I listened to a mother tell her child he was being punished for failing to attend to her ‘because that’s what happens…’. It made me think of the retributive logic in society: punishment as justice, revenge as moral balance. And I wondered where it had come from. Why can’t we simply forgive? This was how I found myself studying atonement theology.

At the heart of nonviolent atonement theology lies a simple but revolutionary claim: God is not the author of violence, but its victim and healer. The cross is about exposing human violence, forgiving it, and transforming it through love. This view invites us into the presence of a God who refuses to return harm for harm.

As J. Denny Weaver puts it: “The narrative of Jesus does not depict God as a God of violence, but rather as a God who overcomes violence through suffering love.” The cross, then, is not the site of divine punishment, but divine solidarity—Jesus identifying fully with those crushed by injustice and inviting us to do the same. In this light, Jesus’ death is not payment demanded by God, but the consequence of human fear. What is revealed on the cross is not divine anger, but the depth of human violence—and the unshakable mercy of a God who forgives even while dying at our hands.

This understanding resonates deeply with the founding vision of Forthspring, born in west Belfast out of a longing for healing between communities scarred by sectarian violence. Forthspring’s mission—to bring Catholics and Protestants, families and youth, together across lines of suspicion—mirrors the essence of nonviolent atonement: not the erasure of difference, but the refusal to let difference justify violence.

These theological insights do not stand alone within Christianity. They resonate deeply with the wisdom of Islam, which frames God primarily as Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim—The Most Merciful, The Most Compassionate. “My mercy encompasses all things,” says God in the Qur’an (7:156). It is a view that calls both Muslims and Christians to reflect God’s mercy in the world—to build societies where justice heals rather than punishes.

While Buddhism has no doctrine of atonement, the Dhammapada teaches: “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal law” (verse 5). This is similar to Jesus’ prayer on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Both voices—Jesus and the Buddha—refuse the logic of vengeance and instead offer a way to break the cycle of suffering.

Forthspring, working in a context of interreligious and intercommunity tension, offers space for these shared values to take root. Our work is not about denying religious difference, but harnessing the spiritual common ground that refuses violence in the name of God.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned a world healed by love, not domination. His concept of the Beloved Community is where nonviolent atonement comes to life: a world where justice and mercy meet, where former enemies share tables, and where systems of harm are transformed into spaces of healing.

As King wrote, “At the centre of nonviolence stands the principle of love.” That love is not sentimental—it is courageous, rooted in the conviction that every person has inherent dignity, even the wrongdoer.

For those of us working in community, especially with youth affected by violence, the implications are urgent. At Forthspring, children are not taught to carry the burdens of the past, but to question them, transform them, and lay them down; adults model restorative justice rather than retribution; diverse faiths sit together in the shared conviction that peace is sacred, and violence is not inevitable.