The controversy surrounding Wright’s endorsement of Steve Chalke’s The Lost Message of Jesus has been a subject for discussion in a number of areas of the blogosphere following Justin Taylor and Rick Phillips’s posts on Reformation 21.
I am relatively uninterested in the big penal substitution debate that is raging in British evangelical circles at the moment. Whilst I am a firm believer in penal substitution I was not as angered or shocked as many were with Steve Chalke’s statements on the subject. As I see it, Chalke is overreacting to populist forms of the doctrine of penal substitution that are not that hard to find among evangelicals in Britain. Chalke is writing at a popular level and addressing a popular misconception. If he were primarily addressing himself to the scholarly doctrine of penal substitution there would be more reason for complaint.
Chalke’s offending statement was as follows:—
The fact is that the cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse — a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed. Understandably, both people inside and outside of the Church have found this twisted version of events morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith. Deeper than that, however, is that such a concept stands in total contradiction to the statement ‘God is love’. If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil.
I see much to take issue with here, and I believe that it is very regrettable that Chalke has chosen to put things this way. However, I believe that Chalke has also made important points that need to be faced by evangelicals. There is a degree of truth to Chalke’s criticism that makes it hard for us to just brush it off as a total misrepresentation. If evangelicals in Britain were taking the degree of truth in Chalke’s criticisms more seriously, I would be more sympathetic to their vociferous rejection of the rest of his claims.
It is easy to point to a few balanced and nuanced doctrines of penal substitution that exist in the world of evangelical academics and ignore the alarming gap that exists between such doctrines and the beliefs of people in the pews.
A growing number of critics of the doctrine of penal substitution charge the doctrine with injustice. I believe that this is a just charge to level against many (most) popular forms of the doctrine that one will encounter. The impression is sometimes given that the Father had to take out His anger somewhere and Jesus would do. The question of how this can be just and consistent with God’s righteous character is not satisfactorily addressed. As long as evangelical doctrines of the atonement fail to honestly answer this question they can expect (and they will to some extent deserve) criticisms like Chalke’s.
I have criticized popular evangelical and Reformed doctrines of penal substitution before (see here, here and here, for example), whilst defending what I see to be a more biblical and balanced way of presenting the issue. One of the problems that I see is that penal substitution is absolutized in many evangelical circles and other understandings of the atonement are seldom taught at all. Penal substitution is undoubtedly an important part of the story, but it is not the only part of the story. I also question whether it should dominate over other themes in our understanding of the atonement. Is it really the case that the NT has more to say about penal substitution than, say, Christus Victor?
No particular doctrine of the atonement has been exalted to creedal status by the Church. I think that this is exactly as it should be. Whilst it is important, I do not believe that affirmation of a particular form of penal substitution doctrine is necessary for salvation.
Different views of the atonement arise, in part, from different aspects of the human plight. These views of the atonement should not be played off against one another, just as the aspects of the human plight should not. For example, when we see the human plight from the perspective of bondage to Sin, Death and Satan, Christus Victor will come to the forefront. If loss of fellowship with God is the problem then more sacrificial (not just propitiatory elements) will be seen as prominent. If our sins are seen to be the problem then penal substitution is the answer. We will also see that the cross is the key event in which a new mimetic economy is established.
It is worth remembering that the cross accomplishes things that would have been necessary even if mankind had never sinned. For example, the cross is the great sacrificial act in which humanity and creation is offered up to God. Adam was supposed to have performed this action, but Christ accomplishes what Adam failed in. Furthermore, even if Adam had never sinned there would still have been a need for maturation. The cross is seen as the key moment of humanity’s maturation. Christ learned obedience through the things that He suffered and the cross was the climax of this. The cross is the coming of Faith in its full form. It is the moment when humanity comes of age in its Head. There would also have been a need for Holy War, as, even if Adam had not sinned, Satan had.
Chalke presents us with a dangerously lop-sided understanding of the atonement. But the doctrine of the atonement presented to us by most evangelicals is just as lop-sided, just in different areas. I am reluctant to attack Chalke in such a way as might be seen to give support to popular evangelical distortions. For this reason I have not participated that much in the debate. To a certain extent, I am thankful that books like Chalke’s have come along, if only to shake up a few people in their thinking.
Over the last couple of years I have begun to wonder whether I really am an evangelical. I believe that the Bible is the final authority and inerrant (provided that we do not come to it with false expectations), hold to the doctrine of penal substitution and believe in the importance of a personal relationship with and experience of God. However, I do not share the system of relative priorities that most evangelicals seem to hold. I may say many of the same things, but the accents are in quite different places. The centre of gravity of my faith is quite distant from the centre of gravity of most evangelicals. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity is far, far more central in my understanding than it is in the minds of most evangelicals. I do not like the shibboleths of evangelicalism, although I can pronounce most of them if pressed to do so.
