{"id":3321,"date":"2008-11-17T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-17T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianwarnock.com\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-the-atonement-debate\/"},"modified":"2017-09-16T18:28:01","modified_gmt":"2017-09-16T17:28:01","slug":"update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/","title":{"rendered":"Update on Steve Chalke and The Atonement Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"Somehow I missed a book published earlier this year by Zondervan called The Atonement Debate<\/em>. The book was described to me as a \u201ccool-headed\u201d approach to the whole debate on penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) that has been raging in evangelicalism since Steve Chalke popularized attempts to dismiss it as a form of \u201ccosmic child abuse<\/a>.\u201d It is essentially an edited and expanded publication of some papers from a theological debate which took place under the auspices of the Evangelical Alliance and the London School of Theology.<\/p>\n

To be honest, when I heard this book was going to be \u201ccool-headed\u201d I was already concerned about it. I\u2019m not sure the atonement is a subject that it\u2019s possible to be terribly cool about. That\u2019s because another word for cool is lukewarm. Jesus hates us to be lukewarm about crucial issues, even threatening to spit the lukewarm from his mouth (Revelation 3). I much prefer interacting with someone who is either hot or cold about important issues like this.<\/p>\n

The truth is, there could scarcely be a more important subject. On the one side are people like Chalke who genuinely believe that many evangelicals today are teaching a barbaric pre-Christian lie that is destroying the Church\u2019s witness. On the other hand are those of us who believe that if we were to deny that Jesus took the punishment that was due us for our sin, turning aside the wrath of God by bearing it in himself, quite simply there would be no gospel left.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t see how people who really believe either of those two positions can just agree to disagree and work together as fellow evangelicals. One group must be wrong. Whichever group is right are also clearly quite correct to be very concerned about the opposite group who are, by their false teaching, distorting the gospel and preventing people from coming to a true knowledge of what Jesus has done for them. There are some issues on which we can compromise. This is not one of them.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, the first chapter, which tried to set the scene, concerned me greatly. It was written by a believer in PSA who acknowledged that the crafters of the UK Evangelical Alliance\u2019s Statement of Faith had clearly intended to include PSA in that statement. Minutes of the meetings and the living memory of those survivors failed to explain why, in the 1970\u2019s, the word \u201cpenal\u201d had been dropped from early drafts of the statement. The writer seemed anxious to stress, however, that in his view it would have been wrong to insert the word penal back into the statement in its most recent revision as that would have been seen as targeting an individual. To be honest, I find such a reluctance baffling. I believe that clarity is exactly what is needed in this debate. Can people really work together in an organization with such diametrically opposed views as I have outlined above?<\/p>\n

