Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement

Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement, edited by Deidre Nicole Green and Eric D. Huntsman, is an ambitious contribution to the field of Mormon studies. Throughout its twelve chapters, the volume grapples with questions of belief, history, doctrine, tradition, praxis, and synthesis in relation to its central theme: the Christian idea of divine-human reconciliation. Framed in a Latter-day Saint context, the volume features the work of Latter-day Saint academics working within various institutions and disciplines and modeling different perspectives. In this regard, the book's internal diversity is, in small measure, reflective of the plethora of Christian voices that have shaped historical and modern understandings of atonement in the Western tradition. Further, its methodology is largely consistent with recent (though under-cited) theological treatments of atonement that apply a range of explanatory models and mechanisms to the salvific work of the person of Jesus. Not only does a theologically “open” approach embrace multiple images, models, and metaphors in conversation with one another, but it negates the tendency to champion any one interpretation as singularly satisfactory. The promise of this approach, discernible across various chapters, makes this a welcome collection indeed.There are several things this volume does well, three of which are worth commenting on here. First, the volume surveys important biblical, patristic, medieval, and modern theological developments, allowing the uninitiated reader to navigate terminology, concepts, and figures key to the Christian idea of salvation. This is especially evident in the chapters by Benjamin Spackman and Ariel Bybee Laughton. Spackman's nuanced treatment of Old Testament biblical terminology is excellent. For instance, by demonstrating how the Hebrew terms yôm hakkippūrîm (Day of Atonement) and yāša’ (kinsman-redeemer) were grounded in familial, legal, and political contexts, Spackman argues for a sharp distinction between ancient Hebrew and modern Christian understandings of salvation. Ancient Hebrew terms of salvation (though since translated as “atonement” in the KJV) are seen more as a stabilizing mechanism for ongoing proximate relationships, quite apart from the eschatological dimension of salvation that now holds a central place in the Christian discourse. As Spackman suggests, this may have implications for thinking about Latter-day Saint understandings of sin, salvation, and the idea of human-divine kinship.Similarly, Laughton commences her chapter by challenging the restrictive tripartite classification of atonement set forth by Gustaf Aulén.1 This allows her to rightfully resituate patristic and medieval soteriology in its historical and cultural-religious context, and hints at the caution with which we should apply the term atonement to particular historical texts and traditions that have more expansive ways of articulating the salvific work of the person of Jesus. This reframing is invaluable for grasping the arguments of Augustine, Anselm, and Abelard, who collectively operated within the late-antique and medieval schema of salvation, doing much to foster intellectual sympathy with traditions beyond the immediate.Second, the volume's attention to Latter-day Saint voices clears space to creatively expand atonement theology in relation to the tradition's own history and scripture. A number of chapters do this remarkably well, and it is difficult to credit (in such a short space) the exegetical value of the ongoing work of Joseph Spencer, Nicholas Frederick, and Sharon Harris regarding the Book of Mormon and Latter-day Saint thought. Worthy of comment, I believe, is Spencer's intelligent framing of the Book of Mormon as a repository where a variety of images and metaphors communicate the idea of salvation, which avoids viewing the Book of Mormon as championing one model over another. Spencer's reading of the Book of Mormon's imagery, most significantly the nonviolent language of Mosiah, allows for a sophisticated view of soteriology that grows out of a close reading of the text without displacing the presence of other, even violent, models and imageries present in the same book. The observation that “changing historical circumstances give believers [opportunities] to reflect in changing ways on Christian atonement” (236) clears ground for readers to draw new interpretations from the text of the Book of Mormon and, in the process, discover more constructive ways of thinking about human salvation.Equally valuable, Jennifer Reeder's chapter marks a vital rethinking of divine-human reconciliation by examining the concept of at-one-ment in the lived realities of nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint women. Acknowledging the hardship and affliction experienced by women on the American frontier, the idea of atonement that emerges becomes theologically pragmatic and is discoverable in social cohesion. Reeder is a scholar who knows the texts and the period. She has a gift for reviving the minds and voices of her historical counterparts through their hymnody, scripture, diaries, and other writings—grounding their lives and experiences in the confines of their own cultural and religious understandings. For them, atonement is discovered not in abstract academic reflection but in the embodiment of hope and love that provides immediate forms of redemption through meeting the temporal needs of a diverse community.J. B. Haws, too, invites the reader into the world of Latter-day Saint religion by carefully reading its modern scripture. Haws demonstrates how the Doctrine and Covenants posits a cosmology that promotes the supreme importance of human agency by discussing how penal-substitutionary language in Latter-day Saint scripture may be reread and reimagined. In making this maneuver, Haws voices his indebtedness to Terryl Givens's work on atonement theology in By the Hand of Mormon, using Givens's thought to help readers apprehend the breadth and completeness of God's actions in Latter-day Saint salvation narratives. Together, Reeder's and Haws's chapters provide an important insight into the Latter-day Saint mind, past and present.Third, an effort to engage in the larger Christian conversation is discernible