Atonement, Some Basics

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:46 pm by Peter Leithart

Atonement, Some Basics 2017-09-06T22:46:40+06:00 Peter Leithart

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Some basics on the atonement for class lecture.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
The church has never creedally determined the doctrine of the atonement. Several models of atonement have dominated the landscape since the patristic period. Each of these contains an element of truth, and has some biblical grounding, though some can go in quite perverse directions if they are isolated and detached from others. Below, I list several of the main theories of the atonement. There are, of course, various ways to classify theories of the atonement, so what follows makes no pretense to canonical status. Besides, several of these function well as perspectives on the work of Christ in John Frame?s technical sense, that is, they actually require the other models to fill them out.

1. Christus Victor. This employs a military metaphor, and its leading motif is power. Jesus is the conquering king, who defeats sin, death, and the devil, and liberates us from their power. Famously, Gustav Aulen argued that this was the ?classic view?Eof the atonement during the early centuries of the church, lost during the Middle Ages, revived by Luther, and then lost again by Protestant Orthodoxy. It is clearly grounded in Scripture, in OT prophecies about Yahweh?s liberating, royal action, in Jesus?Eproclamation of the coming of the kingdom, and in Paul?s emphasis on the liberation from the law and the curse (Romans 8:1ff). This model becomes problematic if it obscures issues of justice, wrath, and propitiation, all of which are biblical concepts. To put it another way, Christus Victor works so long as (with Luther) we insist that one of the ?adversaries?Ethat is ?conquered?Eby the cross is the wrath of God.

2. Satisfaction. Conservatives often see this as the orthodox view of the atonement, and it certainly has been a dominant one in Western theology since the 11th century. Though this theory takes various forms, the dominant theme is justice. God is righteous and holy, and therefore punishes sin and expresses His wrath against it. He cannot simply overlook sins; His justice (or offended honor) must be satisfied in some way. Through the death of Jesus, God is both just and a justifier ?Ejust in that He punishes sin (in Christ) and the justifier in that He counts as righteous all who are in Christ. Since full satisfaction has been made for sin, those who are in Christ by faith do not have to fear a future punishment. Anselm is usually seen as the theologian who offered the first rigorous formulation of this theory. Many contemporary theologians object to this doctrine because it makes violence a necessary part of atonement. More on this objection below.

3. Moral Influence. Associated historically with Abelard, the leading theme of this model is love. God loves us; He is not angry with us. But we fear that He is angry because of our sins. To demonstrate His abiding love, He sends His Son to die for us, an act designed to provoke a response of love and devotion from us. Again, this model has biblical support; the cross does indeed demonstrate the love of God (Romans 5:8). The problem with this model is that the cross cannot function as a demonstration of God?s love unless Christ is doing something for His people on the cross. If a father kills his son, that hardly makes the father a winning personality who will evoke feelings of admiration and devotion. If the moral influence theory is seen as a perspective on the satisfaction theory, however, it works fine: God demonstrates His love by sending His Son to make satisfaction for our sin. Similarly, it can be a perspective on the Christus Victor model, in that God demonstrates His love by liberating us from the power of sin and death.

4. Governmental. This model of the atonement is associated with the early modern Dutch political theorist and theologian, Hugo Grotius. It?s leading theme is order (not surprisingly, given the chaos of Grotius?Etime period). God in this model is seen as the governor of the universe, who as such cannot allow sin to cause disorder in his world. The atonement, however, does not effect order so much as issue a warning against the forces of chaos; the atonement is a great deterrent, a cosmic ?law-and-order-campaign?Ethat warns sinners about the terrible consequences of their sins.

There are several problems that cut across all of these theories. First, they all focus almost exclusively on the death of Jesus. The question of the atonement is the question of the cross, while the resurrection is left out of the picture. Second, the God who is at work in most of these theories is not explicitly the Triune God. What would the ?atonement?Elook like if we self-consciously attempted to think it through in Trinitarian terms (as, eg, Barth does)? Third, as Wright points out, much atonement theology is developed with little attention to the events of Jesus?Elife, other than the fact that He was sinlessly perfect. Of course, He was sinlessly perfect, and this is what qualifies Him as a sacrifice. But what does His ministry of preaching, teaching, healing, exorcism, of provocation and prophetic demonstration, have to do with the atonement? How can we integrate the historical answer to the question ?Why did Jesus die??Ewith the theological answer? Fourth, and by the same token, Israel?s history plays almost no role in most understandings of the atonement. Eve thought that Cain was the Deliverer-seed promised by Yahweh. She was wrong, but why didn?t Yahweh immediately send a savior? Why the long history of failure and apostasy in the OT?

