I don't know if this article belongs in this forum--if not, please move it to the appropriate forum--thanks.
I receive the Lighthouse Trails Research Newsletter and I found this article interesting in the light of the fact that we are in the last days and our adversary, the devil is seeking to destroy God's Word, blind the eyes of the lost and weaken the faith of God's children.
When They Say There's No Atonement
In 1922, liberal pastor and theologian Harry Emerson Fosdick stated the following words in his sermon titled "Will the Fundamentalists Win?":"It is interesting to note where the Fundamentalists are driving in their stakes to mark out the deadline of doctrine around the church, across which no one is to pass except on terms of agreement. They insist that we must all believe in the historicity of certain special miracles, preeminently the virgin birth of our Lord; that we must believe in a special theory of inspiration-that the original documents of the Scripture, which of course we no longer possess, were inerrantly dictated to men a good deal as a man might dictate to a stenographer; that we must believe in a special theory of the Atonement-that the blood of our Lord, shed in a substitutionary death, placates an alienated Deity and makes possible welcome for the returning sinner."
Fosdick considered the doctrine of a blood atonement a "slaughterhouse religion"1, and "precivilized barbarity."2
What this line of thinking is saying is that while Jesus' going to the Cross should be looked at as an example of perfect servanthood and sacrifice, the idea that God would send His Son to a violent death on the Cross is barbaric and would never happen. Thus, Fosdick (and those who adhere to this reasoning) rejects Christ as a substitute for our penalty of sin("the wages of sin is death" - Romans 6:23).
In our earlier article titled "Slaughterhouse Religion", we showed where contemplatives and emerging church leaders hold to the same view. 3 During this time of the year, when so many churches are holding Easter services (in honor of the death and resurrection of Jesus), how many of these same churches are clinging to contemplative/emerging spirituality without even realizing what it really stands for. If Jesus' going to the Cross and shedding blood was merely an act of service and sacrifice, an example for others to follow, and was not actually a substitutionary payment for the sins of humanity, then why celebrate Easter and the resurrection? It would make no sense. Those churches who cling to contemplative/emergent ideologies and practices should reevaluate this. While they cling to one (contemplative), they deny the other (the atonement) even if they don't realize it.
More Information:
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch....sereligion.htm
Whatever happened to "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission"? (Hebrews 9:22) Why is the "blood" removed from some of the modern versions of the Bible? I believe that we are in the last days and the apostasy is increasing.
Any thoughts?