Atonement Theories

I'm about to embark on a sermon series and small group study on the major Christian atonement theories. Series title: Love Actually: Five Portraits of Jesus. I've also been reading Scot McKnight's book A Community Called Atonement. I appreciate his "meet the person where they are" approach and the analogy of not being a "one golf club Christian." Are we really ready to go to the proverbial mat over our pet atonement theory? Or is it best to say that each theory has merit and use them as entry points for persons to explore the love and grace of God?

I've also been pondering the contemporary Jewish theological understanding of "the fall." Basically, they don't believe in one. Humans in Genesis 3 were simply acting according to their design. Humans were created with free will and with the potential for choosing "not God." A common explanation is that if you carefully read the end of Genesis 1, you will notice that God pronounces all of creation, in toto, as "very good," but humanity itself is not said to "be good." For them, there is no pre-lapsarian perfection. We were created with the potentiality to choose "not God." We were created, therefore, with an ever-present need for God and for the other. God's self-revelation via Torah (and Jesus as Torah) is the "how"... the missing part of humanity that helps us live up to our "in the image of God" potential.

I find this perspective related tangentially to Aquinas' view that we stand always in the need of God's grace. We were created to need grace even before Eve, Adam, the tree and the snake part of the narrative.

The majority of the common Christian atonement theories pre-suppose A Fall. That atonement is basically something we cannot do for ourselves and is solely a loving, gracious and free act of God toward humanity to restore us to right relationship with him, self & others. Our relationship with God, self and others can only be made whole (at-one-ment) via this gracious action on the part of God.

More to ponder.

So this Sunday, 11 Jan 2009 I'm preaching on Ransom Theory of atonement. Any thoughts?