ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at some of the soteriological difficulties encountered by the sample. It begins with exemplarist interpretations of the cross. Exemplarist soteriology has little room for such concepts as atonement in the sense of expiatory sacrifice, or substitution of Jesus taking our place in bearing the penalty of sin, or justification of being counted righteous in the eyes of God. Traditionalists believe in everything conventionally included in the Christian religion, but cannot explain what they believe or why they believe it. At the centre of evangelical soteriology, then, is a mystical experience of Jesus as a loving and present companion in one's inner life. The substitutionary theory of atonement is a widely accepted hallmark of evangelicalism and all the evangelicals in the sample subscribe to a version of this theory. They can be said to have a narrative or story soteriology, albeit a fragmented one, as opposed to a systematic or analytical soteriology.
