I walked right into it by using the word fair in the same sentence as judgment. It was a rookie mistake. (more…)

In my last post I talked about how I didn’t feel like writing so much lately because I was so busy, and how I felt weird about acquaintances reading my blog, and ya da ya da ya da. (more…)

I think the blogging well of Kristen J has run dry. Maybe I should write a dramatic and fabulous post announcing that I no longer want anything to do with all of the weirdos that haunt the bloggernacle. It could be very dramatic and exciting. What do you say? Should I do it? (more…)

Ok, we’re back on a new server and with an upgraded look to match the recent WP upgrade. We may tweak the template a little for a while but I think we are pretty close. Welcome back to the Thang.

(Don’t forget to read and comment on Jacob’s last post. It got cut off in the change over.)

Over at FPR, Her Mogesty asked me about my angle on impassibility. Since I was already wearing out my welcome over there, I thought I’d take a quick stab at it here.

Impassibility is one of lesser known words in a long list of fancy words theologians use to bore us when talking about God. As a Mormon, I don’t run into it much unless I’m reading about the apostasy and the influence of Greek philosophy on early Christian thought. Even so, it’s not a bad word to know, so read on. (more…)

In my last post which outlined the newly named Royal Empathy theory of atonement I mentioned that one important assumption of that theory was the notion taught by Joseph Smith that our Father in Heaven was a savior on a previous world. J. Stapley chimed in with support for the theory and also provided some of the quotes from Joseph Smith that teach the idea that Jesus only became as the Father is by performing an atoning work for us as the Father did before him on a previous world. Here are the key quotes as Stapley presented them in that thread: (more…)

I’ve been threatening for quite some time to post an atonement theory. Blake Ostler has written a good one of his own and has thrown out the challenge to the rest of us to come up with a better one if we can. As it turns out, coming up with a coherent theory of atonement is really quite difficult. We have discussed his theory and others here for months and no one has come up with a theory that answers the questions we have have discussed about the atonement. Jacob wrote an excellent paper on the atonement (it was published in the Spring 2006 issues of Dialogue) in which he critiqued some of the theories out there but ended up demurring when it came to answering many of the tough questions a theory should answer. Mark Butler has talked about a theory but has never written it down in a single and concise form that can be adequately engaged. So this post is my preliminary and very rough whack at an atonement theory. (more…)

Moggett started using an excellent term in some of her posts over at FPR: “The Christ Event”. The Christ Event, as I understand it, is a name for the events in the life of Jesus between the last supper (or perhaps the triumphal entry into Jerusalem…) and the resurrection, including the Garden of Gethsemane and the cross. I think this is a very useful term to be used in conjunction with the broader term atonement. Making such a delineation may not be all that important in some settings, but when we are trying to discuss atonement theories such added precision becomes a necessity. (more…)