Cross Purposes
Three of Great Britain's most prominent Christian groups have ended their 14-year conference partnership, scuttling the annual Word Alive youth event. At issue was disagreement over a speaker, the Rev. Steve Chalke.
But below the surface simmers a theological controversy that threatens to split the country's evangelicals.
Spring Harvest's namesake conference, the largest Christian event in the country, draws about 55,000 people each year to a multi-site, multi-week lineup. The organization recently asked that Keswick Ministries and the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) be willing to put Chalke, a member of Spring Harvest's council of management, on the student- and family-focused platform they co-host. When the ministries balked, Spring Harvest cancelled the event.
"The Word Alive committee, in good conscience, just didn't feel it would be appropriate, during that week, for Steve Chalke to be given a platform," said UCCF communications director Pod Bhogal. "Steve Chalke has made his dislike of penal substitution really, really clear, and … we didn't feel the nature of the atonement was one of those things you could agree to disagree over."
Chalke's theology first came into question in 2003 with the publication of his book The Lost Message of Jesus. In it, Chalke, the senior minister of Church.co.uk and founder of Oasis Trust and Faithworks, compared the prevailing Protestant view of the atonement to divine child abuse.
"[W]ouldn't it be inconsistent for God to warn us not to be angry with each other and yet burn with wrath himself [against sin and sinners]?" he later wrote in an article defending his position. "I, for one, believe that God practices what he preaches."
Chalke criticizes the penal substitutionary ...
This article is currently available to CT subscribers only.
To continue reading:
or
The Latest in Movie News, May 23, 2013
God Among the Roma
Grieving with the Good Friday God
(on articles open to the public, you must at least register for a free account).
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Newsletters
Google
Comments
Displaying 1–3 of 12 comments
See all comments
Allan W., Portland, Oregon USA
It's frankly difficult for me to understand what the fuss is all about. This seems to be an inevitable path that Christian groups or churches end up on: disagreements about peripheral issues, rather than disputes about core doctrine. Anyone care to clarify what the issue is? How is this a "battle for the very definition of what is an evangelical"?
Trevor h
To throw out substitutionary atonement because of a simplistic complaint that it is "child abuse" takes away the beauty of deeper knowledge of God, which can come from a mature theology. God takes pleasure in forgiving sin and takes no pleasure at all in remonstrating with his people. Thus, for His own sake, to make his own joy complete, he took on flesh and laid down his life, under the obedience of Sonship, to take our punishment. Chalke therefore doesn't understand the absolute Unity of the trinity, nor the completeness of our Father's desire to forgive those who sin;thus it was for him pleasureable to substitute One capable of dying for those who have sinned. To deny these things denies the completeness of God's love. To leave us suffering under sin without Christ and without his atoning death would be abuse of a grander scale and one God is not capable of, seeing that he is perfect in his love for us. So, it was his pleasure to hand over his loved One to death on the cross.
wjm
Reading this article, I was a bit disappointed. There was no full explanation of Chalke's views. I feel that the article would be worthwhile with Chalke's views as well World Alives views.