VIOLENCE AND ATONEMENT
Much recent theology has objected to traditional theories of the atonement, and even to the cross in general, because of its obvious violence. Simply put, the question is how can a loving God achieve anything through the slaughter of His Son? Is there such a thing as ?redemptive violence?E (Hans Boersma). Boersma ( Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross ) points out that while the ?penal substitutionary view of the atonement . . . in particular bears the brunt of criticism?Eand ?is often seen as responsible for the retributive character of the Western judicial system, as well as for various other forms of oppression and abuse,?Ethe other historic models of the atonement also involve God in violence. In the Christus Victor theory, ?we have God making a deal with the devil . . . or actually fighting with and conquering the powers and principalities on the cross.?EFurther, ?Even the Abelardian moral-influence theory, though it may seem to be the most hospitable, involves God in the violence of the cross.?EThe only way to avoid the implication that God is involved in violence, that violence is somehow inherent in the achievement of eschatological peace and redemption, is to limit ?Christ?s redemptive role to his life?Eor dissociate ?God from any role in the cross?E(pp. 40-41).

Let me offer two sorts of responses to this line of argument. First, in many of these treatments, Anselm?s theory of the atonement is seriously distorted. Contrary to some caricatures, he did not present God as being bound by abstract notions of justice or obsessed with His own honor. He explicitly says that in a strict sense God can neither lose nor gain honor through human action. Saying that God is dishonored says nothing about God?s status, attitudes, or feelings. Rather, sin has an impact on the world, in that it ?disturbs the order and beauty of the universe.?EThe cross is God?s means for putting the world back into its original order and beauty (Sherman, p. 189-90). Forgiveness will not cut it. As Anselm argues, ?If the divine wisdom did not add these requirements [of satisfaction] wherever wrongdoing tries to disturb right order, there would arise a certain ugliness, derived from the violation of the beauty of order, in the very universe which God ought to regulate, and God would seem to fail in his direction of the world. Now, since both of these things are unseemly, and therefore impossible, every sin is necessarily followed either by satisfaction or
by punishment.?ENote that God is motivated here by the desire to vindicate His own name, so that He will not be seen to fail, and that God is motivated not so much by legalistic conformity to abstract justice as a passion to see His world beautified and ordered.

Second, it is clear in Scripture that God is involved in various kinds of redemptive violence (against Egypt; in the conquest of the land; etc.). Boersma argues that violence can be redemptive, and in fact that violence of some sort is necessary to the achievement of hospitality. He also notes that theologians who object to violence tout court are arbitrarily drawing lines between their preferred modes of (supposedly non-violent) action and the condemned modes of violent action: ?By what standard would one term physical resistance to an enemy violent but physical interference to stop a person from committing suicide nonviolent? If my interference with a suicide takes the form of a physical encounter, is this not a form of violence??E(p. 46).

TRINITY, TRIPLE OFFICE, AND ATONEMENT
Robert Sherman has developed a Trinitarian theology of atonement ( King, Priest, and Prophet [T&T Clark, 2004]) that attempts to synthesize various theories of the atonement by combining a Trinitarian frame with the triple office of Christ. Early in his book, he summarizes his thesis in a chart:

PERSON
Father Son Spirit

MESSIANIC OFFICE
King Priest Prophet

ATONEMENT THEORY
Christus Victor Sacrifice Revealer/Exemplar

VIEW OF HUMAN PLIGHT
Bondage Sinfulness weakness/Lostness

Each of the perspectives on the atonement is thoroughly Trinitarian. Jesus is exalted as sovereign Lord, exercising the Kingdom of His Father in the power of the Spirit. As Sherman puts it, ?to affirm Christ as victorious king is to say that God the Father has bestowed royal authority upon the incarnate Son to accomplish in the power of the Spirit the proclamation and reestablishment of divine sovereignty in a world enslaved by alien and illegitimate powers?E(p. 131). Sherman suggests that this royal perspective has primacy, both because of the Father?s primacy in the Trinity (p. 158) and because humanity must be delivered from the powers that enslave us to establish ?conditions for the reclaiming and reconciliation of human culture in his work as priest and prophet?E(p. 160).

