We are not sinners hell bound without being redeemed and atoned for by the death of Jesus on the Cross.

The Substitutionary Theory of the Atonement has to go. Along with all the other doctrines and dogmas produced by the Christian Church over the 2,026 years since Jesus was executed for crimes against the Synagogue in turning over the tables of money changes in the courtyard of the Temple.

The Christian Church, and particularly the Church of Rome, had 400 years to perfect its doctrine and theology from Jesus’ death to “the closure of the Canon” when no more new texts were allowed into the Bible of the day and Christian Doctrine was closed to new ideas and possibilities about Jesus and God.

Two questions put God out of business and atonement/redemption as well: If this is the best God can do (2026 years of human history), God should be fired. And if this is not the best God can do, God should be fired. God has no foundation for seeking fellowship with us and remains in place by way of the threat of hell’s fire and punishment if we don’t kowtow to what the theologians tell us to believe about God in order to be saved from hell.

At this point, I put forward the Parable of the Prodigal Son as Jesus’ understanding of the way our guilt is to be disposed of. “Get out of here with your litany of Confession and Repentance,” says the Prodigal’s father. “For you were lost, but now you are found! You were dead but now your are alive!” This is how God is to treat the children of God, not by sending them to hell for the wrongs they have done, but by welcoming them into the eternal habitations because of his loving kindness for them all each and every one.

And with this understanding, as Jesus would say, “The old has passed away and behold! The NEW has come!” And, as Harry Chapin said in “The Cotton Patch Gospel,” “Spitball me Lord, across the home plate of life!”