Customer Reviews
A wonderful book far closer to the spirit of God than most of its reviewers! - By: The ghost of Raymond Chandler, 29 Oct 2008 
Make no mistake, this is an absolutely wonderful book. It is closer to the spirit of God & Jesus than anything I have ever read, outside of the writings of the great George MacDonald. What seems to have upset some "evangelical" Christians (for which, sadly all too often, read misinformed, narrow-minded, self-righteous, pompous bigots) most about it is its interpretation of the atonement.
Well, I'll leave it to a far, far better man than I, George MacDonald himself, to demolish the mean, petty, vindictive & downright false notion of 'penal' or 'substitutionary' atonement (ie that Christ died on the cross as punishment for our sins), as peddled by some of the Chalke bashers here, & this from his Unspoken Sermon 'Justice' (freely available as an e-text):
"The notion that the salvation of Jesus is a salvation from the consequences of our sins, is a false, mean, low notion. The salvation of Christ is salvation from the smallest tendency or leaning to sin. It is a deliverance into the pure air of God's ways of thinking & feeling. It is a salvation that makes the heart pure, with the will & choice of the heart to be pure.
"If there be no satisfaction to justicein the mere punishment of the wrong-doer, what shall we say of the notion of satisfying justice by causing one to suffer who is not the wrong-doer? And what, moreover, shall we say to the notion that, just because he is not the person who deserves to be punished, but is absolutely innocent, his suffering gives perfect satisfaction to the perfect justice? That the injustice be done with the consent of the person maltreated makes no difference: it makes it even worse, seeing, as they say, that justice requires the punishment of the sinner, & here is one far more than innocent. They have shifted their ground; it is no more punishment, but mere suffering the law requires!
The thing gets worse & worse. I declare my utter & absolute repudiation of the ideain any form whatever. Rather than believein a justice-that is, a God-to whose righteousness, abstract or concrete, it could be any satisfaction for the wrong-doing of a man that a man who did no wrong should suffer, I would be driven from among men, & dwell with the wild beasts that have not reason enough to be unreasonable. What! God, the father of Jesus Christ, like that! His justice contented with direst injustice! The anger of him who will nowise clear the guilty, appeased by the suffering of the innocent! Very God forbid. Observe: the evil fancy actually substitutes for punishment not mere suffering, but that suffering which is farthest from punishment; & this when, as I have shown, punishment, the severest, can be no satisfaction to justice!
How did it come ever to be imagined? It sprang from the trustless dread that cannot believein the forgiveness of the Father; cannot believe that even God will do anything for nothing; cannot trust him without a legal arrangement to bind him. How many, failing to trust God, fall back on a text, as they call it! It sprang from the pride that will understand what it cannot, before it will obey what it sees. He that will understand first will believe a lie-a lie from which obedience alone will at length deliver him. If anyone say, 'But I believe what you despise,' I answer, To believe it is your punishment for being able to believe it; you may call it your reward, if you will. You ought not to be able to believe it. It is the merest, poorest, most shameless fiction, invented without the perception that it was an invention-fit to satisfy the intellect, doubtless, of the inventor, else he could not have invented it. It has seemed to satisfy also many a humble soul, content to take what was given, & not think; content that another should think for him, & tell him what was the mind of his Fatherin heaven.
Again I say, let the person who can be so satisfied be so satisfied; I have not to trouble myself with him. That he can be content with it, argues him unready to receive better. So long as he can believe false things concerning God, he is such as is capable of believing them-with how much or how little of blame, God knows. Opinion, right or wrong, will do nothing to save him. I would that he thought no more about this or any other opinion, but set himself to do the work of the Master. With his opinions, true or false, I have nothing to do. It is because such as he force evil things upon their fellows-utter or imply them from the seat of authority or influence-to their agony, their paralysation, their unbelief, their indignation, their stumbling, that I have any right to speak. I would save my fellows from having what notion of God is possible to them blotted out by a lie."
Apologies for the lengthy quotation, but the point is so important it is worth making properly.
Thank you, Steve Chalke, for telling the truth of the message of Jesus - that God is love & light, &in Him is no darkness at all.
Departure from orthodoxy - By: G. J. Weeks, 10 Jun 2008 
One might say that Chalke's title has an unexpected appropriateness. He has lost any message about sin. He denies original sin. In his desire to make the gospel only good news, he plays down the bad news that we are sinners who need to be awakened to our desperate plight. Chalke is a gifted communicator but I fear he has gone too far trying to remove the offence of the cross. Chalke seems much influenced by N T Wright's new perspective. I believe he isin danger of a serious departure from biblical orthodoxy.
Drivel - By: jshack73, 04 Jun 2008 
Rowan Williams could have written this - & I don't mean that as a compliment either. Essentially Chalke & Mann argue that a liberal evangelical message will be more palatable to the the public. They ignore or pervert scripture, & avoid any church history. The section on the atonement is ghastly & deeply offensive to any true Bible-believer. However, they do write well & there is a certain entertainment valuein argument of the book : it's so stupid it's worth reading.
The Lost Plot of Steve Chalke - By: Matthew Kottman, 12 Apr 2008 If you think this book is bad, wait to see the one he writesin 10 years if he stays on this track.
Mr. Chalke needs to sail back to port & find a biblical balance before he launches out into the deep, for a shipwreckin the deep waters of heretical theology is most tragic.
Denial of the devine??? - By: Mr. Alec G. Ham, 18 Jan 2008 To deny the doctrine of penal substitution is to ignore the reason for Jesus becoming man. I recommend reading a./ The Bible & b./ "Pierced for our Transgressions"
