The Community Called Atonement

I just finished the book A Community Called Atonement by Scot McKnight. It was a good book. It brought out a lot of good concepts. However, it was a little too textbook-like for me. We chose to read this book in our Together in Ministry group (American Baptist Minister's Small Group). We found it interesting at points, but a little bit tedious in others.

The title is brilliant. It is a double-entendre. On one hand, it a community centered view of the doctrine of the atonement. However, the title also works because it approaches the doctrine of the atonement from many different angles, and shows how each of the major schools of atonement theology tell a part of the story of what the cross accomplished, without telling all of it.

I felt that the book for me was redundant. I think this is for several reasons. First, I went to a mainline seminary as an evangelical. This forced me to examine the truth in what I was taught without abandoning my evangelical convictions. In many ways this is what Mcknight tries to do for his "evangelically emergent" crowd. Secondly, I read "The Story We Find Ourselves In" by Brian McLaren. McLaren does a readers digest version of this book when explaining the doctrine in narrative form.

I love McKnight's blog. He is a decent writer. But when I read this book, I felt like I had read all of this before.