Religion: Why Did Jesus Die?

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Although Terrell may have an especially dramatic Christian narrative, her willingness to mix, match or mutate theories of atonement is extremely common. Mark Noll, a professor of Christian thought at Wheaton College in Illinois, notes that "the average Christian, when he says, 'Christ died for my sins,' may mean more than one thing." And Barbara Wheeler, president of New York's Auburn Seminary, asserts that these days "most mainstream theologians recognize more than two possibilities and the importance of balancing and integrating them." Even in the evangelical world, for every Christian like Reagan White Jr.--a Texas Baptist who recently passed up an exemplary-oriented congregation because "even the best organ in the world can strike a sour note if the sermon that follows it waters down the essence of Christianity"--there are probably five like Methodist Janet McLeod, a publicist from the same state who notes, "We get our strength for living from Jesus' parables and his mission work. In the Crucifixion, we get our hope for what comes next." Graham, the Plano Baptist pastor, says, "It's like asking which wing of the airplane is more important."

Of more concern to those interested in the health of American faith was--until last February, at least--the large proportion of Christians who really didn't think of Jesus' death much at all. "In most Protestant churches," says the Chicago Theological Seminary's Jennings, "there's hardly anything of a Cross there. You go straight from Palm Sunday to Easter without passing Go." The omission extends far beyond the historical Protestant aversion to crucifixes featuring Jesus' body. Rather, says Jack Miles, author of Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God, it dates back to the 18th century, when "Americans tended not to linger on the agony of Jesus. It was more 'friend of my soul, he walks with me and talks with me.'" That phenomenon, which has only accelerated, afflicts conservative Christianity as much as those in mainline churches, says American Jesus author Prothero. "If you asked Evangelicals in a Gallup poll if they had given up on the hard theology, they would say no. But in terms of day-to-day experience, atonement is not a lived reality."

And that in turn suggests a Christianity with a large hole in it where, at the very least, some thought should go. "The Cross is at the center of Christianity, and we know that it was at the center of Jesus' own thinking," says John Stott, an Anglican preacher and the author of The Cross of Christ, who suffered a stroke last year. "I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the Cross." He is almost pleading. "In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?"