Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement – A Review

Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement, ed. Deidre Nicole Green and Eric D. Huntsman (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2024) is a fascinating journey through the scriptures and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

The book is divided into two main sections. The first is focused on delving into understanding how the topic of atonement is addressed in each of the major volumes of scripture (Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants, specifically) along with a chapter discussing early Christian and medieval understandings of atonement and a chapter highlighting the ways that 19th century Latter-day Saint women discussed and understood the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The second section is focused on theological explorations on the topic of atonement by Latter-day Saint philosophers and theologians. Every chapter was deeply insightful and thought-provoking, even when it sometimes was unsettling to revise some of my understandings of what has been said and taught about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and ways in which it can be understood.

One surprising area where the volume stopped short was a deeper discussion about Reformation theology of atonement. As mentioned above, the chapters in the first section situated Latter-day Saint views in the context of how the scriptures have been understood by modern scholarship, then also discusses Christian theology in the patristic, late antiquity, and medieval eras before leaping forward to the 1800s, when the Latter-day Saint movement was established. References to major reformers like John Calvin and Martin Luther were present throughout the volume, but I still found it odd that there wasn’t a chapter focused on bringing Latter-day Saint atonement theology more directly into conversation with the Reformation.

Still, this was a fantastic volume to study. One area of atonement theology that I was unfamiliar with before reading this volume was the idea of nonviolent atonement. A central question of Christian atonement theology is how the brutal execution of Jesus Christ enables salvation for humankind. Nonviolent atonement theories suggest that the execution of Jesus Christ was not the key to human salvation and sanctioned by God so much as other aspects of his atonement. In other words, these theories propose that the idea of “satisfaction atonement” must be jettisoned in favor of an approach that doesn’t condone violence as a means of creating justice. In one chapter of Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement, for example, Fiona Givens discusses how satisfaction theories of atonement have undergirded western approaches to punishment of criminals (retributive justice), suggests that they are untenable with our understanding of God, and suggesting an alternative approach. 

A theme that resonated with me and which surfaced multiple times throughout the book was the idea that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is designed to not only grant the salvation of individuals but to create communities of people with right relationships. In other words, both the sealing of families into cosmological networks and the creation of Zion communities on earth where people are reconciled and at-one with each other are logical extensions of at-one-ment. The ordinances and first principles of the gospel are merely the introduction to a larger project of forging right relationships with both God and the full human family. This made a lot of sense to me, especially given the Latter-day Saint cosmology that I believe in.

Thus, I highly recommend reading Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement, ed. Deidre Nicole Green and Eric D. Huntsman (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2024). It will likely be an important reference point for future work on understanding the Atonement of Jesus Christ in the Church, especially in academic and intellectual circles. Beyond the importance to future work, however, the volume is a beautiful opportunity to reflect deeply on the work that Jesus Christ did and does as the Savior.