Yet, the priestly perspective on the atonement is equally Trinitarian: ?the affirmation of Christ as priest means that God the Son also reclaims us from our own sinfulness and guilt . . . . In this act, the Son accomplishes his own ?proper?Ework as the triune person eternally destined to become incarnate . . . . As the incarnate one, he alone is able to enact and subsume past sacrificial practices in a new and transformative way. To be sure, this does not mean he is working alone, accomplishing this task apart from the Father and the Spirit. It is still the one undivided act of the triune God, based on the one unified divine will, and made available through the one unified divine will. In this regard, I reject any construal that suggests the Son?s will and work somehow counters and finally alters the Father?s will and intentions. Christ?s sacrifice does not ?change the Father?s mind,?Eas if the latter would vent his wrath on humanity were it not for the former?s intervention. Rather, Christ serves as the Father?s instrument, enacting in humanity through the Holy Spirit?s power the common mind, will, and purpose of the one God?E(pp. 210-11).

Trinitarian theology thus helps to address some of the criticisms that are brought against satisfaction theories: ?If one understands the will and work of the Father as distinct from and in some sense imposed upon the Son, or the merely human Jesus, then concern for the fundamental injustice of the procedure is clearly warranted . . . . Yet part of the point of the doctrine of the Trinity has been to emphasize the divine equality of being between Father and Son, as well as their complete harmony of will and purpose. In such an understanding, coercion becomes impossible, because the conditions needed to enable it simply do not exist?E(p. 205). Thus he formulates the priestly perspective on the atonement as ?in accord with the loving and righteous will of God the Father, God the Son freely takes on flesh by means of God the Spirit to become Christ the priest and sacrifice, to atone for human sin and restore creation to right relation with God and its own integrity . . . . He takes on human flesh to serve as humanity?s representative and priest, because it is humanity that stands in need of making sacrifice to God?E(p. 210).

As prophet, Jesus reveals God?s will and illumines our darkness and sets an example for us to follow. But He is never merely teacher or example. Theories of the atonement that stop with Jesus as moral instructor ?do not recognize that in his prophetic office, he does not merely teach us that character of life for humanity that God the Father intends as our original and final telos. Nor does he merely exemplify that life. Rather, as God the Son acting in effect as the perichoretical agent of God the Holy Spirit, he also endows us with the power to realize that end . . . . Christ the Prophet, the Spirit?s living and life-giving Word, does not leave us to our own devices, but quite literally inspires and enthusiastically empowers us to enact what he proclaims.?E

This is useful, and might even be developed diachronically. Very roughly (following Jim Jordan): Israel?s history begins in a Mosaic/priestly phase, where the human predicament is characterized by idolatry and the need is for vicarious satisfaction. With the Davidic covenant, Israel enters a royal phase, where the human predicament is enmity from brothers and others and the need is for deliverance. After the exile, Israel enters a prophetic phase of history, in which the predicament is displacement and the need is for prophetic empowerment and teaching. Jesus fulfills all of these in His own life and history, and the atonement combines all these. As the priest, Jesus satisfies the Father; as King, he delivers from the power of Sin and Death; as prophet, He proclaims the Father?s word and makes a new future. On this model, the atonement cannot possibly be limited to Jesus?Edeath, but stretches throughout his life. It might even be possible to see the gospel story as a sequence of priestly sin-bearing, royal death, resurrection and ascension, prophetic outpouring of the Spirit.

Yet, there are some problems with Sherman?s analysis. First, he employs traditional definitions for royal, priestly, and prophetic offices. (He discusses priesthood, eg, without any reference to the work of Milgrom, Wenham, Haran, Philip P. Jenson, or Richard Nelson.) His analysis needs to be rethought with the assumption that a priest is a household servant, a prophet a member of the divine council, and a king one who gives himself for the sake of his people. Second, the connections between Trinitarian persons and offices comes off as overly schematized.

Theology - Soteriology

Previous Post

January 31, 2005

Luther’s Deliverdict?

