Some Thoughts about Atonement
1. Substiutianary Atonement is not, at present a useful model of the atonement for me. Calvin's penal substutionary atonement seems to me outright heretical because it impugns the justice of the Father- in that a just God would not allow an innocent victim to take the punishment due to a guilty party. I do not know enough about Anslem's formulation of substutionary atonement to say if I have the same theological problem with his formulations.

2. Christ the Victor makes much more sense to me- Luther, Dante, and most of the Mothers and Fathers saw the atonement as Christ descending into 'hell' to set free sinners and win victory over Death and the Enimey. In this view Jesus' death does not appease God's wrath, for God's love is stronger then God's wrath always. However, through our sins we had been enslaved to Sin, Death, and the Devil, and Christ took on our form, apart from sin to free us from this- to loose our chains. This is why I prefer the Apostle's Creed to the Nicene.

3. It follows from this that the work of loosing chains is how we best imitate Christ.