From a pastor-friend:

The substitutionary atonement theory as Nathan articulates it is that, in my view, it relies upon a deeply flawed understanding of Trinitarian theology. If we have three gods then it may work. We have one God according to our tradition, however, and that God is a relational God. What happened to Jesus on the cross happened to God. If God took sin upon Godself in Christ's death then any sense of substitutionary atonement seems lost to me. For God deals with sin not by making someone else pay but by taking it into Godself. Do we not believe that God dwells in us through the risen Christ, the "life giving Spirit"? As Alan has said,

He is in me, and he absorbs my sins and frailty, He understands me through and through.He suffers with me And even while he 'judges', corrects me, refines me, teaches me as he must do, he accepts, affirms me, and embraces me moment to moment. And our human hope is in this 'CHRIST IN YOU'......This is the only (Spiritual) Reality there is.

Pastor-friend again:

All this taking place in me, a sinner by means of the conditions of my existence, day by day, along side the sin in me, despite the sin in me and taking the implications of sin in me upon Godself. The cross is not about Jesus taking the rap, it is about Jesus reconciling us to God and God is found in Christ on the cross.

Mind you, all this relational stuff is theology. The claim that "Theology ain't it" sounds hollow to me. Theology is a reflection on our experience of God and our tradition. It is, therefore, theology that allows us to express our faith in terms of relationship. We must always keep the two together.