Customer Reviews

Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement

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As a Christian campus minister, I often hear students' questions about salvation. "What is salvation?" "How does Jesus save?" "How can something that happened 2000 years ago affect me now?" "What does it mean that Jesus died for my sins, and he could he have when I wasn't even around then?" When my own responses fail to satisfy them, I always recommend Fiddes' book, and I am grateful that it remains in print twelve years after its first publication.

Fiddes does a good job in distinguishing between "objective" theories of atonement/salvation that describe what believers claim God has done to change the way things are in the universe, and "subjective" theories that stress an individual's appropriation of divine activity. He then synthesizes them well. Along with Michael Winter's "The Atonement" (Liturgical Press), I think this book is excellent background reading for anyone wanting to seriously explore Christian atonement theory, and it is free enough of academic jargon to be read by the general educated public.

Fiddes provides a creative and readable overview of Christian language and major conceptions regarding the work of Christ's cross over the last two millennia, and argues for a view of the atonement that is relational rather than purely juridical, and concerned more with healing of people and restoration to God (expiation language) rather than concepts of propitiation and courtroom metaphors (and the implied change in God). It's theologically rigorous and pastorally thoughtful.