The Absurdity of Christian Fundamentalism’s Atonement Idea

An ugly stain on a beautiful religion

In 1094, Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury wrote a classic work of theology entitled Cur Deus Homo?, or Why was God a Man? In this work, Anselm first outlined his “satisfaction theory of atonement.” This theory postulated that the reason Jesus was crucified was to make satisfaction for humankind’s disobedience, which dishonored God. Someone needed to atone or else we’d all be bound straight for Hell.

Jesus, unlike every other human, lived a life free of sin and had no need for atonement. He had not dishonored God. So God’s idea was to have Jesus give his life as a payment for the debt of humankind, thereby making us right with God again. So long as we accept Jesus’s death on our behalf, we no longer have to suffer forever in Hell when we die.

This theory replaced the ransom theory of atonement, which held that Jesus’s death satisfied a ransom paid to Satan to keep us out of Hell. This had been popular since the fourth century, but now everyone jumped on board Anselm’s theory, including, in the sixteenth century, the Protestants of the Reformation, although they had a slightly different take. John Calvin believed in “the penal substitutionary theory of atonement.” Jesus’s death was not to restore God’s honor but to pay for our sins. It was a form of justice, and Jesus received our punishment for us.

But…

What’s interesting to note about the whole atonement issue is that — as author and former Roman Catholic religious sister Karen Armstrong points out in her extensively researched A History of God (Ballentine Books, 1993) — there were “no detailed theories about the crucifixion as an atonement” for three hundred years after Jesus’s death. “Paul and the other New Testament writers never attempted a precise definitive explanation of the salvation they had experienced.”

In fact, no one even seemed to talk about it, not until the fourth century. A cynic — I don’t know, let’s call him G. S. Payne — might note that this was at a time when Christianity was not much more than a fledgling religion: a worldview gaining traction only in fits and starts, and most certainly in need of a publicity boost, something to make it more compelling for the masses, like, say, the threat of eternal damnation offset by the promise of salvation.

And the theories didn’t really become polished for more than a thousand years after the crucifixion, until Anselm, and then again 500 years after that with John Calvin.

So what did Jesus say?

Why, one wonders, didn’t Jesus himself spend more time on this most critical issue? Why is there a need for theories at all? (And — no small point — there have been at least seven major theories of atonement.)

During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had the attention of “multitudes,” according to Matthew. Couldn’t he have used the opportunity to nail this thing shut? In almost 1200 words, he never once mentioned anything about his mission of atonement. Doesn’t this seem odd? He talked of Hell, but the way out of it was obedience, not atonement.

He mentioned it at the Last Supper, but you’d think, as humankind’s sole solution to the afterlife problem that Jesus would have been more forceful in telling us why he was really here. That should have been the only thing he ever spoke about. People shouldn’t have had to guess about it years later. Jesus should have talked about it so much that his disciples would have eventually said, “Okay, Jesus, we get it. For crying out loud, can you talk about something else for once?”

Bad philosophy, bad theology

Upon any kind of serious reflection, the atonement idea of Christian fundamentalism turns out to be both bad philosophy and bad theology. The problems are threefold. First, the vagueness of the atonement idea, as talked about by Jesus himself. Second, it’s far from clear how the whole atonement thing even works. How does Jesus’s death make the rest of us poor slobs acceptable in Heaven? We’re still imperfect sinners, right? Well, apparently, it works because God makes the rules about this stuff, and this is what he’s decided on.

But this makes one wonder why he couldn’t have used a better approach to begin with, which brings us to the third problem, namely, the astonishing ineffectiveness of this solution.

How many people in the history of humankind have accepted Jesus as their Lord and savior and sought forgiveness? What percentage? When you consider all the people who came before the crucifixion, those who have subscribed to other religions, those who have never heard of Jesus or understood the atonement, those who merely pay lip service to the idea — I mean, let’s be realistic. Has even one percent of the world’s total population throughout history done what’s required, according to fundamentalist Christians, to avoid eternity in Hell?

It’s probably more like one in every thousand, but for the sake of argument, let’s say one percent; the atonement has an effectiveness rate of one percent.

This is bad.

By anyone’s definition, the atonement project has to be considered an abject failure. Would you get on a plane if the chances of arriving at your destination alive and intact were one percent? Would you allow yourself to be operated on by a surgeon who loses 99 percent of his patients? I can’t think of a single occupation where a one-percent success rate is acceptable.

In the interest of accuracy, the oft-quoted John 3:16 verse might as well be rewritten as “For God so loved the world, he created an atonement program that has an effectiveness rate of less than one percent.” Why would anybody worship a god that performs at such a disastrous level of ineptitude? What makes such a god worthy of any respect at all?

Now, fundamentalists argue that (somehow) we’re all given the chance to accept Jesus, and it’s not God’s fault if we blow it. This is passing the buck. If this were the way things truly worked, it would be God’s fault. I used to be in marketing. If a marketing campaign for a product didn’t work, we didn’t spend time blaming the potential buyers. We changed the campaign. We took into account the motivations and hot buttons of the customers. We conducted market research and put together focus groups. We found what worked. And we reached them.

A disastrous legacy

In The Universal Christ (Crown Publishing, 2019), Prominent Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr calls Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo? “unfortunately” the most successful piece of theology ever written, with a legacy no less than “disastrous.” I agree. I must not be the only one. According to a 2020 Pew Research Center study, only 64 percent of Americans identify as Christian, down from 90 percent 50 years ago. Maybe people have finally had enough of the scare tactics. Maybe people are no longer interested in a God that is either incompetent or a God that is malicious. I’m a Christian and let me assure you that my God is neither.

It’s probably not going away any time soon (fundamentalists can be a stubborn lot) but let’s hope in time that the shameful, absurd theory of atonement eventually ends up in the proverbial trash bin of history where it rightfully belongs. It’s irrational, it’s nonsensical, it’s made of whole cloth from people who came hundreds of years after Jesus, and it’s an ugly stain on an otherwise beautiful religion.

I’m a writer, researcher, eternally curious ruminator, and author of the recently released So Who is God, Anyway?: An Unorthodox Theory for Doubters, Skeptics, and Recovering Fundamentalists (Five Boroughs, May, 2024). More than anything, I’m just glad to be here.