Limited Atonement Essay

To what extent are the protagonists of ‘Atonement’ and ‘The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead’ similar and different?

John Wesley’s sermon, entitled “Free Grace” was published in August, 1739. In it he attempted to show how God’s grace is “free in all and free for all.” His message was strongly directed toward the doctrine of predestination and election, which was held to by many believers in Wesley’s day. He believed that this doctrine was a dangerous one and that it blasphemed the very person and nature of God.

When Huck in his ignorance tumbles together a discussion about “faith, and good works, and free grace, and preforeordestination,” he cut to the heart of one of the great doctrinal battles of American Protestantism, the question of human agency in salvation. Methodists by definition believed that grace was universal, that the “saving remnant” could be quite large if people would simply accept grace. But even with this one sect's stretch away from the Westminster Covenant, for all sects the question of justification by faith alone loomed large in doctrinal discussions, much as it had from the inception of Calvinism. As the Great Awakening aged, relatively liberal Christians, primarily from the cultural centers of the east, argued that the book of James, with its admonition that faith without works is a dead faith, had to be at the center of Christian practice. They developed from this basic precept more figurative interpretations of the Bible, seeing the soul's progress not so much as a strict

The next important topic I want to talk about is condemnation. Now what is condemnation? Webster’s definition of condemnation is this: an act of judicially condemning. Condemnation to me means not only condemning someone, but also condemning ourselves, because of sins we have committed. Romans 8:1 says this “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” What is this saying? Through Jesus we do not have to feel guilty for the wrong we have done. Jesus has already paid for our sins through his sacrifice. Justification is a term that goes with both condemnation and grace. Justification is defined in the Praxis the assigned book for Theo 104. “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein He pardoned all our sins, and accepted us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness

Another way to think about this is how Wesley wrote in his sermon The Scripture Way of Salvation. On our journey to sanctification, he states, what keeps us going on the journey are the means of grace, whether they be for ourselves or done for others. His basic point was that once we are brought into awareness of the grace and our need to repent and turn from our sin, the means provide the nourishment our souls need to grow in grace. How else could one grow in grace than by means of grace?

As we move through Holy Week, the journey of Lent leads Christians to not simply commemorate Jesus ' suffering on the cross, but engage the paschal event on every level of our experiences. For me, this included questioning the impact of the execution which stands so central to Christianity. In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander describes how the mass incarceration of black Americans has been steadily undermining any progress made by the civil rights movement. She argues that even though Jim Crow laws are no longer written, the plethora of young people of color arrested remain marginalized by a broken justice system. The United States represents about 4.4% of the world 's population, it houses around 22 % of the world 's prisoners, an overwhelming majority of whom are young, poor, and black. Recently, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed a bill to allow the use of the electric chair in executions when the drugs for lethal injections are not available. How has this frighteningly oppressive system become normative justice for America? Does focusing on the crucifixion as the foundation of Christian transition per-dispose modern Christians to be unconcerned with the death penalty as a fixture of our justice system? In this essay, I will explore the impact of a deformed atonement theology on modern Christian 's interactions with our

Grace is defined as “divine help or strength … given through the mercy and love of God.” This grace can help us serve beyond our capacity to love, and in the scriptures grace is frequently used to connote a strengthening or

Both Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and Ian McEwan’s Atonement center upon the theme of atonement. In The Kite Runner, the protagonist, Amir, seeks atonement for his inaction when his best friend, Hassan, was brutally attacked and raped as a child. In Atonement, the protagonist, Briony Tallis, tries to attain atonement for her implication of her sister’s lover, Robbie, in a rape, and playing a pivotal role in his later conviction. While the central themes of the novels are quite similar, the circumstances, effects, and methods of the characters’ search for atonement are quite different.

Khaled Hosseini’s Kite Runner is a historical fiction depicting the grim reality of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union’s invasion of 1979, and those affected by the events. Hosseini provides a vivid rendition of turmoil in Afghanistan by telling the tale of the protagonist, Amir, and his struggles throughout his life. The events of the novel force Amir to flee war in Afghanistan and find safety in America. Eventually, however, Amir must return to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in order to find redemption for his dark past. His return culminates into a run-in with members of the Taliban as he attempts to free Assef, a character that will ultimately lead Amir to complete atonement. Amir engages in a physical confrontation with the Taliban members and, although he is successful in his fight, the injuries he sustains are life-threatening. An orbital fracture, a split upper lip, a punctured lung, a few broken ribs, a ruptured spleen, and broken jaw. Amir’s injuries, however, represent more than the fight for Assef’s freedom; these injuries symbolize Amir’s negative past with his father, Baba, his childhood friend, Hassan, and himself and prove the necessity of both physical and mental healing.

The concepts of atonement and forgiveness, while similar, have slightly different connotations. Mahatma Gandhi describes forgiveness as “choosing to love” (Huffpost), giving it a more secular process where one’s sins are admonished, where atonement is primarily recognized as the reconciliation of sin or wrongdoing towards others. And while these terms share similar characteristics in a sense of general ‘mending’ of feelings, atonement bears the implication of reparation over agreement of forgiveness. This claim is reinforced by various sources such as Oedipus the King, The Scarlet Letter and The Grapes of Wrath, as well as sources that compare forgiveness and atonement, and the religious implications that come with them.

Anselm of Canterbury, also a twelfth century theologian, had a quite different understanding of sin and redemption. He espoused the theory of Satisfaction that argued “it is not enough for humans to cease from sin. They must offer satisfaction for the sins that they have already committed” . He argued that only Jesus, who was born without sin, could offer his life to God as satisfaction. Humans could not do so because they owe everything to God.

Its primary Christian theme revolves around the concept that Christ died upon the cross to pay for the sins of all humanity (Albl 363). The Christian doctrine of atonement is an attempt to understand the earliest teaching of the Church that “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor 15:3). God came to us in human form (Incarnation) through Jesus Christ and made it possible for us to attain the Kingdom of heaven through his sacrifice. He died for us in accordance to the scriptures and prophecy. During the last supper he symbolized this sacrifice by saying "This is my body which is given for you" (Luke 22:19).

Throughout Christianity, theories of atonement are prevalent. The word atonement describes how humans can make right between them and God. The different atonement theories are explanations on the interpretations to how God saved us from sin. Jesus is the link that ties together humanity and God. There are multiple atonement theories because there is not a plain answer for why Jesus died.

Daniel A. Westberg. Renewing Moral Theology: Christian Ethics as Action, Character, and Grace. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2015

It can be said that in God's eyes, Christians are only dirty glasses which are stained inside and out with their own sin. These glasses were once clean, not plagued with stains. Now the glasses bear with them these ugly stains, the stains of sin and wrongdoing. The dirty glasses had to accept their punishment for becoming dirty, and the punishment was being destroyed by a hammer. The hammer is God's instrument against sinners. As the hammer made its decent on the glass, a pan covered the glass and took the blow of the hammer to save the glass. This pan represents Jesus because Jesus sacrificed himself to God so that God would forgive us for our sins.