Hello David.  Well,  +Tom speaks for himself in what he has written.... he has made powerful points re caricatures and straw men that people set up in order to knock them down.... so, it certainly is none of the caricatures but I am sure a careful, rigorous, biblical view as usual for him. What I found notable in his review of “Pierced for Our Transgressions” (Dr Ovey et al) was that he did not take the authors apart for what they said re penal substitution from a conservative point of view  and he actually says that the book is good in many ways -  his criticisms were more to do with approach to the subject  and the criticism of Steve Chalke which he felt was unfair etc. Am I missing something subtle implicit in your question, David?

Dear Nersen, the issue is which doctrine of penal substitution does Tom Wright believe is scriptural.

Adrian (the pluralist)  - it is a fact that +Durham is a robust defender of the biblical doctrine of penal substitution....he says so himself, on the record.  If you read what he says, he thinks people misundertstood Steve Chalke.....

I have to say that this is typical of Nersen Pillay (formerly NP at Thinking Anglicans) - not what I wrote but something else being claimed, whether in inverted commas or not, and arguments repeated rather than met. I had read what N. T. Wright wrote and here is the relevant bit:

I cannot tell, from this paragraph alone, which of two things Steve means. You could take the paragraph to mean (a) on the cross, as an expression of God’s love, Jesus took into and upon himself the full force of all the evil around him, in the knowledge that if he bore it we would not have to; but this, which amounts to a form of penal substitution, is quite different from other forms of penal substitution, such as the mediaeval model of a vengeful father being placated by an act of gratuitous violence against his innocent son. In other words, there are many models of penal substitution, and the vengeful-father-and-innocent-son story is at best a caricature of the true one. Or you could take the paragraph to mean (b) because the cross is an expression of God’s love, there can be no idea of penal substitution at all, because if there were it would necessarily mean the vengeful-father-and-innocent-son story, and that cannot be right.

Clearly, Steve’s critics have taken him to mean (b), as I think it is clear Jeffrey John and several others intend. I cannot now remember what I thought when I read the book four years ago and wrote my commendation, but I think, since I had been following the argument through in the light of the arguments I myself have advanced, frequently and at length, about Jesus’ death and his own understanding of it, that I must have assumed he meant (a). I have now had a good conversation with Steve about the whole subject and clarified that my initial understanding was correct: he does indeed mean (a).

I specifically argued that the C of E has held together because the broad Church movement arose at the same time as the High Church movement, and it had a particular role as well as being a place for radicals. This is why GAFCON cannot work, because it has incompatible extreme positions specialities without a range of views that goes towards a centre, a centre in the broad Church that used to have a binding function. It is no good just repeating the previous view: this is now an argument made which ought to be addressed at least for its strength or weakness. The C of E, up to 1992, used to be a triad of checks and balances that made it rather stable. GAFCON is a two ends extremist group that will fall apart. The C of E, now a dyad (two), is also now unstable, but not as unstable.

As for the Christian Church and such as "unitarian pluralists" I just go by the huge range of theological output from members of many denominations. Tomorrow I shall be involved in our In Depth group again - I don't tell people what to say, or make them say what they do. We'll look at Karl Barth, his response against liberalism, Volkish/ Nazi experience and see Barth more clearly via a mirror opposite open liberal Martineau. If we there were to develop our own organisation, it would look remarkably like the local Anglican Church, and I don't think the local one would notice the difference. I have specific reasons why I am not Unitarian (capital U). Anyway, the Anglican Church is not defined by some narrow criteria provided by the Nersen Pillay party and associates by which it ends up chopping itself into bits to make its own organisations of ever purer slices.

My Nine Theses are on my blog. I happen to think it is a good thing that some Baha'is have picked these up as useful in their own struggle against an overbearing Administrative Order. My faith stance is open and expansive, ecumenical and interfaith and I can debate with people outside the usual box.

My views remain visible and open, and at perhaps some cost to me. I would encourage others not to hide, but for some this is difficult when there is so much pressure and tension around. I don't care: I only represent myself. Obviously, if one day I am shown the door I shall leave.

By the way, by Church I mean Church, not a Communion that is not a Church. I mean the body that has a synod and a House of Bishops and even by law does not accept oversight from outside of itself.

Sorry - did not mean to have quotation marks around "agrees with Steve Chalke"  below..... 

Adrian (the pluralist)   - rather than asserting that Tom Wright "agrees with Steve Chalke", you might like to read what he actually says and see a summary of his defence for the doctine of penal substitution:

http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/news/2007/20070423wright.cfm?doc=205

I find your view unconvincing that GAFCON cannot hold together because it contains a wide range Anglican churchmanship - it is holding together..... in just the same way as the CofE has held together all these years and is still holding together.

