In medieval times, Christian theologians began to reflect on the nature of salvation in, at times, a rather critical vein.

Already in the 12th century, Peter Abelar questioned, questioned theories of salvation, which attributed saving meaning to the suffering of Christ.

Abelah wrote, and you have a handout there,

how very cruel and unjust it seems

that someone should require the blood of an innocent person as ransom,

or that in any way it might please him that an innocent person be slaying, still less that God should

have so accepted the death of his son that through it he was reconciled to the whole world.

As the quotation illustrates, Abelard does not simply question ransom theories of salvation,

as St. Anselm had done as well,

but he appears to question the very notion that reconciliation could occur through the death of the sun.

Against the background of the immense suffering of the last century, the same sentiment has found expression in more recent theology.

Edward Schillebeck, for instance, write in a similar vein, many existing theories of our redemption

through Jesus Christ deprive Jesus, his message and career of their subversive power,

and even worse, sacralize violence to be a reality

within God. God is said to call for a bloody sacrifice which stills or calms his sense of justice.

Schillebex concludes, therefore, that we have been saved despite the cross.

Christ's execution is merely the result of the machinations of evil,

which simply happened to crush an innocent man whose life exemplified a deep solidarity with the outcasts and the downtrodden.

Others do not refuse to attribute saving meaning to the cross,

but they are of the view that theories that construct salvation in penal

substitutional terms are deeply misguided.

And I agree.

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