2026-2027 Faculty Research Grants

Adriani Rodrigues (Theology & Christian Philosophy). 

Memory, Forgiveness, and Forgetting in the Theology of Atonement.

This project explores the intersection of memory, forgiveness, and forgetting in the theological reflection on the atonement. The exploration adopts an interdisciplinary approach, involving contemporary philosophy, systematic theology, and biblical studies. In dialogue with contemporary philosophy, the complex relationship between the duty to remember (justice) and the hope of a reconciled memory, which is a complexity informed particularly by the brutal seriousness of evil, constitutes the philosophical starting point for the problematization of atoning forgiveness in Christian soteriology. In the context of systematic theology, the traditional models of atonement in Christian theology are articulated from the perspective of memory, forgiveness, and forgetting. In connection with the area of biblical studies, the cultic language of sacrifice and priesthood, which represents a significant part of the Christian discourse about the atonement, the project intends to uncover, from these cultic concepts, soteriological dimensions of remembering, forgetting, and forgiving in the Bible. Overall, the project addresses the question of how the cultic discourse of Christ’s sacrifice and priesthood interacts with the dynamics of remembering and forgetting in the theology of atoning reconciliation, in the complex interaction of forgiveness and justice. The study intends to indicate that the cultic images and practices of the atonement are strongly related with the dynamics of remembering and forgetting. In light of these explorations in the theology of the atonement, forgetting in forgiveness does not imply amnesia but a pacified form of memory that is open to the future, on the basis of reconciliation.