Next Post

February 1, 2005 More on Timon of Athens

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 1 Corinthians 1-2 Samuel 1968 Abelard Abortion Abraham Acedia AD 70 Adam Smith Addiction Advent Advertising Aeneid Aesthetics Africa African Christianity African Church African religion Age Aging Agriculture Airline industry Alabama Alasdair MacIntyre Albania Alcohol Allegory Alms Alternative Medicine Ambrose America American Christianity American culture American economy American Evangelicals American Foreign Policy American history American Literature American Military American Politics American Religion American Revolution Anagogy Analytic Philosophy Anamnesis Ancient Egypt Ancient Greece Ancient history Ancient Near East Ancient Religion Angels Anglican Church Anglicanism Animism Anointing of the Sick Anselm Anthropology Anthropomorphism anti-Catholicism Antiquities Antonio Lopez apocalypse Apocalyptic Apocalyptic language Apostles Creed Aquinas Archeology Architecture Arianism Aristotle Ark of the Covenant Art Art History Ascension Aseity Assurance Athanasius Atheism Athens atonement Attention Attributes Augustine Austin Farrer Authority autonomy Avant-garde Awe Bach Ballooning Balzac Banking Bankruptcy Baptism Baptists Baseball Basketball Bavinck Beatitudes Beauty Behavioral Economics Being Benedict XVI Benjamin Benjamin Franklin Beowulf Berkeley Bernie Sanders Bertrand Russell Bestiary Bible Bible - criticism Bible - NT Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians Bible - NT - 1 John Bible - NT - 1 Peter Bible - NT - 2 Corinthians Bible - NT - 2 Peter Bible - NT - Acts Bible - NT - Colossians Bible - NT - Ephesians Bible - NT - Galatians Bible - NT - Gospels Bible - NT - Hebrews Bible - NT - James Bible - NT - John Bible - NT - Jude Bible - NT - Luke Bible - NT - Mark Bible - NT - Matthew Bible - NT - Paul Bible - NT - Philippians Bible - NT - Revelation Bible - NT - Romans Bible - NT - Thessalonians Bible - NT - Timothy Bible - OT Bible - OT - Amos Bible - OT - Chronicles Bible - OT - Daniel Bible - OT - Deuteronomy Bible - OT - Ecclesiastes Bible - OT - Esther Bible - OT - Exodus Bible - OT - Ezekiel Bible - OT - Ezra-Nehemiah Bible - OT - Genesis Bible - OT - Habakkuk Bible - OT - Hosea Bible - OT - Isaiah Bible - OT - Jeremiah Bible - OT - Job Bible - OT - Joel Bible - OT - Jonah Bible - OT - Joshua Bible - OT - Judges Bible - OT - Kings Bible - OT - Lamentations Bible - OT - Leviticus Bible - OT - Malachi BIble - OT - Micah Bible - OT - Nehemiah Bible - OT - Numbers Bible - OT - Pentateuch Bible - OT - Proverbs Bible - OT - Psalms Bible - OT - Ruth Bible - OT - Samuel Bible - OT - Song of Songs Bible - OT - Torah Bible - OT - Zechariah Bible - OT - Zephaniah Biblical Law Biblicism Billy Graham biography Biology Biololgy Biotechnology Blasphemy Blindness Blog news Blogging Blogroll Bloomsbury Group Bob Dylan Body Body symbolism Boethius Boko Haram Bonhoeffer Book of Common Prayer Books Botany Boundary Brexit Britain British History British Politics Bruce Springsteen Buddhism Bureaucracy Burial Business C. S. Lewis C. S. Peirce Calendars Caliphate Calvin calvinism Camille Paglia Canon Capitalism Cappadocians Carl Schmitt Catholic Social Teaching Catholicism Catholicity Causation cemeteries Cervantes Charism Charismata Charity Charles Dickens Charles Hodge Charles Simeon Charles Taylor Charles Williams Chaucer Chermistry Chess Chesterton Chiasm children China Chinese Exclusion Act Chivalry Chopin Chretien de Troyes Christendom Christian Democracy Christian reconstruction Christianity in Britain Christianization Christmas Christology Chronology Church church and state Church architecture Church Calendar Church history Church of England Church Year Cicero Circumcision Cities City of God Civil Religion Civil Society Civil War Civility Classical Theism Classics Climate Change Clothing Coleridge Colloquy of Marburg Colonialism Color Comedy Comenius Commodity Communio Communism Community Comparative religions Computer Science Confederacy