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Four major theories of Atonement in the Christian tradition are summarized: the Orthodox ransom theory, Anselm's satisfaction theory, Calvin's penal substitution theory, and Abelard's subjective theory. Perspectives on Atonement found in Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth, Rene Girard, and Robert Jenson are also presented. It is argued that a medical metaphor (Christ as the Healer who submits to the violence of his patients) is more helpful than a legal metaphor. The incarnation is God the Father's action in sending the Son on a medical mission for the healing of humanity, and the crucifixion and resurrection complete the mission. We can always hope that human beings will use their freedom to accept divine healing rather than to reject it, thus growing toward a more peaceful future.

This chapter begins with a brief overview of the doctrine of incarnation and its interpretation in the nineteenth century to set a Christological reflection in historical and theological context. Then, it examines the concepts of paradox, Christ's divinity from history, the life of Jesus, Christ as the unity of God and an individual human being. It also explores the three forms of offence at Christ, Christ as a sign of contradiction, Christ's indirect communication, classical theories of atonement, Holy Communion, and how Christ atones for sin. The last section of the chapter differentiates two ways of relating to Christ: imitation and admiration. For Kierkegaard, the dual roles of Christ as redeemer and prototype of human beings, and Christ as the absolute paradox are central to his understanding of Christ.

This chapter, informed by Spivak's planetarity and Mignolo's “critical cosmopolitanism,” constructs a theology of the transterratorial that seeks not an originary paradise or a monolithic telos. Neither Eden nor the globe contains a theopolitics of friendship. The kingdom of God envisioned as planetary cosmopolis, however, offers parables and practices of the convivial in an ever-to-come, ever-displaced universe. Through various twists and turns, including some God-talk and an open-ended account of atonement theory and cosmology, it constructs a political theology from the uncanny (in this case, ou topos) ground of a strategic utopianism. Akin to Spivak's strategic essentialism, this strategy resists universal absolutes, yet recognizes the import (and inevitability) of universals employed as bearers of irreducible rights and collective responsibilities. The chapter concludes with a parable of the divine planetary cosmopolis: Pax Terra.

The concluding chapter summarizes the main findings and reasserts the primary thesis regarding the essential need to consider the influences of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Ernst Hengstenberg, and the mediating theologians on nineteenth-century Reformed theology in the United States. It briefly reviews the evidence indicating that American scholars were simultaneously receptive, inspired, and reactionary in their responses to German theology. The chapter also reaffirms the primary assertion that a transatlantic approach is required to bring into sharper focus the theological ideas and contexts of the Reformed theologies of Emanuel Gerhart and Charles Hodge, and that it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of European intellectual ideas to fully comprehend Reformed theology in America.