The Doctrine of Penal Substitution in the UK

My blogging buddy Adrian Warnock gives us a story about some happenings in the UK related to the doctrine of penal substitution.  A couple of organizations have split over a disagreement about penal substitution.  Many of you are familiar with Steve Chalke's book The Lost Message of Jesus, wherein he compares the doctrine of penal substitution to divine child abuse.  Steve is a leading evangelical in the UK and his position has caused quite a stir.  Now, the UCCF has decided to part ways with a sister organization because of their stand on penal substitution.  The UCCF, who sponsors an event called Word Alive says this:

"Steve Chalke has made his dislike of penal substitution very clear by likening God's act of punishing Jesus in our place to a cosmic child abuser. In good conscience, we simply could not allow Steve to teach during the Word Alive week. We're very sad that after 14 years of fruitful ministry, Spring Harvest has decided to end the Word Alive partnership because we feel unable to shift on this position."

Two random thoughts on this.

1. This is a good test case to filter through my post last week on "Why We Haven't Changed the World."  In that post I said:

In other words, changing the world is contingent upon love and unity among believers.

I was quite honored that Mark Horne said I was writing in the spirit of Francis Schaeffer in that post, and indeed, in his essay The Mark of the Christian, Schaeffer makes the same point far more strongly and eloquently than I could ever do.  He uses the phrase "observable love" a lot.  Unless the world can observe the love between Christians it will not believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

So the question comes up - will this rift further hinder Christian witness in the UK and around the world?  I would say that it might, but this is still a battle worth fighting.  I am completely on board with anyone who wants to say that "penal substitution" doesn't capture the totality of the atonement.  But I cannot agree with anyone who denies that penal substitution is at the heart of the atonement.  Without penal substitution there is no real gospel.

Even in this though, Schaeffer has a section in his essay called "When Christians Disagree," that ought to be followed.

2. While we're visiting the U.K. Alastair Adversaria mentions some of N. T. Wright's comments on penal substitution:

The good bishop is also in the news again, responding to a BBC Radio 4 show with the ‘controversial cleric’ Jeffrey John, who claims that the doctrine of penal substitution “is repulsive as well as nonsensical” and “makes God sound like a psychopath.” The Sunday Telegraph reports:  

Mr John argues that too many Christians go through their lives failing to realise that God is about “love and truth”, not “wrath and punishment”. He offers an alternative interpretation, suggesting that Christ was crucified so he could “share in the worst of grief and suffering that life can throw at us”.

Church figures have expressed dismay at his comments, which they condemn as a “deliberate perversion of the Bible”. The Rt Rev Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, accused Mr John of attacking the fundamental message of the Gospel.

“He is denying the way in which we understand Christ’s sacrifice. It is right to stress that he is a God of love but he is ignoring that this means he must also be angry at everything that distorts human life,” he said.

Bishop Wright criticised the BBC for allowing such a prominent slot to be given to such a provocative argument. “I’m fed up with the BBC for choosing to give privilege to these unfortunate views in Holy Week,” he said.

I have to say how much I appreciate reading that.  I have just come to the conclusion that Wright is the proverbial enigma wrapped inside a mystery.  He has been accused of denying penal substitution and he gave his critics fodder for that accusation by endorsing Chalke's book.  Yet here he makes himself very clear that he is in favor of penal substitution. 

I wonder if it's an American vs. British (or European) thing.  In America we tend to be all or nothing types.  If a book is very good in many ways but is very bad in other ways, we'll not recommend it, fearing that the bad (even if it's only a small part of the book) outweighs the good and renders it dangerous.  Maybe Wright recommended Chalke's book because he liked the overall message of the book while disagreeing with his take on penal substitution.  Who knows?

But back on point - I bring this up for those who wonder where Wright stands on penal substitution - this is as clear a statement as I have read.  We may want to criticize Wright (and there are several matters where I disagree with him strongly on - I still can't wrap my head around his whole take on the manner in which Jesus knew he was God - and how he can acknowledge that someone can be a Christian and deny the resurrection escapes me), but if we're going to criticize him let's at least make surewe're quoting him correctly.   

Related Tags: Religion, Theology, Christian, Christianity, Church, Faith, N. T. Wright, Francis Schaeffer, Atonement, Penal Substitution