Confessionalization Conflict Congregations consciousness Consecration Conservatism Constantine Constitution consumerism Contra Faustum Conversion Coriolanus Cormac McCarthy Cosmology Cosmopolitanism Council of Trent Counter-culture Counter-insurgency Courage Courtly love Covenants Crafts Craftsmanship Cranach Creation Creativity Creator-creature Credit Crime Crime and Punishment Crisis Critical scholarship Criticism Cross Cubism Cultural theory Culture Culture War Dance Daniel Dennett Dante Darwin Dave Eggers David David Foster Wallace David Hume David Jones Deadly sins Death Debt Dechristianization Decolonization Deconstruction Defoe Deja vu Democracy Denis de Rougemont Denominationalism Derrida Descartes Developmental psychology Devils Diocletian Discipleship Disenchantment Disgust Diversion Diversity Divine energies Divine Impassibility Divine Simplicity Divine Warrior Doctrine dogma Dominion Donald Trump Dostoevsky Douglas Campbell Douglas Farrow Dreams Dualism Durkheim Dystopia E.M. Forster Early Christianity Early Modern Europe Easter Eastern Europe Eastern Orthodoxy Ecclesiology Ecclesiology Economics Economy Ecumenism Eden Edgar Allan Poe Edmund Spenser Education Egypt Election Elites Emergence Emma Emotion Empire England English History English Reformation Enlightenment Entertainment Entrepreneur environmentalism Envy Epic Epiphany Episcopals Epistemology Epistles Equality Erasmus Ernst Kantorowicz Eros Eschatology Eternity Ethics Eucharist Europe Evangelicalism Evangelicals and Catholics Together Events Evil Evolution Exile Face Fairie Queene Fairy Tales Faith family Family and Marriage Fantasy Farming Fashion Fasting Fatherhood Fear Femininity Feminism Fertility Fetishization Feud Feudalism Feuerbach Fiction Figs Film Finance Finland Fire Flag Flags Flannery O'Connor Flood myths Folly Food football Foreign Affairs Foreign Policy Foreknowledge Forgiveness Foucault Fracking France Francois Mauriac Franz Rosenzweig free will Freedom Freedom of God French Revolution Freud Funerals Future G. K. Chesterton Gambling Gaming Gay Marriage Gender gender identity Genealogy Geography George Berkeley George Eliot George Herbert; Poetry George Romanes Gerald Manley Hopkins Germany Gethsemane Gift Gifts Giorgio Agamben Global Christianity Global economics Globalism Globalization Glorious Revolution Gnosticism God's sovereignty Gods Goethe Golf Good Friday Gospel Gospels Gothic Gothic architecture Grace Grammar Gramsci Gratitude Greek Literature Greek Philosophy Greek Religion Greek Science Gregory of Nyssa Guillermo del Toro H. Richard Niebuhr Haiku hair Hamann Hamlet Handicap Handles Hands Hans Urs von Balthasar Happiness Harold Bloom Harper Lee Harvest healing Heaven Heavenly treasure Heavenly treasure Hebrew Bible Hebrew language Hegel Heidegger Hell Hellenism; Judaism; Revelation Henri de Lubac heresy Herman Dooyeweerd Hermeneutics Herod Heroic Heroism Hesiod Hidegard of Bingen Hierarchy Hieronymus Bosch Historicism Historiography History History - Early Modern History - Middle Ages Hoaxes Hobbes Holiness Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Home Homeless Homer Homosexuality Honor hope Horror Hospitality Housing Hugh of St. Victor Human Rights Humanism Humor hylomorphism Hymns Hypocrisy. Iago Iconoclasm Identity Ideology Idleness Idolatry Iliad Images Imagination Immigrant churches Immigrant Religion Immigration Imperialism Improvization Imputation Incarnation Incest India Individualism Indonesia Inequality Inerrancy Infant Baptism Infant mortality Infanticide Ingratitude Innovation Inspiration Institutions Insult Intellectual History Intellectuals Intelligent Design International Politics Internet Intimacy IQ Iran Iran-Iraq War Iraq Ireland Irony Islam Islamic State Islamism Ismail Kadare Israel Ivan Illich J. Gresham Machen J.N. Figgis Jacob Jacques Lacan James Bond James Jordan James Joyce James KA Smith James Wood Jane Austen Jane Jacobs Jealousy Jed Perl Jeff Koons Jeroboam Jesus Jewish War 66-70 AD Jihad Johann Georg Hamann