In recent years, T. R. Halvorson has been tirelessly working to support the doctrine of the vicarious satisfaction. Scholars who deny it—Gerhard Forde, Steven Paulson, and others—have been making inroads among confessional Lutherans in places we would least expect them. Halvorson has taken it upon himself to lay their errors to rest, through a series of books he labels Atonement in Confessional Lutheran Theology that painstakingly present evidence from Johannes Quenstedt, Baier-Walther, Franz Pieper, Abraham Calov, and others. This volume is more personal, being a listing of items drawn largely from Halvorson’s perspective as a dedicated Lutheran layman. Halvorson dismantles Forde and company with an abundance of easily-available evidence. Forde and company may be erudite systematicians, but Halvorson’s response is sublime, as if to say, “That’s not what I learned in catechism class.”
Halvorson’s simple approach, arising from the heart of a catechumen, lacks the flavor of a theological treatise. Colloquialisms abound, and Halvorson’s list of “Lutheran” hymns confessing the vicarious satisfaction includes a number of Methodist and Baptist hymns, as is to be expected from the milieu of any American Lutheran catechumen. But the effect of this disarming style is, as it were, to bring down the mighty from their seats. Any layman should be able to see through the nonsense, however veiled in mortar caps and doctoral regalia. “That’s not what I learned in catechism class.”
Burnell F. Eckardt
Pastor Emeritus, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
Kewanee, Illinois.