One common belief in the incoherent, confusing atmosphere of progressive Christianity, is the rejection of Christ's death on a cross as an atoning sacrifice. That, says a progressive ethos, is a despicable example of "cosmic child abuse."
Simon Gathercole writes:
"What I try to do in Defending Substitution is to show that substitution is actually an integral part of what is meant in the atonement in the New Testament. Attempts to say that it is philosophically dubious or that it is morally outrageous—the classic rhetoric about cosmic child abuse or whatever—is just so much useless rhetoric and simply demonstrates the presuppositions and prejudices of scholars rather than having anything particularly to do with the New Testament."
But of course.
(In N.T. Wright, Simon Gathercole, and Robert Stewart. What Did the Cross Accomplish? A Conversation About the Atonement, p. 35)