Johannine Epistles John Ashbery John Behr John Bunyan John Calvin John Donne John Frame John Howard Yoder John Knox John Milbank John Milton John Owen John Rawls John Ruskin John Stuart Mill John the Baptist John Webster John Wesley John Williamson Nevin Jonathan Edwards Jorge Luis Borges Joseph Conrad Joseph Ratzinger Journalism Joy Judaism Judaize Judgment Judith Butler Jurgen Moltmann Justice Justification Kalevala Kant Karl Barth Karl Marx Karl Polanyi Karl Rahner Kazakhstan Kazuo Ishiguro Kenneth Lonergan Kierkegaard King Lear Kingdom of God Kitsch Knighthood Knowledge Korea Labor movement Lactantius Lamech Lament Landscape Language Latin America Laughter Law Law and Punishment Leftism Lent Les Murray Levi-Strauss Levites Leviticus Liber Mundi Liberal arts Liberal Theology Liberalism Light Lighthouse Linguistics LIstening Literacy Literary structure Literature Liturgics Liturgy Locke Logic Love Luther Lutheran Lutheranism Lying Lytton Strachey Macbeth Machiavelli Machines Madness Mainline Manhattan Manicheanism Manners Manufacturing Manuscripts Mao Zedong Maps Marcion Marilynne Robinson Marketing Marriage Martha Nussbaum Martin Bucer Martin Chemnitz Martyrdom Marx Marxism Mary Mary Douglas masculinity Mass Materialism Mathematics Maundy Thursday Max Weber Media Mediation Medication Medicine Medieval Church Medieval exegesis Medieval Literature Medieval theology Medieval Thought Medievalism Memory Merchant of Venice Mesopotamian Religion Messianic Metaphor Metaphysics Methodist Mexican-American War Michel de Montaigne Michel Faber Middle Ages Middle East Midwifery Mikhail Bulgakov Military Millennium Mind Miracles Miscellaneous Mission missionaries Mixed constitution Modern self modernism Modernity monasticism Monotheism Monroe Doctrine Monsters Montaigne's Essays Moral philosophy Mormonism Moses Mother Teresa Motherhood Motive Mount of Olives Movies Multiculturalism Murder Music Musicals Mutability Mutability Mystery Mysticism myth N. T. Wright Narrative Nation-State Nationalism Natural Law Natural-Supernatural Nature Nature and culture Nature and Grace Nazi Nazirite Necrophilia Nero Nestorianism Neuroscience Nevin Lectures New Atheism New Testament New York City Newbigin News NGOs Nibelungenlied Nicholas of Cusa Nicholas of Lyra Nietzsche Nigeria Nihilism Nobel Prize Nobility Nominalism Norbert Elias Norman MacCaig nostalgia Novels Numerology Obama Objectivity and subjectivity Occasionalism Odysseus Oil Old Testament Oliver O'Donovan Ontology Origen original sin Orthodoxy Othello Owen Barfield Pacifism Pactum salutis Paedocommunion Paganism Pain Painting Paleoconservatism Palm Sunday Pannenberg Parenting Pascal Passions Passivity Pastoral Care Pastoral theology Patrick Modiano Patristics Patronage Paul Peace of God Peace of Westphalia Penal substitution Pentecost Pentecostalism Perichoresis Pericles Persecution Person Peter Peter Enns Petrarch Philip K. Dick Philip Melanchthon Philosophy Philosophy of Action Philosophy of History Philosophy of language Philosophy of science Phone booth Photography Physics Pictures Pierre Bourdieu Place Planned Parenthood Plants plato Play Plot Plotinus Pluralism Pneumatology Poetics poetry Poetry & Stories Poland police Political Philosophy Political theology Political Theory Politics Pop Culture Pope Francis Popular Culture Populism Pornography Porphyry Post-Colonial Theory Post-Structuralism Postmodernism Postmodernity Potential Poverty Power Practice Pragmatism Prayer Preaching Predestination Prediction Prehistory Premillennialism Presbyterian Priesthood Prince Charles Prison Reform privacy Private Prodigal Son Progress Progressivism Property Prophecy Prophet Propitiation Prosperity gospel Prostitution Protectionism Protestantism Providence Prudentius psalms Pseudo-Dionysus Psychological Warfare Psychology Public intellectual Public Life Public Philosophy Public Theology Publishing Punk Rock Pure nature Puritanism Purity Pushkin Putin Pythagoreanism R.J. Rushdoony Race Racism Radical Orthodoxy Rape Rationality