'This "exemplification theory" of the atonement - the crucified Jesus as the supreme example - is strong on challenge but weak on comfort. It has little to say about what the crucifixion actually did, what it actually accomplished in terms of reconciling God and humankind. That we are alienated from God and in need to reconciled is the premise of the entire biblical story, without which it simply makes no sense. In this liberal theory, it is hard to know what is mean by "It is finished." Perhaps that Jesus lived to its conclusion an extremely good, even uniquely good, life. That might elicit our admiration and our efforts at emulation, but it doesn't say much about our inability to be what we strive to be. It doesn't say much about the ways in which we are what we hate. In short it doesn't say much about our salvation. Christianity is about salvation.'
Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon, p.212.