What is not tenable is that we should have an Anglican Communion that is so broad that it must make space for everyone regardless of theology and practice e.g. unitarian pluralists  -  surely they have their own organisations.

I want to make a number of comments on recent posts but this posting just makes one of them, in response to Clare.

I understand from her postings on Fulcrum that one of Clare’s convictions is that God’s wrath is never a punitive wrath which is final with no possibility of it being removed, but is ‘A therapeutic wrath’. No doubt if this understanding is an inexact summary of this conviction she will tell me.

On the assumption that this is a reasonable summary of this conviction, my case is that if certain passages in the New Testament are true, then this conviction of Clare’s is untrue. Some (by no means all) of these passages are:

Luke 13:1-5

Luke 19:27

Matthew 13:36-43

Matthew 7:21-23

Matthew 25:40-46

2 Thessalonians 1:6-9

I need to define what I mean by ‘true’. The gospel passages all attribute statements to Jesus Christ. By ‘true’ I mean that Jesus did make those statements, in whatever language he made them, and that whatever the process of translation, copying, etc. was, the meaning of Jesus’ original words and the meaning of Jesus’ original statements is accurately conveyed in the English we find in our English translations. The Thessalonians passage is from a letter of Paul. By ‘true’ I mean that Paul did write those words and that whatever the process of translation, copying, etc. was, the meaning of Paul’s original words and the meaning Paul’s original statements is accurately conveyed in the English we find in our English translations, and that Jesus and his angels will do the things stated and the things stated will happen to those who know not God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

On the assumption that these passages are true in the sense defined I invite Clare to acknowledge that her conviction, as outlined above in paragraph 2, is untrue. Please note that I am not asking Clare to acknowledge that her conviction is untrue. Only that it is untrue if the passages given are true in the sense defined.

Phil Almond

The basis on which Andrew Goddard is open to GAFCON is limited and restricted and critical: what he wants is to cover the North America Province of GAFCON with the Covenant to legitimise it - which would probably mean the end of the Covenant even if it gets that far. I find I have less in common with Andrew Goddard the more he types, but this is to say nothing - he is falling between two stools in his drift to the right.

The GAFCON collection is a joke - how on earth can the Forward in Faith brigade have anything to do with the tendencies of Sydney, which is the place of the secretariat? The mixture of Reformed and Catholic in Anglicanism only worked because there was a Broad Church party that rose as such at the same time as the High Church party - the Broad Church having Latitudinarian and Arian-Anglican roots but in the nineteenth century was also a middle ground, a clearing ground and buffer. GAFCON won't function because they are specialised extremists lumped in one room. However, my view is that GAFCON is a front for a more pernicious development that seeks to takeover Anglicanism. An example was how that Jerusalem Declaration was introduced. It was a back room production, a mishmash introduced to a gathering and then launched, but like all GAFCON decisions it was already taken in advance. The culture and ethic of GAFCON is at some variance to that of Anglicanism in general.

As for this numbers game, they come from specific geographical and cultural locations and have their own inflated figures. One result may well be the balkanisation of Anglicanism - some with GAFCON, some non-GAFCON in the Global South, Western Anglicans with Canterbury and not Canterbury.

I think you'll find that Tom Wright has much in common with Steve Chalke, and does not represent the hard right when it comes to penal substitution. There are various elements in the Bible regarding the atonement, and theologians of Wright's kind benefit from observing the varieties.

In the end the Open Evangelicals should decide for themselves the future. Some will prefer the company of hardliners and that within GAFCON, and others will prefer the openness of more liberal colleagues. The line comes down through this grouping. My own view is that they will make a mistake if they don't set out to tackle GAFCON and all its motives, because it is about authority and control, and is not about giving such away. Open Evangelicals are useful as fellow travellers, and that is all.

None of this represents my own leanings, so beyond such comment I don't wish to engage in extended debate. The issue I'm more interested in is whether Anglicanism continues to be a place for liberal and radical theology, for university theology, or whether it is turning into some sect that ought to be disestablished and fade away into meaningless obscurity, full of evangelical inside talk. I did produce nine theses on my blog, that I would say improve on Bishop Spong's, and nine as an outcome made me chuckle as it is a Baha'i number, as I am having interesting discussions with Baha'is who have experienced what happens when a faith institution, an administration, misunderstands itself for the faith it expresses, and ends up ejecting thoghtful people left, right and centre. If this is what Anglicanism wants to do, then it is going the right way about it.

Adrian (the pluralist) - it is not really surprising that "open" evangelicals might be open to GAFCON, is it? After all, they are still evangelicals and have so much in common with their conservative friends. 