Reactionary reading Realism Reason Red State Blue State Reformation Reformational Catholicism Reformational Philosophy Reformed theology refugees reinhold niebuhr Relationality Relativism Relics Religion Religion and science Religions Religious Freedom Religious Liberty Religious Right Renaissance Rene Girard Republican Party Resurrection Resurrection. Revelation Revelations Revenge Revivalism Revolution rhetoric Richard Flannagan Richard II Richard III Richard Wagner Richard Wilbur Righteousness Ritual Robert Frost Robert Herrick Robert Jenson Robert Mugabe Robert Spaemann Robinson Crusoe Rock n' Roll Rod Dreher Rodin Roman Catholicism Roman Empire Roman Religion Romance Romanticism Rome Rootedness Rosenstock-Huessy Rousseau Rowan Williams Rural America Russia Russian literature Russian Orthodoxy Rusty Reno Rwanda S. Y. Agnon Sabbath Sacrament Sacramental theology Sacraments Sacred Sacred Space Sacrifice saints Salt Sam Harris Same-sex marriage Sanctuary Satan Satire Saudi Arabia Scapegoat Scarcity Schism Schleiermacher Scholarship Science Science and Theology Science Fiction Scopes trial Scotland Scott Adams Scott Cairns Scottish Reformation Scotus Scripture and tradition sculpture Sea Second temple Secularism Secularization Self-Help Self-trust Semiotics Semper reformanda separation of church and state Sermon on the Mount Sex Sex Trafficking Sexual abuse Sexual Politics Sexual Revolution Sexuality Shakespeare Shame Culture Shema Sherlock Shopping Silence Simone Weil Simplicity Simpsons Sin Sincerity Sixties Skepticism Slavery Slavoj Zizek Sleep Sloth Social capital Social change Social Imaginary Social Science Socialism Socialization Sociology Sociology of Knowledge Sociology of Religion Sola scriptura Sonnets Sophocles Soteriology Soviet Union Space Spain Speculation Spinoza Spirit Sport Sports Star Trek State State-formation Stephen Masty Steven Bannon Strangers Structuralism structure Subject-object Substitution Suburbs Suffering Suicide Super-Rich Superheroes Supersessionism Supplication Supreme Court Surveillance Symbol Synagogue Taberancle Tabernacle Tax Taxes Tears Technology Teens Teleology Television Temple Ten Commandments Terence Terrence Malick Terrorism Thanksgiving The South The West Theodore Roosevelt Theogony Theological Education Theological Language Theology Theology - Anthropology Theology - Christology Theology - Covenant Theology - Creation Theology - Ecclesiology Theology - Eschatology Theology - Liturgical Theology - Pneumatology Theology - Soteriology Theology - Trinity Theology proper Theopolis Theopolis Institute Theosis Theresa May Thomas A. Clark Thomas Aquinas Thomas Carlyle Thomas Mann Threshing Thucydides Time Tocqueville Tolerance Toleration Tolstoy Tom Wolfe Tools Torah Torture Toscanini Totalitarianism Trade Tradition Tragedy Transhumanism Translation Transubstantiation Travel Trees Trinitarianism Trinity Trinity House Tristan Troilus and Creysede Trump Trump Truth Turkey Twelfth Night Two Kingdoms Typology Ukraine Ulysses Uncanny Uncategorized Uniform Union with Christ United States Unity University Usury Utilitarianism Utopia Value Vatican II Vengeance Vico Victorian Age Victorian Literature Vienna Violence Virgil Virgin Birth Virginia Woolf Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Solovyev Vladimir Solovyov W.H. Auden Walls Walt Disney Walt Whitman Walter Benjamin Walter Lippmann War Wars of Religion Washington DC Wealth Weddings Will William Carlos Williams William Gilpin William Golding Wine Wisdom wonder Word of God Wordsworth Work Works World Council of Churches World History World War I World War II Worldview Worship Wrath Writing Youth Youth Ministry Yuja Wang Yves Congar Zimbabwe Zwingli Zygmunt Bauman

Select a Month January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to 2 Thessalonians, what are believers told to stand firm and hold fast to?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The traditions of the elders The teachings passed on to them The word of God The faith once delivered