What is in Kelvin's Head?

Atonement theory and the Naughty Step

30/08/2013
One of the parents in the congregation recently was saying how hard it is to answer good questions from children about why Jesus came and had resorted to trying to explain it in terms of the Naughty Step.

I thought it might be helpful to lay out some of the main theories of the Atonement thus:
- Ransom theory – our parents were so naughty that they deserve the naughty step and have passed their naughtiness onto us. Justice requires that someone has to go to the naughty step to pay for this and God tricked the devil into seeing Jesus on the naughty step as sufficient payment for this.
- Christus victor theory – Jesus has gloriously broken down the powers and dominions of naughtiness and only has to glance at the naughty-step for his holiness to turn it in to dust. Nothing can withstand his might and power.
- Moral influence theory – Jesus came to teach us how to be so good that we would never be sent to the naughty step.
- Penal substitution theory – God simply won’t forgive anyone until He is satisfied that the naughty step punishment has been fulfilled in full. Fortunately, Jesus comes along and takes on that naughtiness for himself, freely offering to pay the debt of naughtiness to God the Father. We need urgently to recognise this offer and accept it.
- Incarnation theory – the amazing thing is that Jesus comes and sits on the naughty step with us, sharing our frailty and sharing our sorrows.
There are other possibilities, but those should keep you going for a bit.

Now, all these things have been believed by Christians. However, it doesn’t make much sense to claim that you believe them all at once. Notwithstanding that, I’d say that they all move me at one time or another, even though I tend towards one of them as my dominant way of understanding why Jesus came. We encounter all of these theories in our hymns, if not elsewhere.

That’s the way atonement theory works for me.
atonement, atonement theory, children, Jesus, naughty step, penal substitution

9 responses to “Biobank – an ethical question”

Rev Ruth

25/10/2007

I’ve been asked too. And I got so excited – you know how I love all things medical. My mind had already raced off into the realms of them finding that I had some mysterious disease… But now that you put it like that, I guess I’d better give it some more thought.

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Raspberry Rabbit

25/10/2007

I haven’t been asked. Radical foreign clerics must not be on the list.

I’d be hesitant to do it anyway. Too much information is being stored about us in anticipation of the day when it might prove useful. Best to keep your head down.

RR

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Tim

25/10/2007

Eeek. I saw the phrase “Do you want to do something good today? Not just for yourself, but for our children and our children’s children?” near the top of the page and instantly the thought occurred, “what’s the potential cost? Where are the privacy controls?” Not as though anyone’s asked me anyway, but that sort of thing worries me from the outset too.

A little more investigation shows http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/faqs/confidentiality.php , particularly #5 etc; it seems too vague, just a gloss to placate the masses. I don’t want `computers unconnected to the internet’; I’d want a guarantee that they never will be, that no floppy disks or other methods will result in data coming off them, and that they’re well secured in a bunker somewhere.

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chris

25/10/2007

We’re involved. My sister-in-law first; she asked my husband; we discussed it and decided the potential for knowledge and research into – for example – the hereditary factor in clinical depression – made it something we wanted to do. Our sons have also expressed a willingness to participate. I personally don’t care about what happens to my DNA (other than its continuation in my family!) and if some good can come out of it then that’s just fine. I trust scientists every bit as much (or as little) as I trust anyone else.

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asphodeline

25/10/2007

Have you seen Heroes???? Sounds like a sneaky plot to find more 🙂

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kelvin

25/10/2007

I have not seen Heroes. Is it about eugenics?

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asphodeline

26/10/2007

Ah. It has a hint of eugenics. Part of the plotline involves some form of research into the DNA of people with supernatural powers!

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kelvin

26/10/2007

Ah, I see why you associated it with me.

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Andrew

19/03/2008

My wife I also each received one of the so called invitations today, my first reaction was anger over the wording of the invitation which by telling me I have a “provisional appointment” assuming I am gullible enough to fall for the use of false authority syndrome.

I am really concerned a lot of less literate people will not fully understand the “invitation” and assume it something they have to do.

What really makes my blood boil is the that even if you don’t want to take part you have to reply to get your name removed from the records, this raises real civil liberties issues.

The thing is if I had been asked to participate in I a nice way I would have been very keen to do so, however the whole tone of the letter stinks of authoritarianism and reminds me of the kind of thing the Nazis were doing in the mid 1930s.

If you get one of these invitation say no and tell them why — or better still rip it up.

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