If GAFCON had been a failure and Lambeth had not been so unrepresentative of the AC  (a 1/4 of the bishops attending were from tiny TEC!), "open" evangelicals probably would not need to bother - but GAFCON was huge, representative of global Anglicanism, and even managed to be broad in its churchmanship..... the "open" evangelical bishops would have felt much more at home at GAFCON than Lambeth08  (but they will never admit that!!!)

What is an "open" evangelical?  Is it Andrew Goddard?  I normally find I can agree with everything he says..... Is it Prof Radner? Neven been able to faulty his logic or assumptions.  Is it Tom Wright?  As a conservative, I would love to have him as my bishop  - firmly biblical, no wobbling on Lambeth 1.10 to gain popularity in the church bureaucracy, and even a robust defender of the doctrine of penal substitution (which irritates poor old "liberals" as +Tom is a respected theologian and cannot be written off for not knowing the Greek!) . He is not a "liberal evangelical" (that is a very rare and contradictory breed), but if he is an "open" evangelical, then there is very little to divide "open" and "conservative" when it comes to theology.

Phil

You seem to be operating with a very clear idea of what you mean by 'truth', but I'm afraid that you have not adequately explained what you mean by the word, and this is very much highlighted by your last post of this thread. Nor, actually, have you clearly told us what you mean by the Bible.

The three possibilities you give are very far from the only three. For example "The Biblical text as originally recorded was (and is) true, but the meaning of the text has been distorted to an unknown extent through the processes of transmission and translation."

[So when an English translation says: "and Jesus said" and then quotes words in English, we know that Jesus didn't speak in English, and we don't actually know the exact words he did speak, nor are we certain about the language he used - he may, on different occasions, have used different languages.]

Truth as a concept operates in different ways: it might be true that on a particular occasion Jesus taught using a particular parable. But then there is the issue of the true meaning of the parable, which is generally a lot less obvious, and is not usually given.

In the letters there is always the issue of how contextual the teaching is - in 1 Corinthians, for example, it is clear that (amongst other things) Paul is addressing a number of specific difficulties in a particular community. How much of that teaching is to be read as directly relevant to a community which doen't have those same difficulties? Romans has a context in the conflict between Jews and non-Jews about the nature of the gospel for non-Jews - so do you mean, in asking about Romans, that the teaching is that the gospel for non-Jews does not require circumcision; or do you mean that the arguments and examples Paul uses to establish this have a reference and meaning beyond the argument in which he originally used them (I'm not pretending that this exhausts Romans, or the theological teaching of Paul in Romans - ch16 tells us for example of men and women in leadership in the Church - but exploring what you mean by the teaching being true).

I wonder also (given your use of the word 'all') what you make of the statement that the Spirit will guide the disciples into 'all truth' - is it possible to have 'all truth'? And what an understanding of truth based on the teaching of Jesus on the subject might bring to our hermeneutics (John's Gospel, for example, uses truth with a much wider reference than true propositions, and is deliberately set up to contrast with Pilate's rather narrower understanding 'what is truth?').

The three possibilities seem to be:

1. The Bible is all true and my convictions about God and Christ and Christ’s death and about wrath and punishment (temporal and eternal) are true.

2. The Bible is all true and my convictions about God and Christ and Christ’s death and about wrath and punishment (temporal and eternal) are false.

3. Some of the Bible is true and some of the Bible is not true. The parts that are true mean that my convictions about God and Christ and Christ’s death and about wrath and punishment (temporal and eternal) are false.

The posting from Madeline on this thread (8 November) make it clear (‘It is the later interpretation of this witness, by Paul and others, which distorts it’) that in her view, at least the Pauline epistles distort the witness of Jesus. My challenge to her is to ask her whether the statements by Jesus given in my 14 August posting on NEAC 2008 are true.

Possibly Birinus (7 November) is saying roughly the same thing as Madeline. I put the same challenge to him.

In response to Clare:

If you don’t believe the Bible is all true but feel entitled to use some of it in your theology, aren’t you making the assumption that the parts of the Bible you are using are true? When you posted ‘Within the Old Testament itself there are conflicting images of what God is like. Some of these are in harmony with the Christ event and some are not. The same could be said to a lesser extent of the New Testament’, didn’t you have any passages in mind in both Testaments? I am just asking you to identify some passages in both Testaments which are in harmony with the Christ event and some that are not. In a recent post you seemed to be trying to show that Romans supports your view. Would you do that if you didn’t believe it to be true?

So I ask you, please, to answer:

Is the teaching of Romans all true?  Or only some of it?

Phil Almond