Until a few years ago, I indentified myself as an evangelical Christian. At this point I tend to refer to myself as a Christian by very liberal definition; just a person who tries to follow the example and values of Jesus of Nazareth. Little Hawk just this morning described (in the "Is the Rapture Underway?" thread) one Christian minister with whom I find myself in complete accord.   At a level deeper, I'm actually not entirely comfortable with the word Christian, as it's derivation implies belief that Jesus was a prophesied messiah.
The logic of most of the historic creedal doctrines of Christianity has fallen apart by degrees in my own thinking. This will be a reflection of one example of how that has happened for me.
In all my experince, if you ask any fundamentalist minister, "What is the punishment for sin?", he will answer that that punishment is eternity in Hell. If you ask the next fundamentalist to explain the meaning of the crucifixion, he will say that Jesus took the punishment that we all deserve for our sins. (The traditional wording for that is Substitutionary Atonement).
But, taking the Biblical narrative at face value, Jesus simply experienced physical death, albeit a very brutal and painful death. At least one of the later creeds includes the assertion that he "descended into Hell", but there is no Biblical basis for that. And there is no question whatever in Christian doctrine of Jesus spending eternity in Hell as a punishment for our sins.
To approach the doctrine from one other direction: because Jesus was treated as if he were guilty of our sins, those who accept his "atonement" are now innocent in the eyes of God. I can't imagine anyone saying, in the context of human crime and punishment, that the execution of an innocent party would mean that justice has been fulfilled so that the actual perpretator of the crime should be considered blameless.