For some reason it fell to me to become more involved in the debate that had been ongoing within UK evangelicalism than I ever expected. It was a great surprise to me to find myself in the position where I felt obliged to break the story that the separation of Spring Harvest and Word Alive<\/a> had not been entirely amicable. What soon became clear was that this was not only an argument between Chalke and those who held to PSA. Almost more importantly, there was a disagreement between those who said that they hold to PSA about what should be done when a leading member of many evangelical organizations like Steve Chalke criticized their prevailing teaching so strongly. Many plead, \u201cCan\u2019t we just all get along and agree to disagree?\u201d For more information about the controversy please see the links found in the following posts from my blog \u201cAtonement Wars<\/a>\u201d and \u201cMore Atonement Wars<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would seem that The Atonement Debate<\/em> is published with a desire to help evangelicals understand the debate and then move on from it. Indeed, the tone of most of the papers is conciliatory, and I suspect that one could easily come away after reading it wondering what all the fuss is about. I had assumed that Steve Chalke\u2019s relative silence on the issue meant that he too had come to the conclusion that this didn\u2019t really matter as much as both his original rhetoric and that of his detractors had led one to believe. I couldn\u2019t have been more wrong, as we will see tomorrow when I continue to blog on this subject<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somehow I missed a book published earlier this year by Zondervan called The Atonement Debate. The book was described to me as a \u201ccool-headed\u201d approach to the whole debate on penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) that has been raging in evangelicalism since Steve Chalke popularized attempts to dismiss it as a form of \u201ccosmic child abuse.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,149,162],"tags":[540],"class_list":["post-3321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atonement","category-steve-chalke","category-the-atonement-debate","tag-atonement"],"yoast_head":"\nUpdate on Steve Chalke and The Atonement Debate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Somehow I missed a book published earlier this year by Zondervan called The Atonement Debate. The book was described to me as a \u201ccool-headed\u201d approach to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Update on Steve Chalke and The Atonement Debate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Somehow I missed a book published earlier this year by Zondervan called The Atonement Debate. The book was described to me as a \u201ccool-headed\u201d approach to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Adrian Warnock\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/adrianwarnockpage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-17T03:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-09-16T17:28:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/files\/2008\/11\/978-0-310-27339-4-790724.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Adrian Warnock\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@adrianwarnock\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Adrian Warnock\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/\",\"name\":\"Update on Steve Chalke and The Atonement Debate\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-11-17T03:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-09-16T17:28:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#\/schema\/person\/4dc7481b9baa3553d9a7698715084eaa\"},\"description\":\"Somehow I missed a book published earlier this year by Zondervan called The Atonement Debate. The book was described to me as a \u201ccool-headed\u201d approach to\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Update on Steve Chalke and The Atonement Debate\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/\",\"name\":\"Adrian Warnock\",\"description\":\"Patheos Evangelical\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#\/schema\/person\/4dc7481b9baa3553d9a7698715084eaa\",\"name\":\"Adrian Warnock\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e5ff2076e287d1578e3b13fc015d78be?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e5ff2076e287d1578e3b13fc015d78be?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Adrian Warnock\"},\"description\":\"The resurrection of Jesus changes everything. Just not all at once. Healing takes time. Compassion and patience carry us over a lifetime of change. These are the themes I explore in my books and in the articles I have written for Patheos since 2003. My writing draws on my scientific training as a doctor and psychiatrist, my work in the UK's National Health Service and the pharmaceutical industry, alongside more than twenty-five years as a member of a growing church where I served on the leadership team offering pastoral care. My perspective has also been shaped by chronic illness since 2017, when I developed life-threatening pneumonia that caused lasting damage to my body, triggered several further conditions, and uncovered a diagnosis of blood cancer. This was successfully treated, although doctors expect it to return in the future. Out of these experiences I founded Blood Cancer Uncensored, an online patient-led support community. I am the author of the Transformed by Jesus: Spiritual Renewal series of books, which ask: \u2192 Is the Easter story true, and what does it mean? Raised With Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything \u2192 Why is change so difficult? What causes the resistance? The Traitor Within: Understanding and Healing Our Deceitful Hearts \u2192 How does transformation happen over time? Amazing Grace: How Faith Grows in the Human Heart \u2192 What are the first steps on a journey of faith? Hope Reborn: How to Become a Christian and Live for Jesus These books bring together medical, psychological, social, and faith-based insights, advocating for a biopsychosocial\u2013spiritual model of wellbeing. My qualifications and training reflect this integrated background: \u2192 British MB BS medical degree (equivalent to an MD in the USA) \u2192 Postgraduate qualifications in Psychiatry (MRCPsych) and Pharmaceutical Medicine (MFFM, DipPharmMed) \u2192 Theological training courses run by Newfrontiers\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/adrianwarnockpage\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/adrianwarnock\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/author\/awarnock\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Update on Steve Chalke and The Atonement Debate","description":"Somehow I missed a book published earlier this year by Zondervan called The Atonement Debate. The book was described to me as a \u201ccool-headed\u201d approach to","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Update on Steve Chalke and The Atonement Debate","og_description":"Somehow I missed a book published earlier this year by Zondervan called The Atonement Debate. The book was described to me as a \u201ccool-headed\u201d approach to","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/","og_site_name":"Adrian Warnock","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/adrianwarnockpage\/","article_published_time":"2008-11-17T03:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-09-16T17:28:01+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/files\/2008\/11\/978-0-310-27339-4-790724.jpg"}],"author":"Adrian Warnock","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@adrianwarnock","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Adrian Warnock","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/","name":"Update on Steve Chalke and The Atonement Debate","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-11-17T03:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2017-09-16T17:28:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#\/schema\/person\/4dc7481b9baa3553d9a7698715084eaa"},"description":"Somehow I missed a book published earlier this year by Zondervan called The Atonement Debate. The book was described to me as a \u201ccool-headed\u201d approach to","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2008\/11\/update-on-steve-chalke-and-atonement\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Update on Steve Chalke and The Atonement Debate"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/","name":"Adrian Warnock","description":"Patheos Evangelical","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#\/schema\/person\/4dc7481b9baa3553d9a7698715084eaa","name":"Adrian Warnock","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e5ff2076e287d1578e3b13fc015d78be?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e5ff2076e287d1578e3b13fc015d78be?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Adrian Warnock"},"description":"The resurrection of Jesus changes everything. Just not all at once. Healing takes time. Compassion and patience carry us over a lifetime of change. These are the themes I explore in my books and in the articles I have written for Patheos since 2003. My writing draws on my scientific training as a doctor and psychiatrist, my work in the UK's National Health Service and the pharmaceutical industry, alongside more than twenty-five years as a member of a growing church where I served on the leadership team offering pastoral care. My perspective has also been shaped by chronic illness since 2017, when I developed life-threatening pneumonia that caused lasting damage to my body, triggered several further conditions, and uncovered a diagnosis of blood cancer. This was successfully treated, although doctors expect it to return in the future. Out of these experiences I founded Blood Cancer Uncensored, an online patient-led support community. I am the author of the Transformed by Jesus: Spiritual Renewal series of books, which ask: \u2192 Is the Easter story true, and what does it mean? Raised With Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything \u2192 Why is change so difficult? What causes the resistance? The Traitor Within: Understanding and Healing Our Deceitful Hearts \u2192 How does transformation happen over time? Amazing Grace: How Faith Grows in the Human Heart \u2192 What are the first steps on a journey of faith? Hope Reborn: How to Become a Christian and Live for Jesus These books bring together medical, psychological, social, and faith-based insights, advocating for a biopsychosocial\u2013spiritual model of wellbeing. My qualifications and training reflect this integrated background: \u2192 British MB BS medical degree (equivalent to an MD in the USA) \u2192 Postgraduate qualifications in Psychiatry (MRCPsych) and Pharmaceutical Medicine (MFFM, DipPharmMed) \u2192 Theological training courses run by Newfrontiers","sameAs":["http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/adrianwarnockpage\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/adrianwarnock"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/author\/awarnock\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}