Mennonite Seminary Professor Debunks the Gospel
Mark Baker is assistant professor of mission and theology at Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno, California. He is also the coauthor of a book called Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in New Testament and Contemporary Contexts. This book was required reading for pastors attending Fuller Seminary’s “2004 President’s Theological Conference for Pastors.”
Here is a quote from the book:
“We believe that the popular fascination with and commitment to penal substitutionary atonement has had ill effect in the life of the church in the United States and has little to offer the global church and mission by way of understanding or embodying the message of Jesus Christ.”
In a review of this book, Richard Nathan, M.A. concludes:
… throughout the book the authors try to sound fair while ultimately rejecting the commonly held Gospel that Christ died for sinners. Their logic can be summed up as follows:
1. The Bible does not teach the substitutionary atonement; rather, Anselm came up with the theory.
2. The theory has been distorted by modern conservative Evangelicals and is defunct and harmful.
3. We need new images based on perceived needs to “spread the Gospel” [What Gospel?] to the modern multicultural world.
Read the complete review of this book here:
Recovering the Scandal of Liberalism: Disdaining the Cross
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/04/scandal-cross.htm
Read another review of this book by David Linden, who says that “the evangelical church will be one no longer” if it follows the way of the men who wrote this book, here:
http://www.grebeweb.com/linden/recovering_scandal_1.html
ROM (Roll Over Menno) Index: High
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:6-9 (KJV)
