text: Of the many theories of atonement, penal substitutionary atonement may be the worst and most damaging. It assumes that God loves us because Christ died for us, whereas the clear message of Christianity is the opposite: that Christ died for us because God loves us. In some sense it's restorative justice, not retributive justice that Christianity teaches, despite the prominence of that theory of atonement. (All atonement theories ultimately fail, of course.)