I guess it's always been my experience in life that when someone criticises you, you want to defend yourself.
So you do.
But after a little time, you can see that, even if they were being very unfair there was maybe a grain of truth in what they said. And maybe it's like that with what people say about penal substitution.
To say that we believe in cosmic child abuse is a cruel, nasty unpleasant and vitriolic thing to say. We need to defend ourselves against that accusation. We don't believe in that.
But Chalkey and lots of other people I have come across who don't like PSA, the reason for their criticism of the doctrine is (they say) because of the people who teach PSA. Those people don't love well, according to the criticism. They don't love each other or the world well. They don't seek the good of those around them. And that's because, according to the critics, they believe that God hates the world; God feels violently towards the world, and it's only sweet little innocent Jesus who stands in the way of us being smashed by God's uncontrollable violent feelings towards us.
Well, we've managed to (or at least some people have like these peopledefend the doctrine theologically) to show that we do believe God loves the world, and that's why PS is so important.
But has the Chalkemeister got a point about our actions? I think he might do. Most of the Christians I know spend most of their time with...Christians. Me included. Which doesn't model brilliantly that God loves the world. Most of them, and by them I mean us, spend the time we are with Christians complaining about each other and allowing the way they do things to wind us up. When they, and really I mean we, engage with the world, maybe we often are all about winning converts, rather than loving the world like God does. Maybe we do, as I was challenged about in church yesterday, think the world is going to hell in a handbasket, rather than thinking that the point of the cross and PS is so that God can start reinvading the world with his glory, recreating it through the church. Through me. Through us.
Steve Chalke and your friends, wrong diagnosis, but good one for spotting the symptoms.
Thing is, it's a deep belief in PS that makes me think this stuff is important, if I really let it sink in to me. There is my God taking on himself the result of my sin, the result of the world's sin. How he must love the world. There he is humbling himself to the weakest and lowliest place for our sake. How he must care about the weak and lowly. There he is making a statement that justice must be done, that sin must be identified as sin, that the victoms of sin, caught up in it by their own guilt should be shown compassion. How he must love justice and long to see compassion.
You know, I can't speak for anyone else. But when I think about me, I think that maybe those PSA critics, wrong as they are about theology, might be right that there is some sickness in my spiritual life. Even after PS is, rightly, defended to the hilt, maybe there's still some things to think about.
PS - if you'll excuse the pun, but I actually meant to post this on my own blog! (I'll do that too) I'll leave it here in case you want to talk about it, but sorry it isn't up tp the usual high standard of blogs on this site!
The PS debate, things to reflect on:
Posted by Little Mo at 4:29 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
18 comments:
"sorry it isn't up to the usual high standard of blogs on this site"
Mo, no need to apologise - you are totally spot on. The challenge is real and meaningful, no less so because it comes from critics of a doctrine we hold high.
I remember once being at a conference where a well known Christian speaker and author was 'prophesied' against (lots of "thus saith the Lord") from the floor as he was about to preach. People started to try and silence the would be prophet, but the guy at the front stopped them and said, 'if this is of God, we all need to hear it'. The guy from the floor called into question the validity of the ministry, character and salvation of the speaker. We listened to him for about 5 minutes, he finished, the speaker congratulated him on having the courage of his convictions, prayed that if this was of God then it would be proved in His Word and the conviction of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the gathered conference (about 3000 people) but if not, that God would forgive the guy who had just spoken and that we would all move on, more confident of God's goodness.
I was struck by that - and still am. Like you, I think we need to listen for the voice of God in the actions and words of those who would critique us.
Your post IS of a high standard, the highest: cf 1 Cor 13.1-13
thanks, I needed that.
Amen. Amen.
Thanks Mo, v helpful & challenging.
With you 100% Mo. Thanks for this very balanced view.
Does this really have anything to do with penal substitution? I mean isn't it an ad hominem attack? We are not meant to be defending ourselves as we defend PSA are we? Neither the defenders nor the attackers of penal substitution can afford the luxury of claiming that their attitudes and behaviour are what they ought to be.
thanks Mo, v.challenging to think about how really believing in PS should change our relationships with those around us.
Downsey - it could be ad hominem. But I guess you've got to do people the justice of believing what they write about why they are writing - if that makes sense.
Certainly some of the things Steve Chalke and others have said about evangelicals in my experience (of myself) are true. I, for one need to reflect on that. Because if my doctrine isn't bringing about the righteous life God requires, then there IS a problem with it, or my application of it somewhere.
God spoke to Balaam out of the mouth of a donkey after all! ;)
Mo,
I wouldn't dispute the substance of what you write, just that penal substitution is not the cause or a even a contributing factor in this.
Would the same accusation be made and the same symptoms be recognised if we changed the doctrine in hand (PSA) for another (Justification)?
I agree - that's actually what I was trying to say in the post - probably unclearly. I actually think we need to believe in PS MORE not less to combat the problems that Chalke and others highlight with our part of the church.
"But after a little time, you can see that, even if they were being very unfair there was maybe a grain of truth in what they said." Long overdue. I got to know Alan Mann at my church in bristol in 2004, and remember how he honestly hadnt expected a controversy. "some thrust for greatness, others rather have greatness thrust upon them" he regretted. It's because their agenda was a social one, pastoral even. The reflection on atonement theology was a struggle, that I think came out of this supposition (I'll quote Chalke, 'Redeeming the Cross' for ease):
"erroneous theology will always lead to dysfunctional missiology.". Quite. But that "our thoughts, words and deeds paint a clear portrait of our understanding of God..." is not the same thing "put another way". To identify our understanding of God with what we teach ignores hypocrisy. To identify our missiology with our theology ignores sin.
