Stephen Burnhope: Atonement and the New Perspective
One of the main arguments that I have been putting forward on this site is that modern evangelicalism needs to shift its weight from the rickety stool of theology or dogmatics, before it collapses, to the much more solid and reliable stool of history. What would this mean for how we understand things? First, we would read the New Testament as a narrative testimony to the historical experience and perspective of a messianic Jewish movement in the first century. Secondly, we would determine the present life and mission of the church not dogmatically—as though a fuzzy, grainy, blotchy and easily misinterpreted snapshot of the first century church could reasonably serve as a template throughout the rest of human history—but as an extension of that narrative.
