulnerable. They are rightly worried about the ways theology can be used to justify suffering, silence victims, and perpetuate injustice. Christians should listen carefully to these concerns and repent wherever the church has failed. We should be grateful for critics who force us to examine whether our theology is being used to help or to harm.
What they share negatively is a tendency to target a caricature of substitutionary atonement rather than the doctrine at its best. The "cosmic child abuse" charge depends on a picture of the Father acting against the Son — a picture that is explicitly rejected by the best defenders of the doctrine, from Stott to Rutledge to Philippe de la Trinité. The feminist critique assumes that the cross teaches passive acceptance of suffering — but this is a misapplication, not an implication, of the doctrine. The nonviolent atonement eliminates the New Testament's own interpretation of Jesus' death. The liberation critique targets a reductionistic version of the doctrine rather than the multi-faceted model that this book defends.
The Common Error: The contemporary objections examined in this chapter share a common pattern: they attack a caricature of substitutionary atonement (Father against Son, glorification of suffering, divine violence, individualistic salvation) rather than the doctrine at its best (Trinitarian self-giving, voluntary sacrifice, multi-faceted integration with Christus Victor and cosmic reconciliation).
In each case, the solution is not to abandon substitutionary atonement but to articulate it more carefully and faithfully. When we recover the Trinitarian heart of the doctrine — God Himself, in the person of the Son, bearing the consequences of human sin in an act of unified, voluntary, self-giving love — the contemporary objections lose their force. The cross, rightly understood, does not justify abuse; it condemns it. It does not glorify violence; it defeats it. It does not ignore systemic evil; it addresses both individual guilt and cosmic corruption. It does not produce passive Christians; it empowers radical, self-sacrificial love for the world.
We have traveled through some difficult terrain in this chapter. The objections raised by feminist, liberationist, and nonviolent theologians are not frivolous. They emerge from genuine pain, genuine concern for the vulnerable, and genuine engagement with the Christian tradition. I have tried to present each objection as fairly and forcefully as possible before offering a response, because I believe that the strongest case for substitutionary atonement is one that takes its critics seriously rather than dismissing them.
What I have argued is that each of these contemporary objections — the "cosmic child abuse" charge, the feminist critique of redemptive suffering, the nonviolent atonement proposal, and the liberation theology concern — raises valid concerns about how the doctrine of the cross has sometimes been presented and applied. The church must own its failures in these areas. We must never use the cross to silence victims, justify abuse, or baptize violence.
But I have also argued that none of these objections succeeds as a refutation of substitutionary atonement properly understood. The caricatures they attack — an angry Father punishing a helpless Son, a theology that glorifies passive suffering, a God complicit in violence, a salvation that touches only individual souls — are not the doctrine itself but distortions of it. When we articulate substitutionary atonement within its proper Trinitarian framework — as the voluntary, loving self-substitution of God, in which the Son willingly bears the judicial consequences of human sin while the Father is present in love, not in rage — the contemporary objections dissolve.
What remains is a vision of the cross that is, paradoxically, the most liberating message the world has ever heard. At the cross, God identifies with the innocent victim, not the abuser. At the cross, God enters into the worst of human violence — not to endorse it but to defeat it from within. At the cross, the powers of evil are exposed and disarmed (Col. 2:15), even as the individual sinner is forgiven and justified (Rom. 3:24–26). At the cross, both personal guilt and cosmic corruption are addressed — not one at the expense of the other, but both together in one supreme act of divine love.
The cross is not the enemy of the vulnerable. It is their deepest hope. And the God who hangs upon it is not a God of violence but the God who, in the most costly act of love imaginable, substituted Himself for us — the righteous for the unrighteous — that He might bring us to God (1 Pet. 3:18).
