If there is a doctrine that is more difficult to navigate than the Trinity or incarnation, the atonement would certainly be it, or so Oliver D. Crisp shows in this slim but detailed introduction to this fundamental Christian tenet. Although there is little disputing that the atonement is about Christ's reconciling work, the Christian tradition is less clear on how to understand that work or, as Crisp refrains, the mechanism through which Christ reconciles our estranged relationship with God.

That such consensus is lacking is demonstrated skillfully in Crisp's survey of various atonement accounts. He starts with patristic expressions, specifically, Irenaeus’ and Athanatius’ (chapter 2). He then moves to an array of more familiar, traditional accounts: the ransom view, attributing its rise to Gustaf Aulén's Christus Victor (chapter 3); Anselm's satisfaction doctrine (chapter 4); views centering on Christ as the moral exemplar of God's love for humanity, which Crisp traces to Peter Abelard and Faustus Socinus and calls John Hick their “modern equivalent” (chapter 5); and penal substitutionary accounts (chapter 6). Crisp continues with views focusing on God's role as the world's moral governor, for example, from Hugo Grotius and John Miley, and those who see Christ's reconciling work as penitential in nature but in a nonpenal way, for example, views from John McLeod Campbell, Thomas F. Torrance, and James Torrance (chapter 7). He then pivots to lesser known accounts such as those he calls the composite view, exemplified by Hans Boersma, James I. Packer, and J. Denny Weaver, and the kaleidoscopic approach, as displayed in Mark Baker's and Joel Green's work, which is more a theory about how models of atonement are generated (chapter 9).

Crisp maps out succinctly the virtues of each view and their commonalities, as well as their principal objections. The objection given its own chapter (rightly so) is whether Christ's atoning work requires the violence of crucifixion. Whether Crisp is assessing this objection in chapter 8 or others in preceding and subsequent chapters, he does so even-handedly, noting repeatedly that each account is not without biblical basis. Especially helpful is Crisp's observation that some accounts are better regarded as motifs and metaphors rather than full models or doctrines of atonement. Crisp's survey concludes in chapter 10, where he indicates a preference for a patristic version of atonement as theosis, arguing that it better accounts for the Pauline theme of humanity made like God through participation in Christ's life, death, and Resurrection.

Given this last chapter, Crisp's book is not just a highly accessible pros and cons survey of leading atonement theories but also a practical guide to doing constructive theology: attend carefully to the breadth and depth of the Christian tradition, identify all relevant objections, and weigh, critically and capaciously, responses to them. With that in mind, this book easily recommends itself for the seminary classroom and for any student interested in grappling with what the atonement can and should mean. (The book's glossary of terms and reading list at each chapter's end are particularly useful.)

All that is not to suggest that this book is complete, for some will surely notice that atonement accounts from a variety of liberation theologies, both Protestant and Catholic, are lacking. To his credit, much of the book's focus on the problem of atoning violence is motivated by the seriousness with which Crisp takes feminist assessments of traditional atonement theories, but his specific, singular focus on only one recent feminist critique is indicative of the book's narrower range. Furthermore, for a book that focuses on the mechanism through which Christ reconciles humanity back to God from sin, there is little discussion about whether the accounts treated in this book understand sin adequately. Perhaps this partially explains why liberationist accounts are given little to no space considering their alternative vision of sin as also structural and social. Nevertheless, when it comes to finding a text that is both easily readable and motivates deeper dives into atonement theology, I cannot think of a better work written so far than this one.