Eugene England - A Non-Metaphysical Atonement

It is clear that long before Christ had actually performed the central acts of the Atonement—the suffering in Gethsemane, the death on the cross, the resurrection—men were able to be affected by those acts through the prophetic knowledge that God was willing to perform them in the future. What this means is that the mechanics of the mission itself did not occur in time as a necessary precursor to their effect on men, as some theories of the Atonement would require; Christ’s mission was not to straighten out some metaphysical warp in the universe that Adam’s taking of the fruit had created. The effects of the Atonement were not metaphysical but moral and spiritual: they reach men living at any time and place through each man’s knowledge of the spirit and events of the Atonement.

-Eugene England, "That They Might Not Suffer"

Eugene England - Unsatisfactory Theories of Atonement

The question “Why is man’s salvation dependent on Christ and the events surrounding his death?” is the most central and the most difficult question in Christian theology. The answers (and there are many) are, as i have said, the chief scandal of Christianity to the non-believer. Attempts to define logical theories of the Atonement based on New Testament scriptures have been largely contradictory and ultimately futile—mainly because the New Testament is not a book of theology, a logical treatise, but rather gives us the reactions, the varied emotional responses, of men to the Atonement as they experienced it and tried to find images for their joy. Some men clearly felt released from the powers of evil and darkness which they believed, much more literally than any of us today, were all about them. Some believed that their souls had been bought from the devil. Some felt that Christ had taken their place in suffering the just and necessary punishment under the law for their sins. The explanation i have tried to develop, based largely on Book of Mormon scriptures, is at significant variance with most of these theories, especially on one major point: The redemptive effect of the Atonement depends on how an individual man responds to it rather than on some independent effect on the universe or God, which theories such as the ransom theory, the substitution theory, the satisfaction theory, etc., all tend to imply. of course, the rich reality of the Atonement lies beyond any theory or explanation, including the one I am suggesting here, and some men bring themselves into redeeming relationship with God from within the framework of each of these theories as they somehow reach through to that rich reality. But the need for powerful personal response and for a release from the immobilizing demands of justice within man seem to me crucial and best served by an explanation different from the traditional theories.

Eugene England, "That They Might Not Suffer"

Eugene England - On the "Demands of Justice"

Christ is the unique manifestation in human experience of the fulness of that unconditional love from God which Paul chose to represent with the Greek term agape.  As Paul expressed it, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Christ's sacrificial love was not conditional upon our qualities, our repentance, anything; he expressed his love to us while we were yet in our sins--not completing the process of forgiveness, which depends on our response, but initiating it in a free act of mercy. This is a kind of love quite independent from the notion of justice. There is no quid-pro-quo about it.  It is entirely unbalanced, unmerited, unrelated to the specific worthiness of the object (except in that each man has intrinsic worth through his eternal existence and God-like potential), and that is precisely why it is redemptive. It takes a risk, without calculation, on the possibility that man can realize his infinite worth. It gets directly at that barrier in man, his sense of justice, which makes him incapable of having unconditional love for himself--unable to respond positively to his own potential, because he is unable to forgive himself, unable to be at peace with himself until  he has somehow "made up" in suffering for his sins, something he is utterly incapable of doing.  The demands of justice that Amulek is talking about, which must be overpowered, are from man's own sense of justice, not some abstract eternal principle but our own demands on ourselves, demands which rightly bring us into estrangement with ourselves (as we gain new knowledge of right but do not live up to it) and thus begin the process of growth through repentance, but which cannot complete that process.  an awareness of the true meaning and source of that last sacrifice and its intent has the power, as Amulek says, "to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance."

Eugene England - No Greater Need

We have no greater need than that there be a force of healing in all our public and inner strife: that there be some source of forgiveness and change for the oppressor as well as help for the oppressed; that there be something large enough in love to reach past the wrongs we each have done and can never fully make restitution for; that there be hope in the possibility that any man can be renewed by specific means to a life of greater justice and mercy toward others. But for most men the claim that such a possibility truly exists is scandalous.

Eugene England, "That They Might Not Suffer: The Gift of the Atonement"

What are we to do then about what seem increasing divisions in the church centered around the efforts of some Mormons to join in the multicultural and feminist revolution? One frequent response is to quote Christ's command, "I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye ar not mine" (D&C 38:27), as a way of condemning those whose otherness and interest in diversity seem to bring division. I don't believe, however, that Christ means "Be all alike in the Church or I will not accept you," but rather "Be like me by accepting each other in the Church, even if you're not all alike." He is asking us to be one in our acceptace of diversity, not as a denial of diversity.

As evidence for this crucial interpretation, I offer the following: Just before making that command, Christ pleads, "Let every man esteem his brother as himself." He then retells a story of a man who has twelve sons and who claims to be no respecter of persons, a just man, but nevertheless, "saith unto the one son: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there (D&C38:25-26)...Finally, Christ concludes, "This I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you be one." Clearly, to be like Christ rather than the man in the parable, we need to learn to love unconditionally and treat equally all the members of our church and human families, no matter how different they are.

-Eugene England, Making Peace (pg. 190-191).