What about Wright’s involvement in the Chalke debate? I was initially disappointed and surprised when I first saw Wright’s recommendation on the front of Chalke’s book. Wright’s recommendation in full is:
Steve Chalke’s new book is rooted in good scholarship, but its clear, punchy style makes it accessible to anyone and everyone. Its message is stark and exciting: Jesus of Nazareth was far more challenging in his own day, and remains far more relevant to ours, than the church has dared to believe, let alone preach.
I increasingly understand and sympathize with Wright’s recommendation of such a book. Anyone who has read Wright will know that he disagrees with Chalke in the areas with Chalke has been subjected to greatest criticism — original sin and penal substitution. He has even answered a question regarding his recommendation of Chalke’s book in response to Wrightsaid list questions. Look through the various writings in the recent debate and you will often see Wright’s work used to defend the doctrine of penal substitution. Interestingly, one also sees that many of those who are critical of penal substitution look to Wright in many areas of their thought.
However, what Wright is doing is opening up the window of the stuffy closet of evangelicalism. Whilst the wind may be unsettling certain aspects of the stale order that has pervaded the room for so long, the fresh air cannot but do us good. Wright and other scholars like him are changing the questions that we are asking. They are changing our system of relative priorities. In the new system of relative priorities that is coming in I do not believe that penal substitution, important though it is, will have the same place as it did in the previous system. The centre of gravity of my faith is held substantially in common with many people who deny the doctrine of penal substitution and quite different from that of many who affirm it.
Unlike many evangelical recommendations, Wright’s recommendation is not to be read as a blanket imprimatur. Wright is commending the book as something to provoke us to think and question, not as a book to tell us what to think. Most of the books that have have been of greatest benefit to me have been the books that have challenge me to think, rather than merely reinforcing my prejudices. Provocative books such as Chalke’s often deserve our attention. Even if they give all the wrong answers they may leave us with important questions that we were not asking before.
In many ways I would rather recommend a deeply flawed book like Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy to some people than encourage them to read some classic evangelical works. McLaren will infuriate and challenge you. He will force you to reevaluate things that you take for granted. Hopefully you will end up disagreeing with some of what he says, but the read (if you approach it in the right way) may well do you much more good than many Reformed classics would.
Unfortunately, evangelicalism is often guilty of spoonfeeding people and failing to help them to grow up and discern the good and bad in a work. Books don’t have to be rejected or accepted in their entirety.
Alastair's Adversaria 
I thought the reaction to what Chalke said was totally inappropriate and out of all proportion and unfortunately this seems to have eliminated a lot of opportunity for sensbile discussion. Chalke is of course reacting against a popular misconception, not an official dogma, and in as far as he was doing that, I think he was correct.
His description of the atonement accomplishing forgiveness by God taking sin upon himself earlier in the chapter was also a very well-put thought that sadlt got lost in all the scandal.
Judging from the response that his comments received, one would expect that Chalke had written at least a lengthy chapter attacking penal substitution, rather just than a sentence or two rejecting a popular caricature. As you point out, a sense of proportion is markedly absent from this discussion.
Thanks for your honesty about whether you are an “evangelical,” Al. I’ve started wondering lately if I ought to call myself “Reformed.” I believe the TULIP, the basic covenant scheme, presbyterianish government, etc., but almost no matter where one looks in “Reformed-dom,” it seems the relative priorities are far different from mine. My faith isn’t centered on “the solas of the Reformation,” and although I believe in Calvinistic-type predestination I really don’t give two figs about arguing about it–much less about being militantly divisive over it. Like you, I question the relative priorities of evangelicalism, especially in its Reformed version. Yet, though I appreciate many things in Catholicism and Orthodoxy and Anglicanism, I’m not there either.
There doesn’t seem to be a definable place for me to stand.
Or rather, there is a definable place for me to stand, but it doesn’t seem to match where any of the current Major Contenders are standing.
I’ve not read the Chalke book, but from looking at the table contents online, it didn’t appear to me to be a book about “atonement theology” per se. Could you say something more about the wider themes of the book?
The book only has a couple of sentences that reject a popular misconception of the atonement. This may be hard to believe given the fuss that these sentences have raised, but that is how it is.
Chalke expresses his aim for the book as follows (the first chapter, from which this quote is taken, is available online):—
“My aim in the chapters that follow is to demonstrate that the core of Jesus’ life-transforming, though often deeply misunderstood, message is this: The Kingdom, the in-breaking shalom of God, is available now to everyone through me. I will draw together some of the scattered pieces of the jigsaw and help provide a glimpse of that all-important picture from the lid of the box. My prayer in all this is simple – that this book might provoke thoughtful debate, pose fresh questions and shed a little new light, but more than that, stir our hearts, fire our emotions and fuel our imaginations.”
The book is quite uneven in places. It shares with authors like Brian McLaren (I finished his Adventures in Missing the Point this afternoon, so he is fresh in my mind) the tendency to misrepresent traditional doctrines and get so carried away with the big picture that certain careful lines that need to be drawn are fuzzy and indistinct. This tendency is most clearly demonstrated in his treatment of original sin (p.67).
