But for the first thousand years of the church a different view held sway, a view Aulen labels Christus Victor. It is also called the "classical" or "ransom" view of the atonement. Aulen describes the central idea:

Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent; one waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other--things that are really of no consequence--the door is shut and can be opened only from the outside.

Now here's what puzzles me about this formulation. It seems like, generally speaking, that our understandings of loving and liking are informed, to a certain extent, by the quantitative model. That is, liking seems to be the lower bar when compared to love. Love seems to be the harder and deeper of the two.

I think the answer is that liking seems to capture the notion of "unconditionality" better than love. If so, we see once again how liking is a better translation of agape.

In sum, I firmly believe that my ultimate salvation (and justification) is dependent and contingent upon my relationship to the Sermon on the Mount. And I believe this simply because I'm a disciple of Jesus. I take him at his word.

The point being, these shepherds were pretty tough, even violent, men. They aren't into sheep because they are sweet looking props for our Nativity sets. When you see those sheep you should see dollar signs, stock portfolios, walking retirement plans.

Here he says something really important, making a point one doesn’t encounter enough on the web, nor in the street.  I’m talking about the seemingly irreconcilable link between freedom and personal renunciation

And as I listened to Dr. O'Day I wondered about that. What difference might it make in our churches if we saw ourselves as friends rather than as family?

Again, Crossan doesn't believe these miracles happened exactly as recounted in the New Testament. He does believe, however, that Jesus was known as a healer and exorcist. So Crossan seeks to find a way to reconcile his skepticism about Jesus having supernatural powers with Jesus' 1st Century reputation as miracle-worker.

Now to be clear, All Souls Day doesn't endorse universal reconciliation. The idea is to pray for the faithful departed. But there are three things about All Souls Day that resonate with those who subscribe to the vision of universal reconciliation.

From a definitional standpoint, profanity and vulgarity share semantic core. Specifically, something is profaned when its sacred or holy character is defiled and debased rendering it “common.” In a similar way, vulgarity refers to “crude language.” But we should be quick to note that the origin of the word vulgar is rooted in the attempts of social elites to distinguishing their speech and habits from the lower, poorer classes.

In short, I think the major theme of the movie is this failure of making sense of the moral universe. The world becomes morally opaque and the effort at trying to make sense of it becomes too heavy. The sheriff is worn down by what I'll call theodicy fatigue.