Reviews and critiques of Rashdall's  work on Atonement			HastingsRashdall.org.uk
Oxford Magazine, February 27th 1920: Review of  The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology, by CCJ Webb. (see also the letters to Webb from Rashdall) Are there not in the thought of Dr. Rashdall two tendencies, one towards a subordination of religion to ethics, and the other towards an emphasis on the paramount value of individual personality, which will ultimately turn out to be inconsistent with one another? The Hibbert Journal: Review of   The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology, by H R Mackintosh. (For technical reasons, production of a full transcript is necessarily delayed. SAB.). Two matters of some moment on which I should demur to the author's findings are these. First, his rejection of the great ransom passage in the Synoptics, and of the similar words used on betrayal night. These are really amongst the numerous pieces of evidence to be found in the Gospels that Jesus had in His mind the Suffering Servant of Is liii and that that picture of vicarious and redeeming pain had revealed Him, or helped to reveal Him to Himself. . . .			Journal of Theological Studies: Review of  The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology, by  J Oman. Much of the discussion of Paul's doctrine is in every way admirable. It is clear, learned, judicious, balanced. That Paul as a theologian often came short of Paul as a religious man is very probable, especially when his theology was polemic. Most theologians are in like case, possibly even Dr Rashdall. But when we find the most amazingly emancipated mind in relation to the old covenant taking over beliefs purely on scripture authority; and the man whose whole experience was determined by deliverance from the idea of law-ritual and moral alike, resting in a merely legal interpretation. . .   . . . we cannot feel confident that the explanations are adequate.
Two comments from W Temple: Letter to Rashdall, 1923: “I know that at a critical time of my life [your] influence, rooted in your combined love of truth and personal devotion to our Lord, was of supreme value.”   Extract from letter to E.W. Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham, January 1930: “I regard Rashdall’s book on the Atonement as a great achievement, but essentially a bad piece of theology -- because when he has decided that some Pauline or Augustine computation is untenable he never stops to enquire why S. Paul or S. Augustine wanted to hold it, what spiritual value it had for them: he omits from his study the very thing that matters most. And that seems to me typical of very many Modernist utterances.” (both quoted in ‘William Temple Archbishop of Canterbury’,  F A Iremonger, Oxford, 1948.)			Later articles: Was Abelard an Exemplarist? Theology, R O P Taylor. An article looking at Sikes' biography of Abelard and Helen Waddell's translations of his hymns as well as Rashdall's work. A good knowledge of Latin is needed to evaluate the author's answer. The Moral Theory of the Atonement: An Historical and Theological Critique. The Journal of Theology, Vol 38, pp 205-220, Alister McGrath. A very aggressive attack on the theory in general, and The Idea of Atonement in particular. The writer starts with a quite different world-view – "The idea of enslavement to alien forces, which Rashdall appears to regard as a hangover from the middle ages, is now taken too seriously to permit us to overlook this aspect of his theology" – so his conclusions are hardly surprising.   Back to "Explore the writings and correspondence of Hastings Rashdall"