JourneyOnline
INTERPRETING THE meaning of Easter can be a dangerous activity as UK Baptist minister and author Steve Chalke found out when he published The Lost Message of Jesus in 2004.
Chalke’s book provoked uproar from conservative Evangelicals when it questioned the theological understanding of “penal substitution” – the idea that God punished his own son, Jesus, by sending him to the cross.
Sometimes referred to as “substitutionary atonement” this theory explains the Easter story by saying that we humans, having broken God’s holy law, are deserving of a penalty which is death, but that Jesus died in our place, paying the penalty and setting us free.
People are thus invited to respond in repentance, turn from their sins, and receive forgiveness because they have been pardoned.
Chalke’s suggestion that the idea of a vengeful and vindictive God was at odds with the revelation of Jesus Christ in the gospels and led former colleagues and friends to question whether he had become a liberal and turned his back on truth.
London-based organisation the Evangelical Alliance published a statement which said, “We do not believe that penal substitutionary atonement can be rejected… as Steve has persisted in rejecting it.
“While affirming the many gifts which Steve has to offer, we urge him, as a much-loved brother in Christ, to reconsider both the substance and style of his recently expressed views on this matter.”
This followed a debate in Westminster attended by almost 1,000 people in which Chalke was asked to publicly respond to his critics.
It was virtually a modern-day heresy trial and the newspaper Evangelicals Now also questioned whether Chalke could be considered an “Evangelical” any longer, in light of what he had written.
Chalke questioned a description of God whose anger against sinners and demand for justice can only be appeased through bringing about the violent death of his Son, claiming it was incompatible with the Christian understanding of the character of God.
“God says love your enemies but then doesn’t love his until he’s got blood – how can God run on a different ethic to the way he’s asked his people to live?”
The use of provocative imagery such as likening God to a “cosmic child abuser” shocked many evangelicals only because, said Chalk, “It is a stark unmasking of the violent, pre-Christian thinking behind such theology”.
General Director of the Evangelical Alliance Joel Edwards said that the Alliance’s statement of faith implied an acceptance of penal substitution.
“If anyone looks at clauses three and four of our basis of faith; there is a very clear implicit relationship between Jesus’ work of substitution and penal substitution.”
Chalke was calling for a bigger view to be had of the cross. “I think it is like the emperor’s new clothes and when someone stands up and asks questions people get scared.”
There was popular support for Chalke’s book and applause for his statements during the debate.
An uneasy truce has since been adopted by both sides and, in a 2005 statement, Edwards said the Evangelical Alliance welcomes the fact that Chalke has “affirmed [his] willingness to continue creative engagement with penal substitutionary atonement, and to work alongside its proponents in the cause of the gospel.”
Queensland Vision for Mission Advocate Rev Duncan Macleod said that since the Apostle Paul there have been many doctrinal models developed to explain the death and resurrection of Jesus, and that penal substitutionary atonement was just one of them.
“Becoming familiar with the depth of meaning in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus will lead to more effective sharing of faith.”
While most Christians see belief in the physical death and resurrection of Jesus as essential tenets of the Christian faith, member of the Progressive Spirituality Network (PSN) and retired minister Rev Ray Richmond said some understand “that the resurrection of Jesus was a typical act of human imagination; historical but not factual”.
“Our apparent intention is to build up the numbers of the church with exacting consent to propositions in the clothing of previous world-views.”
Mr Richmond calls for the church to “get out of the resurrection box we have built”.
So, is Chalke a heretic or just another Christian trying to determine what the Easter story really means?
It seems we are only just beginning to comprehend the complexity of God’s saving work through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Photo : Descent from the Cross 1612-14 oil on panel by Peter Paul Rubens. Perhaps Rubens’ best-known painting and a classic of Christian art The Descent from the Cross is the centrepiece of a triptych commissioned by the Arquebusiers (civic guard) for their altar in the Antwerp cathedral.