1 Steve Chalke and Alan Mann, The Lost Message of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 182. ↩
2 Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker, "For God So Loved the World?" in Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique, ed. Joanna Carlson Brown and Carole R. Bohn (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1989), 1–30. ↩
3 Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001). ↩
4 For a thoughtful discussion of why the "cosmic child abuse" charge has gained such cultural currency, see Derek Tidball, David Hilborn, and Justin Thacker, eds., The Atonement Debate: Papers from the London Symposium on the Theology of Atonement (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 34–48. ↩
5 Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 494–95. ↩
6 Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 24–25. ↩
7 John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 159. ↩
8 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 24–25. See also Stott, The Cross of Christ, 152–58, on the voluntary nature of Christ's death. ↩
9 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 25. Gathercole here cites Simeon Zahl's observation about the effectiveness of substitutionary teaching across centuries and contexts. ↩
10 Philippe de la Trinité, What Is Redemption? How Christ's Suffering Saves Us (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road, 2021), 85–92. ↩
11 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 157–60. See Chapter 20 of this book for the full argument regarding the Trinitarian unity at the cross. ↩
12 Brown and Parker, "For God So Loved the World?" 2–9. See also Brock and Parker, Proverbs of Ashes, 18–52, for personal narratives illustrating how atonement theology has functioned in contexts of abuse. ↩
13 Brock and Parker, Proverbs of Ashes, 20–45. ↩
14 Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), 161–67. ↩
15 For documentation of the pastoral misuse of cross theology in contexts of domestic violence, see Catherine Clark Kroeger and Nancy Nason-Clark, No Place for Abuse: Biblical and Practical Resources to Counteract Domestic Violence, rev. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010). ↩
16 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 160. ↩
17 This principle — that the abuse of a doctrine does not invalidate the doctrine — is a well-established hermeneutical maxim: abusus non tollit usum ("abuse does not abolish use"). See Steven Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 237–42. ↩
18 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 498–500. ↩
19 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 494–95. ↩
20 On the once-for-all, unrepeatable character of Christ's sacrifice, see David L. Allen, The Atonement: A Biblical, Theological, and Historical Study of the Cross of Christ (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2019), 142–48. See also Chapter 10 of this book on Hebrews. ↩
21 Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, trans. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 195–200. ↩
22 Allen, The Atonement, 325–30. ↩
23 J. Denny Weaver, The Nonviolent Atonement, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 1–15. ↩
24 Weaver, The Nonviolent Atonement, 69–108. ↩
25 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 37–72, provides a thorough demonstration that substitutionary categories are embedded in the earliest strata of Pauline theology, not added as a later layer. See also Chapters 8–9 of this book. ↩
26 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 55–70. ↩
27 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 73–76, 152–58. ↩
28 Allen, The Atonement, 97–110. The New Testament consistently attributes saving efficacy to the death of Christ, not merely to His resurrection. The two are inseparable, but the cross itself is presented as the place where atonement was accomplished. ↩
29 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 456. ↩
30 Philippe de la Trinité, What Is Redemption?, 88–92. ↩
31 See Chapter 24 of this book for the full case for integrating Christus Victor and substitutionary atonement. See also Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, trans. A. G. Hebert (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2003), 4–7, for Aulén's original typology, though I argue that his sharp distinction between the "classic" and "Latin" types overstates the case. ↩
32 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 469–80. Rutledge is especially helpful in showing how substitution and victory themes interweave in the New Testament. ↩
33 For the phrase "violent grammar of atonement," see Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 498. The phrase captures the concern of scholars influenced by Girard, Weaver, and various feminist theologians. ↩
34 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 498. ↩
35 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 498–99. ↩
36 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 499. Rutledge's examples of the Constantinian cross and Serbian Orthodox violence during the Bosnian conflict powerfully illustrate that the cross has been co-opted for violence across all theological traditions, not only those that affirm substitution. ↩
37 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 500. ↩
38 On the distinction between human agency and divine purpose at the cross, see I. Howard Marshall, Aspects of the Atonement: Cross and Resurrection in the Reconciling of God and Humanity (Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2007), 48–55. ↩
39 William L. Hess, Crushing the Great Serpent: Did God Punish Jesus? (2024), chap. 8, "To Make an Offering." Hess emphasizes the dedicatory rather than penal character of OT sacrifice. ↩
40 Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, rev. ed., trans. Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), 83–105. ↩
41 Joel B. Green and Mark D. Baker, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in New Testament and Contemporary Contexts, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011), 147–69. ↩
42 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 501. She here summarizes and responds to Weaver's argument. ↩
43 On the cosmic scope of the atonement, see Allen, The Atonement, 260–72. See also Chapter 21 of this book on Christus Victor. ↩
44 Henri Blocher, "Biblical Metaphors and the Doctrine of the Atonement," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47, no. 4 (2004): 636–38, argues persuasively that liberation theology's emphasis on structural sin, while capturing a real dimension of biblical teaching, becomes dangerous when it dissolves individual moral responsibility. ↩
45 See Chapter 24 of this book for the full case for a multi-faceted atonement model with substitution at the center. ↩
46 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 501. ↩
47 On the connection between evangelical theology of substitution and social activism, see David W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 12, 71–73. See also John Coffey, "Evangelicals, Penal Substitution, and the Slave Trade," in The Atonement Debate, ed. Derek Tidball, David Hilborn, and Justin Thacker (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 153–77. ↩
48 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 502. ↩
49 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 502. ↩
50 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 502–3. ↩
51 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 255–310. Part IV, "Living Under the Cross," develops the implications of the atonement for community, suffering, and social engagement. ↩
52 René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); René Girard, Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, trans. Stephen Bann and Michael Metteer (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987). ↩
53 Girard, Things Hidden, 154–215. See also Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, trans. James G. Williams (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001), 121–45. ↩
54 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 55–70. The early Christian confession of 1 Cor. 15:3 — "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures" — is a substitutionary claim, not a Girardian one. ↩
55 Hans Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 107–42. ↩
56 M. Shawn Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 95–112. ↩
57 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 195–248. ↩
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