A fresh exploration of atonement, rooted in the theology of trust Atonement—the restoration of right relationship with God, which God has made possible for humanity through Christ—is the good news of Christianity. How ought Christians think about the epicenter of salvation history? Teresa Morgan takes up this longstanding question and—in a significant departure from both classical and modern theologians—proposes new answers that are rooted in the concept of trust (pistis). Weaving together exegesis and theology, sociology and psychology, Morgan defines atonement as the restoration of trust between God and humanity through the trust and trustworthiness of Jesus Christ. Her model has important implications for Christians’ understanding of sin, suffering, and the possibility of forgiveness and restoration of trust among human beings.

"The doctrine of the Atonement is the distinctive doctrine of Christianity. Over the course of many centuries of reflection, highly diverse interpretations of the doctrine have been proposed. In the context of this history of interpretation, Eleonore Stump considers the doctrine afresh with philosophical care. Whatever exactly the Atonement is, it is supposed to include a solution to the problems of the human condition, especially its guilt and shame. Stump canvasses the major interpretations of the doctrine that attempt to explain this solution and argues that all of them have serious shortcomings. In their place, she argues for an interpretation that is both novel and yet traditional and that has significant advantages over other interpretations, including Anselm's well-known account of the doctrine. In the process, she also discusses love, union, guilt, shame, forgiveness, retribution, punishment, shared attention, mind-reading, empathy, and various other issues in moral psychology and ethics."--