Atonement Understood: PSTC 2026

Coming up in April 2026, the second biennial Pacific Systematic Theology Colloquium will be meeting at Gateway Seminary of the West. Check out the event page here, and get tickets at Eventbrite here.

The topic is atonement, under the title “Atonement Understood.” That title isn’t a boast of having exhaustively comprehended the divine work of reconciliation, but a recognition that the work of theology includes taking up the task of explaining this doctrine. For most of the twentieth century it was popular to talk about various “atonement theories.” Although that “theories” framework was distracting and has undergone devastating critique, every theological account of the doctrine includes a claim to have grasped its truth and its position within the Christian doctrinal system.

Our plenary speakers this year are both Los Angeles based, and both authors of multiple books on atonement: Adam Johnson (Torrey Honors College at Biola University) and Jeremy Treat (RealityLA). Johnson’s talk will be “The Theology of Fittingness in the Doctrine of the Atonement: A Constructive Retrieval,” and Treat’s will be “In Our Place: The Pervasive Nature of Substitution.” Both of these talks are serious and even programmatic statements of how to think accurately and expansively about this doctrine.

Join us! Tickets are available now at Eventbrite, and our audience has included professors, independent scholars, pastors, students (seminary to high school in fact), and all sorts of interested laypeople. Both of our plenaries are clear communicators, and we’ll have about a dozen breakout papers from a wide variety of scholars.

Ah, the breakout papers! I’ve buried the lede. The Call for Papers is officially open from now until Feb 20. If you’re developing written work about the atonement and want to present it at this conference, please submit a paper proposal for us to consider. This conference is pretty tightly themed in the sense that it’s truly focused on this one doctrine and is not just a venue for whatever you’re working on. But the conference is broad in the sense that we’re thinking expansively and systematically about the atonement, and can approach it from a variety of disciplines (biblical, philosophical, historical) and traditions.

Here’s the official CFP language:

Send a 300-word proposal including your paper’s title, key argument, and the sources you will interact with. Be concise and precise about your argument, so the planning committee can make an informed decision about what they are selecting. Include a CV for background, but PSTC welcomes independent scholars and student proposals. Please email your proposal to pstcolloquium@gmail.com by February 20, 2026.

That gmail is monitored during this season by the institutional host, Gateway Seminary, and by me for editorial questions. Feel free to reach out. And do help spread the word if you know theologians who ought to come to this event –especially if you know somebody who ought to submit a proposal.

PSTC is a biennial gathering designed to foster theological discussion and collaboration on the west coast. It’s organized by Fred Sanders (Torrey Honors College) and Uche Anizor (Talbot School of Theology) of Biola University, and David Rathel, Chris Chun, and Paul Jo of Gateway Seminary of the West. This team of Los Angeles-area theologians are committed to keeping theological dialogue going strong in the western region of the United States. Anyone is welcome, but the PSTC exists to meet the needs of theologians working in the western third of the U.S. Our region has various established larger conferences (the now-biennial Los Angeles Theology Conference), institutional conferences, church and apologetics events, denominational meetings, and regional chapters of national societies (AAR, SBL, ETS). But PSTC meets a regional need for an independent, academic theology event that spans confessions, traditions, and institutions for meaningful work on Christian doctrines.

Back in 2024, our inaugural meeting focused on Christology, and featured plenary talks by Dan Treier and Steve Duby. It was great! The Call for Papers drew a large number of excellent applications, of which twelve were presented in breakout sessions. There was a spirit of shared inquiry, lively interaction among all the guests, and collegiality spanning from senior scholars to grad students and ministry workers. (Check out the event page from 2024 to see the full slate of papers we had.) With the 2026 conference, we take up the doctrine of atonement and seek to understand it in broad, systematic perspective.