11th March 2026

When, in my very early 20s, a lapsed Catholic friend asked me what I believed about God and Jesus, I made a complete mess of ‘sharing my faith’ with her. By the time I’d finished going on about God’s plan of salvation, I could see she was only listening out of politeness; “that’s very interesting”, she lied.

Later, during my ministerial training, writing an essay about the various theories of the atonement – what happened at the Cross, and how it changed humankind’s relationship with God – I realised that much of what I’d read previously in IVP paperbacks and, now, in weightier theological tomes, didn’t always work for me. They tended to provide answers to questions I didn’t have and offer philosophical solutions I personally found unconvincing and sometimes even unnecessary. 

Not that I wish to deny the real value of such answers and solutions – these explanations have developed over centuries in response to people’s genuine need to make sense of the Biblical story and their own experience of moral failure, estrangement, loss and helplessness. That said, I would place my emphasis somewhere else.

If I were to have that conversation with my friend again, this time I’d be talking about love, for that for me is where salvation begins and ends. Instead of majoring on things like sin and repentance, I’d want to begin by assuring her that she’s dearly beloved of God already. Not until she’d grasped that fundamental truth – (or is it, rather, her being grasped by that truth?) – only then would it seem appropriate to explore how God’s love has sorted things for us with the gift of his Son Jesus.

Ken Stewart