Abstract
David McLachlan's Accessible Atonement: Disability, Theology, and the Cross of Christ invites readers to imagine how asking what significance the cross of Christ has for the lives of those with disability broadens our perspective on atonement theology. While this volume is an installment in the “Studies in Religion, Theology, and Disability” series, its significance lies in McLachlan's conscious effort “not to seek out or try to construct a sort of special-interest theology, or a special reading of Scripture, which only applies to, or ‘works’ for, those particularly concerned with disability” (3). This book, rather, aims to provide a framework for understanding the atonement that “inherently includes all of humanity, together with all its variety, including what we call disability” (154). In this, McLachlan considers how the incorporation of disability perspectives into predominant models of the atonement enrich theological accounts of what God does at the cross of Christ.
McLachlan notes that disability theology largely focuses on anthropology, access, hermeneutics, and soteriology: questions related to personhood, who is welcome in worship, how to read accounts of healing in the Bible, and the nature of salvation. What has not been considered is how Christ's atonement informs these ideas. Working with the three “most enduring” models of atonement—sacrifice, victory, and justice—McLachlan articulates the key ideas of each before noting the limitations the traditional understandings have from a disability perspective. His intention is not to reject the models, but instead, by noting their limits in the face of disability, to show the necessity of an approach that can account for the particular lives of those with disabilities.
One of the great challenges for atonement theology as approached by disability theologians is uncoupling disability from sin and salvation from able-bodied assumptions of what healing entails. McLachlan's approach, drawing upon the work of Frances Young, is to emphasize God's presence in the world by which God “takes responsibility for the gone-wrongness of creation” (67). This is not to equate disability with “wrongness” in itself (that is, as a consequence of sin), but acknowledges that there are ways of being in the world that lead to alienation from self, community, and God. McLachlan calls this “atonement-as-presence,” in that the atonement is affected by God's willingness in Christ to be present in the “gone-wrongness” of the world.
McLachlan incorporates atonement-as-presence into each of the models of atonement, exemplifying how the models of sacrifice, victory, and justice are expanded by the lens of God's presence such that those with disabilities find connection to atonement in the context of their experience of the world. That is, McLachlan explores how seeing the work of the cross of Christ through the metaphor of God's presence expresses the significance of the atonement in lives with intellectual disability, physical impairment, and the attendant ways that the variety of disabilities shape daily living. Yet, McLachlan's approach is not merely to account for disability, but to offer a richer understanding of the work of atonement for all humanity. Disability is not a special case that must be fit into a model that does not account for it. Thus, to affirm that sin was dealt with at the cross is not rejected. Rather, atonement-as-presence claims that, not only sin, but all else that alienates is effectively countered at the cross because God is present in all the alienation and overcomes it. Importantly, this view challenges able-bodied assumptions about wholeness, accessibility, and healing both in the present and the eschaton.
The strength of Accessible Atonement is that it does what is sets out to do: articulate an understanding of the atonement that works from traditional models, while showing how accounting for a disability perspective deepens each. The aim is not to provide a specialized model of atonement for those with disabilities. Rather, McLachlan's atonement theology affirms that awareness of the disability perspective provides a view that is more broadly encompassing for all people—disabled or not. Though at times technical and theologically dense, it is well written and accessible. It is a much-needed contribution to the field of atonement studies, and is an important read for academics, seminarians, pastors, and others seeking to understand Christ's activity at the cross. This is not a volume to be relegated to the field of disability studies, but is instead an excellent example of the ways in which engagement with the broad diversity of human being refines and expands the theological tradition.