in this volume, though its efficacy varies across chapters. Although limited, this engagement highlights the need to ground Latter-day Saint thought in the relevant theological and historiographical discourse and indicates the untrodden but fruitful path ahead. For instance, Deidre Green's engagements with reformed theologians demonstrate the potential value of speaking across traditions to further theological understanding and bringing feminist perspectives to the fore. Along comparable lines, Benjamin Keogh lays the groundwork for deepening an appreciation of relational accounts of human-divine reconciliation, primarily using Terence Fretheim to explicate human understandings of the creator, creation, and the incarnation.2 Applying the contributions of Fretheim and others to both biblical and Latter-day Saint scripture, Keogh shows how utilizing theological resources beyond the familiar Latter-day Saint corpus enables readers to apprehend the all-encompassing reach of a loving Christian God. To this, it must be added that Fiona Givens's thoughtful use of Timothy Gorringe's God's Just Vengeance marks new possibilities for engaging with Anglican theologians.3 Following Gorringe's provocative thesis, Givens's chapter reveals how aligning one's views too closely with a particular atonement model has negative implications for positive societal relations. In this case, the violence warranted through a particular reception and conceptualization of satisfaction theory in the West—whereby the Son of God is killed in order to satisfy judicial demands—not only desensitizes communities to the violence of the prevailing penal system, but it further provides theological justifications for its perpetuation. Such an argument, while provocative in nature, is also timely given the modern political context of American readers where Christian theology is too frequently used to either politicize social issues or else weaponize reasonable alternative points of view.Some editorial decisions evident in the volume prompt minor questions regarding the collection's coherence. For example, comparing the introduction with the subsequent content (outlined above), it is unclear why the editors selected Aulén's nearly one-hundred-year-old thesis, Christus Victor, as their starting point. This is especially so in light of the nuance that Laughton, Spencer, and Keogh employ in their attempts to grapple, directly or indirectly, either with the issue of applying the term atonement anachronistically or else with Aulén's categorically outdated “theorizing.” True enough, as the volume makes clear, views on atonement “need not be seen as homogenous” (6), and there remains the promise of clearing ground for a wider variety of views. For this reason, I wonder whether having intellectual sympathy with a broader view, including problematic models, may be more beneficial. Otherwise, one risks engaging in a caricature.A more systematic treatment of recent and relevant Christian theologians could have emerged with greater editorial intervention to guide the volume's contents and a more extended, exploratory introduction. At the least, the work of Oliver Crisp and Alister McGrath could have been effectively deployed to identify the vital differences in the language of theory, model, and mechanism—not to mention making more explicit that atonement cannot be so readily applied to religious cultures and contexts where soteriology was conceived of very differently, with McGrath showing reluctance to use the term freely when expositing Christian soteriology.4 As a term of more modern origin, the word atonement does not transfer organically to all areas of historical soteriological discourse. Thus a more comprehensive introductory acknowledgment of the complexity of soteriological developments outside the Book of Mormon, especially in biblical, patristic, medieval, and modern contexts, could have prompted a tightening up of language throughout (avoiding the blurring of “theory” and “model”).5 It would have also prompted a little reframing here and there to allow the chapters to work together more explicitly, creating a cohesive and expansive view of a variety of imageries of salvation—avoiding the subtle mission to make room for new readings only by displacing other theological imageries that are valuable and undeniably present.Nonetheless, the work of the volume models a vitally important shift in scholarly thinking about salvation in the Latter-day Saint tradition, presenting opportunities for future work in this space. Such work could include a more explicit distinction between the salvific work of Christ experienced by devoted Christians and the philosophical and logical mechanisms that underpin human articulations of that work (which are not one and the same). In its various incarnations across time, it seems that atonement broadly encapsulates the salvific reordering of divine-human relations. Essentially, in both Christian and Latter-day Saint discourse, the inner workings and manifestations of this sort of broad, all-encompassing soteriology, therefore, cannot be adequately articulated through a single mechanical explanation. For that reason, what is needed is an ever-expansive approach to an array of imageries of salvation, harmoniously weaving the diverse and continuous theological discourse together, negotiating tension and difference. This would place Latter-day Saints into more meaningful conversation with their religious and theological counterparts—historical, present, and future. Again, for the most part, the collection chapters contribute to this project remarkably well. Its only setback is a partial, but not fatal, lag in editorial imagination.This book may be of interest to broader Christian readers, including academics, who are curious about the Latter-day Saint tradition and the work of its present scholars. However, given its editorial tone and voice, it will likely appeal to Latter-day Saints who have an interest in the development of Mormon thought, especially readers with interests in scripture and theology. Given that this book stands as an important marker for future work in Latter-day Saint thought on atonement, it is my hope that many of these chapters will be used as a classroom resource to both engage students in its content and arguments and provoke further work in the field.