He goes on, "one of the four pillars of evangelicalism is 'crucicentrism’...but perhaps our thinking about the cross has become shallow and inadequate. Our culture now views the death of Christ as some kind of ancient myth or irrelevant religious event. Is that their fault or ours?"
ouch, and we must listen...but perhaps the problem wasnt PS but its caricatures, and more deeply, our hypocrisy. Hallelujah for Dan Strange's response. In my experience the best way to win increasingly emerging/liberals is to outlive them, capturing hearts and lives by showing a biiig and beautiful gospel (a la Tim Keller). Simply reeling out whopping tomes of theology (while crucial) almost misses the problem. Authentic community is what postmoderns are responding to. For example, I was struck by 4 increasing trends towards the end of my time at Bristol CU - it became theologically sharper, dominated by moderns (almost all Engineers and Medics), extremely posh, and evangelistic events brought in fewer and fewer people while this church was bringing in more and more (albeit with less gospel impact). Happily this is not a general case - Lancaster were almost all linguists.
When much conservative evangelicalism seems to be booming by breeding middle class christians, who abound in the city, are kinda chic, with an almost (dare I say it) Bono spirituality of giving till it feels good, not until it hurts, who almost seem to get a kick out of being disliked, taking it as a benchmark of our orthodoxy as we entrench knowingly into our offensive gospel, "conservative evangelicalism" sounds more like a socio-political than a theological position.
I dont doubt Chalke's frustration and personal difficulty is very real, precisely because he's one of the ones moving and shaking for sacrificial love in society. I think it's telling that while all this debate raging, he's just raised the most money ever by a marathon runner! that was what TLMOJ was about. Calling christians to suffer for the good of society. 1 Peter style.
In my experience, it came out of an increasingly open-theology church (with not much theological intention) but with a strong agenda to serve the unloved and outcast (it certainly was in bristol), and suffer to fight for their cause, to build community. My pastor (same church) once said "community is falling apart. If it wont come from the church where will it come from?". I wonder whether this is the link with NT Wright's social agenda - all his "find where people are alienated and bring the good news of the end of exile/life of the new creation by subverting human authority with death and resurrection living to serve"...Might this strong social motif lie behind the erroneous but striking rhetoric of "those right wingers at Oak Hill"?
man this is long. maybe i should get over myself or start my own blog.
Lot's of challenging stuff being said. Feels like a real coffee house discussion today.
My only contribution is to suggest that ad hominem attacks are something that definitely biblical and should be seen around much more. We may all want to hide behind the universality of sin and claim that our failings do not reflect on our theology but that is a road that Jesus/Paul never travelled down. Our lives are the 'final apologetic' (borrowing Francis Schaffer's phrase) for the truth of our gospel - including PS.
This may not sit well with some 19th cent conception of justification by faith, and a modernist sidelining of morality in debates on truth, but we need to face up to it that ad hominem attacks are serious and valid attacks on the truth of the gospel.
Chris - start a blog. Do it today.
I concur. Chris, your comments are some of the most interesting and thoughtful things i've read in while
Those people don't love well, according to the criticism. They don't love each other or the world well. They don't seek the good of those around them. And that's because, according to the critics, they believe that God hates the world; God feels violently towards the world, and it's only sweet little innocent Jesus who stands in the way of us being smashed by God's uncontrollable violent feelings towards us.
More love? Or more transformation?
This whole debate is not about atonement. It's about the failure of various "Christian" approaches to transform the human soul. Every few years a Christian leader is 'found out'. I want to ask questions like: How long will it take us to wake up to the fact that our commonly used discipleship stratergies are not actually working very well. Either doing the same thing, and meaning it more, or chasing some kind of experience are not the answers.
For me the answer to this whole debate between Chalke and PSA lies not in a new range of books from IVP, but in the Churches rediscovery of what it means for the Holy Spirit to transform my soul through a discipleship to Jesus himself.
We must look more honestly at where we are at. We must stand firm on PSA yes, but Mo is absolutely right that we are in serious danger of missing the truth in all of this.
tom: "this whole debate is not about atonement"
err... ?
That's a very wide wedge you're using. I agree the IVP tomes risk missing the point, but only if they're disconnected from "living the righteous life", but atonement theology is not at odds with transformation. It's the fuel.
this is probably caricaturing heavily, but it seems you're more pessimistic about current "discipleship strategies" than you are about sin. (*incidentally, Mo's strategy for his relay workers could hardly be summed up as either of your suggestions)
Won't sin always be parasitic on any healthy christianity, & spread like gangrene?
Chris,
I can't help but feel that you are making excuses for the lack of transformation that we see, and avoiding the subject, by provoking me to appear to take a view on discipleship that is divorced from the atonement.
I think that a lot of Christians think that re-thinking discipleship and transformation is scary and unnessary. I think I understand why. But, while, there is safety in numbers, there isn't necessarily truth in numbers.
Chalke is totally off the mark on PSA as far as I can see, but totally on the money on this subject of the transformation of the believers soul.
It's more than the question 'where is the love?' It's about being truly alive and truly human.
Tom
Thanks Mo. It's really helpful of you to point this out. Finding truth and promoting it, where ever it is to be found, is an important thing we need to be doing as Christians. Just discarding people as liberal, wrong or whatever is not good enough and it seems to me not what Jesus did.
No sure what I think about PSA at the moment. I guess I always excepted it without thinking about it. Steve Chalke has helped me to think about it for the first time. Not sure what conclusions I will come to, but I know I will love Jesus more as I try and find out what the truth is.
I have written more about this here: http://www.unitesouthampton.org.uk/node/26
on discipleship, here's hoping Mo blogs his Relay 3 material on Proverbs... would blow you away.
Post a Comment