The book relies heavily on theologians like Wright and makes many good points along the way. Chalke wants to give the message of the gospel a different, more positive emphasis. Rather than focusing primarily on the negative dimension of sin, he wants to focus on the more positive element of God’s purpose.
Whilst I have a number of issues and disagreements with the way that Chalke goes about making his case, broadly speaking I agree with him. There is a danger of portraying a God whose love is narrow and limited to a few who fall within the scope of His saving purpose. There is a danger of forgetting that God is in the business of putting the whole creation to rights and to think in terms of God merely picking up and restoring some fragments of an otherwise utterly destroyed creation. I believe that many of us have been guilty, in seeking to speak truthfully about the problems of sin and evil, of place the accent in the wrong place.
This is why Chalke reacts against original sin. In his somewhat confused understanding, Chalke sees original sin as somehow opposed to the original goodness of the creation. Whilst the way he says it is unhelpful, I think that what he is saying is not without a measure of truth: we can easily be guilty of losing sight of God’s love for the creation as a whole. We can be at risk of so emphasizing the sinfulness of man that we all but lose sight of the goodness of creation.
I would have to reread the book to give a proper review. I might do so in the next week or so.
Thanks. That’s helpful. The controversy had led me to believe the book was about atonement theology, but when I went to look at the table of contents online, it looked like a different sort of thing altogether. This clarifies matters.
I wouldn’t recommend Brian McLaren’s “A Generous Orthodoxy”, to half the pastors I know. I don’t think the problem is that run-of-the-mill evangelicals aren’t challenged enough with work like this. I think the problem is precisely the opposite: we’ve let them have access to far to much stinky liberalism, without even knowing it. Rather than giving them classic scholarly work on penal substitution (or the like), we’ve given them ridiculous trash by McLaren and his ilk.
I’m going to write a book called, “How can I make YAHWEH more palatable, because I’m really afraid that He may be hard to swallow.”
Tim,
I “question the relative priorities of evangelicalism” as well, but I happen to share the doctrinal distinctives of evangelicals. In some cases I abhor their priorities and their emphasis, and on some tertiary issues I disagree with mainline evangelicals completely. But I don’t have any problem calling myself an evangelical, because I hold to the “fundamentals”. I may not agree with their tactics or specific policies, but I don’t have any problem being associated as a right wing republican, or with the ‘religious right’. Do we really believe in unity? Or are we so concerned with theological exclusivism that we’re afraid of having to stand next to reformed evangelicals? I’ve got it, you’re post-reformed post-evangelicals? 😉
I’m so angry at reformed and evangelical folks being so exclusivist and segregated that I’m going to stop associating with them by name.
Just a thought or two
Adam, I see what you’re saying, but I was more expressing frustration at the militant exclusivism of Evangelicalism, particularly it’s Reformed incarnation, than I was offering a solution. I don’t think it’s any kind of solution to Evangelical Reformish sectarianism to make a new sect of my own–the “I’m not an Evangelical Reformish Type and Thank God For That” sect.
In point of fact, I think it’s entirely legitimately “Reformed” to focus, as I do, more intensively on the historia salutis than on the ordo salutis, on concrete Church history than on some abstraction called “soteriology.” It may not be very common, since our ranks are full of Theology Wonks who think Christianity didn’t “come into its own” until Luther invented “THE SOLAS” and who all get their history from 100 year old works (e.g., Schaff) while sniffing disdainfully at others who seriously read primary sources that come from “the Dark Ages”, but I think it’s legitimately Reformed. The problem is precisely that our ranks are full of the OTHER type, who are so militant that they leave no room for legitimate alternatives, but instead hive off into new denominations to “preserve the Gospel” merely because somebody starts talking about baptism in a way that Westminster West doesn’t (or whatever).
What gets me about the whole debate is there is so much else in the book which should be viewed as challenging, but people have chosen to get hung up on one area (the one which results purely in spiritual debate) rather than debate the sections which could result in them having to change their lifestyles to get more in line with the “real Jesus’s” teachings. To me the whole thing is another example of the fact we would rather tear ourselves apart over our interpretation than actually having do something.
I quite agree. I am hoping to reread The Lost Message of Jesus some time in the next few weeks and post a review.
Tim,
Agreed!
There are a lot of Christians out there who don’t know who Calvin is, much less have read him. This modern “deep thought”, pop, emergent, attempt at ecclesiology and soteriology is a joke. I would much rather the young adults at post-modern churches be encouraged to read R.C. Sproul than “challenging” them with McLaren.
We need to start with some [imperfect]basics, then move on to challenging people.
Sometimes we forget that we are much more read and thought out than modern evangelicals. We assume that others are able to be challenged at a higher level than they ought.
If anything, modern evangelicals need a large dose of Calvin, kuyper, Bahnsen, Jordan, and Leithart – IMHO. Haha, what would your suggested list be?