I read another Atonement book? Yep. So it's for a class. This one is quite good. It is another multiple metaphor book. There is a bias against penal substitution but I think it offers a good critique. Particularly insightful is the discussion of guilt vs. shame based cultures in trying to contextualize the atonement.

Joel Green also does a good job at analyzing the appropriate N.T. texts related to the cross. ( )

compulsory reading for atonement & christology. ( )

Thoughtful, provocative, heretical. Green and Baker write, "The Scriptures as a whole provide no ground for a portrait of an angry God needing to be appeased in atoning sacrifice" [I wonder have they seriously and prayerfully read the Old Testament? Have they truly studied the book of Hebrews?]... They add that the penal substitutionary view of the atonement is cultural rather than Biblical [Of course, the words 'penal' and 'substitution' are not in the Old or New Testament Scriptures but neither is the word 'Trinity'... Is that also a cultural concept?]

Later they write, "Sin...can never be understood as something private or individualistic..." [Who then is accountable for my sin? Or is my sin not my sin? And when I stand at the judgment seat who will answer for me?]

The authors also argue that Jesus' death was not planned and ordained of God. They suggest rather that Jesus made a good guess when he spoke of his impending death...after all, what else could he expect in the cultural climate in which he was living?

This book is praised as a "fresh look at the cross of Jesus". I am not sure that its 'freshness' is a praiseworthy quality. I was deeply disappointed by this book. Green and Baker have strayed far from the Evangelical tradition that I hold dear. "As I besought thee...that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine...from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling desiring to be teachers of the law understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm." (1 Timothy 1) ( )