What Does It Mean to Be ‘Saved’? Brandon Peterson's Season of Big Questions

In class, Brandon Peterson tells his students that the word “salvation” is a lot like the word “religion.” “Many people commonly use it and assume they know what it means,” he says, “but once you stop for a minute and try to set down a definition, it is really tricky to do so.” 

As Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Religious Studies Program in the Department of World Languages & Cultures at the University of Utah, Peterson patiently defines terms with an instinct for what’s at stake. In the span of a few months this year, he has published two journal articles and co-authored a book. In these works, his compelling arguments are as comfortable imagining Jesus among extraterrestrials as they are untangling two thousand years of Christian-Jewish relations.

Peterson's specialty is systematic theology, with a focus on Catholicism and comparative theology which can sound abstract until you realize it's about how people understand their place in the universe. He earned his Ph.D. from Notre Dame in 2015 and made his mark with his first book, "Being Salvation: Atonement and Soteriology in the Theology of Karl Rahner" (Fortress Press, 2017), a study of the influential Jesuit theologian whose ideas still shape Catholic thought. Rahner is also the thread connecting Peterson's latest run of work.

 

Sounds like science fiction

Start with the question that sounds like science fiction but isn't: If we discovered intelligent life on another planet, would Jesus be their savior too? In "An Alien Word? Cosmic Salvation within a Rahnerian Framework," published in May in The Heythrop Journal, Peterson traces that question through Rahner's own writing. Rahner never ruled the idea out, calling the possibility of God taking form among extraterrestrials not "inconceivable," but Peterson argues the deeper logic of Rahner's theology—especially his understanding of religious symbols—works against multiple incarnations across the cosmos. He reads that hesitation not as contradiction but as intellectual humility, and points instead toward "deep incarnation," extending Christ's significance to all of creation without multiplying him.

If the first paper asks how far theology can stretch outward, the second asks how carefully it must tread closer to home. "The Torah, the Covenant, and Christian Supersessionism: A Christological Proposal" takes on a trend among Christian theologians who describe Jesus as the "Torah in person," a phrase meant to honor his Jewishness. Peterson complicates that move as well-intentioned but problematic.

 

 

 

‘Appropriative’ supersessionism

Building on theologian/philosopher David Novak's distinction between "hard" and "soft" supersessionism (the idea that Christianity has superseded Judaism) Peterson proposes a third category: "appropriative" supersessionism, the pattern by which Christians lay claim to Jewish tradition even while trying to honor it, as seen in the rise of Christian-hosted Seders. He addresses that tension with an alternative "covenant in person” Christology that keeps what's valuable about the Torah-in-person idea while avoiding its overreach.

The arc completes with "Christ the Savior: Historical Models for an Ecumenical Future," co-authored with Robert A. Krieg and published by Fortress Press this July. Where the two papers push outward and inward, the book widens the lens. It walks through five classic ways Christians have understood Jesus as savior—Representative, Victim-Victor, Sinless Penitent, God's Self-Gift of Agape and Substitute—and shows how Catholics and Protestants have historically read each one differently. Rather than treating those differences as division, Peterson and Krieg present them as an opening, a dialogue that, as they put it, "can enrich each side." The book grounds its theology in real lives, drawing on the stories of Mamie Till-Bradley, Dorothy Mae Stang and Rosa Parks.

Taken together, the three works trace a single, expanding question. The Heythrop Journal piece asks how far salvation might reach into the universe; the supersessionism article asks how honestly it must be told at home; the book asks how Christians divided from one another might find common ground. 

It's what makes Peterson's scholarship distinctive: a refusal to let big theological ideas stay theoretical. Whether he's writing about hypothetical aliens or a courtroom in Mississippi, Peterson keeps returning to the same conviction: questions about salvation are never really abstract. They're about who counts, who's included, and what it means to belong.

 

By David Pace