We can probably all agree that both Tom Wright and Steve Chalke have made really important and very impressive contributions to the vitality of the church in the UK and around the globe, the former through his theological writings, the latter through his Christian social activism. We can also probably agree that certain of Jeffrey John's theological views are inherently problematic and that evangelical Christians especially have core investments in the theory of the penal substitutionary atonement and that those who encourage us to think more deeply in this or other areas are to be commended, whether we agree with everything they say or not. I have no doubt but that there will be further discussion and debate at this level, which is all to the good, as far as I am concerned, but that is not where I intend to engage here.

My concern lies elsewhere. In particular, I am fascinated by the emotional tone of and psychological dynamic inherent in 'The Cross and the Caricatures', and the sociological implications. I begin with the tone and use of language in the essay. In its initial pages, I was impressed by the respectful nature of the discourse, its cultured, gentleman-like and nuanced deployment of language. Jeffrey John was consistently referred to as 'Dr John' and when Tom felt the need to disagree-and he did, and not infrequently-he did so with some apparent sadness and a complete lack of animosity or acerbity. This part of the essay was resplendent with British upper-class formality, good taste, good humour and positive intentions. Indeed, Jeffrey John was given the benefit of the doubt whenever possible; at times Tom even seems to bend over backwards to be warm and receptive. And though there appeared to be little or no common theological ground found with Jeffrey John in relation to the issues surrounding penal substitution and related matters, it did not seem to matter. Tom made his case and made it well.

As I read the first part I kept thinking that it sounded magisterial, grand and glorious. I was thus not expecting what I encountered in the second part of the essay. The mood swing was almost palpable; even the terminology governing the use of proper names was telling. From grand and glorious the tone became at times shrill, sour and ad hominem. Steve Chalke remained 'Steve' or 'Steve Chalke'-you can feel the friendship, warmth and affirmation-but Steve Jeffrey, Mike Ovey (what happened to his PhD?) and Andrew Sacks became 'J, O and S'. Hmmm. Second wave feminists keep reminding us of the importance of nomenclature, who is called what by whom and the underlying power realities in such deployment. However, it gets worse.

'J, O and S' are not only guilty of being 'angry'-if things really matter, anger might be appropriate; and if they are angry, they are not alone here, Tom!-and 'hopelessly sub-biblical'-most of us are when it comes down to it, but we might be making really important points anyway-use 'polemic' and are hearing-challenged, i.e. they can not listen. They rely upon 'flimsy evidence', deploy 'guilt by association' and 'witch hunt' techniques and don't think! Quite a catalogue of academic crimes and misdemeanors, one might say. In short, 'J, O and S' are deemed to be-and damned as being-'the new right-wing (so-called "conservative") evangelicals'. Is this not a form of linguistic and cultural imperialism? There is no better way to shut up one's opponent than to call her or him 'right wing', after all. Perhaps Tom has legitimate difficulties with 'Pierced for Our Transgressions' (PFOT), perhaps not. But there can be no doubt he has far more in common theologically with the basic approach and fundamental theological framework of PFOT people than with that of Jeffrey John, yet his hostility to them and their work as a whole indicates quite a different dynamic at work. Rather than coming alongside as a friend who will share heaven together one day and sees certain things perhaps more clearly and wishes to share his insights, he seems intent on destroying what he considers their false and almost morally contaminated theology.

Friendship may have an important role here. Tom is obviously friends with Steve Chalke, and is trying to assure traditional evangelicals that Steve is still one of them, that Steve is still 'okay'. He takes pains here, and places Steve's questionable remarks from 'The Lost Message of Jesus' (TLMOJ)-in which the influence of Tom's own thinking is apparent-in a positive light. However, it is not that simple or straightforward. As Rev John Richardson has noted, Steve has made it quite clear elsewhere that his view of penal substitutionary atonement is not that held by traditional evangelical individuals. Steve is perfectly free to abandon it, disagree with, modify it or whatever, but this needs to be honestly admitted and publicly recognized for what it is.

From John's website, I cite the following lengthy excerpt, beginning with Steve Chalke's remarks in his article, 'Cross Purposes', 2005, 'Christianity Magazine': ... the supposed orthodoxy of penal substitution is greatly misleading. In reality, penal substitution - in contrast to other substitutionary theories - doesn't cohere well with either biblical or Early Church thought. Although penal substitution isn't as old as many people assume - it's not even as old as the pews in many of our church buildings - it is actually built on pre-Christian thought.

Even more tellingly, Chalke writes in the same article,

In 'The Lost Message of Jesus' TLMOJ I claim that penal substitution is tantamount to 'child abuse - a vengeful Father punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed.' Though the sheer bluntness of this imagery - not original to me of course - might shock some, in truth, it is only a stark 'unmasking' of the violent, pre-Christian thinking behind such a theology. And the simple truth is that if God does not relate to his only Son as a perfect father, neither can we relate to him as such.

It seems clear-both as I recall from reading TLMOJ and from Chalke's comments here -that it is the entire penal notion of the cross that Chalke opposes, which is to say, the notion that God's punishment for our sins is borne there by Christ. Yet Wright himself affirms that the biblical picture of the death of Christ, as understood in the light of Isaiah 53, for example, is of 'not only a substitutionary death but a penal substitutionary death.'

It is interesting also that Chalke's understanding of the historical background to the doctrine of penal substitution represents precisely one which Wright rejects. Commenting on The Mystery of Salvation, a report from the Church of England's Doctrine Commission to which Wright himself contributed and to which Jeffrey John appeals, Wright says it is guilty of 'giving the bizarre impression that the idea was merely invented by Anselm and developed by Calvin.' Yet in the article referred to, Chalke writes in almost exactly these terms:

Initially based upon the writings of Anselm of Canterbury (1033- 1109), penal substitution was substantially formed by John Calvin's legal mind in the reformation.

At the point where it matters, therefore, Chalke's personal position seems to be much further from Wright's own than Wright seems to realize and his lengthy defense of Chalke against the critique presented in PFOT seems at first glance, therefore, to be bizarrely misplaced. Wright's enthusiasm to defend an author he seems not to have fully understood, however, brings me to the second urgent question, which is why Wright makes the attack he does on the 'stable' from which PFOT comes. For it seems to me that Wright's wrath is directed not objectively at the weaknesses he perceives in the scholarship of PFOT-some of which, it appears to me, is simply a failure to share Wright's own very particular understanding of salvation history-but rather subjectively against the Conservative Evangelical 'camp'. Why, for example, does Wright extend considerable generosity and theological latitude to Chalke and not to the authors of PFOT?

John has noted some important concerns here. I would like to finish with one cultural and theological reflection. As a historian I regularly inhabit decades and centuries now long gone. I attend to and engage with the worldviews and realms of thought and belief of those now long departed. At least in certain ages subjects like God's wrath, divine justice and human culpability received far more positive air time from the pulpit and elsewhere. Christians knew they were divinely, gloriously created but also profoundly and radically fallen. And God both loved and judged. And Christians then seemed to cope. I also do a great deal of listening to the voices of 2007. Many of these are Christian voices, evangelical Christian voices. And their churches are ones which rarely if ever preach on sin, hell and judgement - those topics are so antiquated and negative, after all! - and yet the people I listen to now have never felt so judged, flawed, inadequate or profoundly bad about themselves. Most are encumbered with dysfunctionalities of various forms. It is almost as if reverse psychology is at work here. It seems to me that the less we speak honestly of the human condition in all its splendour and all its squalour, the more we actually disservice those we are trying to help. The truth, the whole truth, does set us free, that is, if we have the courage to embrace it.

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