Book Review: Accessible Atonement: Disability, Theology, and the Cross of Christ.

In Accessible Atonement, DavidMcLachlan builds a bridge between disability theology and atonement theology. Disability theology reframes the theological conversation so that disabled people find space within the church and her theology. Atonement theology seeks to understand what Christ did for us on the cross. There is much to praise in this work, although deeper inclusion of recent developments in Christological anthropology would improve the argument.

McLachlan makes the case that, although atonement theology and disability theology use similar language, they frequently “talk past each other” because they have different objectives. Chapter One shows how, by using similar language to atonement theology, disability theology emphasises that Jesus identifies with us in the diversity of our experience, including disability. McLachlan then argues that disability theology has an insufficient focus on the universal impact of the cross as the way God saves humanity from sin and will set the entire world right. Chapter Two argues that no one model nor metaphor of atonement says everything that needs to be said. Instead, we get a fuller picture when we consider the three main objective atonement theories (what God did for us on the cross); atonement as sacrifice, justice and victory together. Refreshingly, McLachlan then shows that based on the objective work of Christ, the subjective (how the cross is an example of how we live) moral influence theory takes its place as the Spirit empowers us to live holy lives. McLachlan continues this argument in Chapter Three. Atonement theology meets the needs of disability theology, as it holds the objective and the subjective together. Because it shows how God, through his Spirit, is changing his people to become more welcoming of disabled people.

In Chapter Four, McLachlan describes his constructive proposal, atonement-as-participation, as an inclusive “theological protocol” that he uses to assess the objective and subjective models he discussed earlier. Through the incarnation and cross of Christ, God participated in the creation, and took on every aspect of the human experience. Therefore, God allowed all the risk, contingency and suffering of this broken creation to fall on him. By doing this, God can forgive all sin and take responsibility for how he created the world. Thus, the particular event of Christ’s suffering and death will impact the whole of creation, all of humanity, including all disabled people. McLachlan then applies atonement-as-participation to disability theology in Chapter Five. This protocol helps us to see how God, in the incarnation and cross of Christ, gives dignity to all people—not least disabled people—by taking on our contingency and risk. Therefore, McLachlan argues, the cross must be the foundation of any argument for disabled people’s inclusion in the church. This revitalises inclusive readings of the Scripture, especially the healing narratives of the gospels. Finally, McLachlan closes this chapter by arguing for a broad concept of salvation. Atonement-as-participation shows that God dealt with much more than moral sin on the cross. For McLachlan, salvation means that we can partake in “the whole of the benefits secured by God in Christ through the atonement” (128). In his final chapter, McLachlan returns to models of atonement to argue that, by broadening our concept of the cross, atonement-as-participation revitalises atonement theology by showing that the cross of Christ deals with all our alienation, not only moral sin. McLachlan concludes by highlighting that atonement-as-participation is inherently inclusive of disabled people.

There is much to appreciate in McLachlan’s work. Not least, that rather than attempting to write a disability theology of the cross, he begins with the broad Christian gospel, and asks how that gospel, centred on the cross, can speak to the particular needs of disabled people and disability theology. Also, because disability theology emphasises how churches must become more inclusive, McLachlan revitalises the moral influence theory, while giving objective models of atonement the attention they need. This gives the hope that the Spirit changes people’s behaviour in the church because of what Christ did for them on the cross. Through this, he successfully invites disability theology to put the cross in its rightful place at the foundation of its theologising.

However, Accessible Atonement could be strengthened in two ways. First, since we still marginalise disabled people within the church, disability theology focuses on reforming the Church and her theology so disabled people are fully embraced with the dignity we have as beloved children of God. But, because these claims can seem to be weakened by acknowledging problems in disabled people, this stream of theology is reluctant to show how God needs to change us. But McLachlan needed to challenge this impulse more strongly given the context of atonement theology. Since we are all fallen people, a truly inclusive atonement theology begins by reminding us that irrespective of our disability status, each person needs the full breath of what Christ achieved on the cross, applied to us in our particularity. Second, McLachlan could make his argument for atonement-as-participation stronger if he included a greater reflection on the recapitulation model of atonement. Christ does what we cannot, as the second Adam, and as our representative to the Father. This has been developed in the theology of incarnation as it has emerged in Trinitarian theology following Barth and Rahner. Here, and in Christological anthropology more generally, Christ’s full participation in our humanity is teased out in greater detail.

These critiques aside, I heartily recommend Accessible Atonement both to those who want to read theology with disabled people in mind and those seeking a more rounded atonement theology in general. McLachlan succeeds in showing how atonement theology gets impoverished when it focuses on moral sin alone, but needs to focus on all that Christ achieved on the cross. He also succeeds in demonstrating that the lens of disability can sharpen our understanding even in the most well examined areas of theology.

Immanuel Koks is a PhD candidate at the University of Otago. As a person with a coordination disability, his research interest is to use a disability lens to sharpen our understanding of how we can participate in God’s hopeful work in the world, even with our vulnerabilities and limitations. Immanuel is also a professional teaching fellow in Laidlaw College’s School of Social Practice where he teaches the course: The Theology of Suffering and Hope