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But you have found a Baptist church which you are a member of, yes?

I appreciate all the responses, I really do. I didn't want to get into debating atonement views, as I'm sure that has been done extensively here. I am firm in mine, and I assure you that is so because I've studied them all and know exactly what and why I believe. My purpose with this thread is...

I don't deny what those scriptures plainly and explicitly say. I deny what you say they imply -- that Jesus was punished and killed in our place, paying the penalty for our sin debt. You won't find that said in scripture or believed in the early church.

I'm sorry to hear that. Your posts have helped me since I've been here.

Thank you for your post! My views coincide to a great extent with yours, I believe. It is refreshing to find a Baptist with such beliefs. But aren't you in very much a minority in your church on these views? If so, how do you remain there? Maybe your answer will help me to find one.

No. What makes you ask that? I didn't even know of this forum until I left Orthodoxy and started to explore Baptists and other Protestant groups. I don't know of any Orthodox or ex-Orthodox who would not have a big problem with the Roman Catholic and Protestant atonement theories.

I don't see how you think these verses teach that Jesus was punished and killed instead of us, or that he paid the penalty for our sins. These verses do not say that.

Okay, how about this: Jesus said that He came to give His life as a ransom for many (original scriptural atonement teaching). Nowhere did He say that He came to pay the penalty for our "sin debt" (atonement theory invented 1500 years later). PSA cannot be found in scripture or the early church.

I don't see PSA in any of those scriptures. And neither did the early church.

The biggest stumbling block is the doctrine of the atonement, not justification by faith or the "sacraments".

If I said exactly how I feel about it, I could get banned. I think it is a gross misrepresentation of who God is and how He provides for our salvation.

Sounds reasonable.

I'm not the only one who believes it. The early church did, and the Orthodox Church has believed it from the start. Many Protestants do, but they are not the majority in their respective denominations.

The problem is I don't know if there is any place I fit in. I have a few friends who hold my atonement views. Most are in the Orthodox Church.

Yes, I'll try. I don't believe that any view originating in Protestantism is Biblical or held by the early church. I think they all misrepresent who God is and what He requires for salvation. I know that the Atonement doctrine which Orthodoxy holds is also held in Protestantism, but I don't know...

I know what you're saying. But I must point out that the Protestant doctrines of atonement are essentially the Roman Catholic doctrine made worse. The Satisfaction view is abhorrent to me, too. I don't object to diversity of opinion, but I have difficulty supporting a church, or a denomination...

The doctrine in question, for me, is the Atonement. And it's a big deal with me. Coming from an Orthodox background, it's the doctrine I'm having the most trouble with in my "conversion" to Protestantism and specifically to the Southern Baptists.

Could you be a member of a church, or financially support a church, with which you had a serious disagreement on one major doctrine?

I envy those on here and elsewhere who think they have the "truth" and no one else does. Out of the probable hundreds of thousands who feel the same way, and out of the hundreds of denominations, and multiple thousands of independent churches, I wonder which hold to "truth"? They obviously all...

Walter, thank you for your post. And yes, I did consider the Convergence Movement, although I no longer hold to the necessity of the so-called apostolic succession. This might have been a possibility for me when I still lived in a big city but not now, living in this very rural area. But I...