The authors of this book claim that to abandon the Christian doctrine of the Atonement is to abandon the central witness of the gospel, for atonement speaks of nothing less than God 's reconciliation of the world in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Drawing on the classical theories of the Atonement, engaging in creative theological construction, they present a set of cogent, cohesive alternatives to either rejecting the doctrine out of hand, or uncritically accepting it.