My interview with Dr. Grudem has been serialised on this blog for some while now. Several days ago I asked Dr. Grudem about whether he agreed with Dr. Piper’s use of the word “blasphemy” in connection with Steve Chalke. I posted his answer here.
After some time for personal reflection on what was, of course, just one question in a rather long interview, Dr. Grudem posted me the following email this morning with a request that I publish it here:
Adrian,
After considering some of the discussion on your blog, and after reflecting on this for two or three days, I have had second thoughts about agreeing to the term “blasphemy” to describe Steve Chalke’s statements implying that the penal substitutionary view of the atonement is “divine child abuse,” for this reason:
As a general rule, I try to be cautious about using terms that seem to be inflammatory (such as “heresy” and “heretic”), and “blaspheme” seems to me to be a term like that. The term may carry unnecessary baggage with it.
It is interesting to me that your question was not what I thought about Chalke’s view, but whether I agreed with somebody else’s assessment of Chalke’s view (namely, John Piper’s assessment, and John is a close friend with whom I agree about the danger of Chalke’s view). But the word “blasphemy” was not a word I had previously used of Chalke, and in the interview you were asking me if I agreed with that word to apply to his view. My response was “yes,” but I don’t think, in my quick response, that I gave enough consideration to what I mention above about that word.
Therefore on reconsideration, I would like (if I could!) to retract my comment about Chalke’s statements being “blasphemy,” and I would rather say that when Chalke implies that the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is “cosmic child abuse,” he uses language that I think to be deeply dishonoring to God and to God’s reputation, and deeply dishonoring to the Bible’s teaching on the heart of the atonement and the heart of the Christian Gospel. To say what he says brings reproach on God’s name whenever the true Gospel of Christ’s atoning work is proclaimed. What Chalke says is very serious indeed. And people will have to decide for themselves whether they use the term “blasphemy” to apply to that. But I have not used this term in the past to refer to people who hold Chalke’s view, and I don’t think I will use that term in the future either.
Let me also affirm that I am also very thankful for John Piper’s courageous stand on this, and I do not differ with him at all in my deep dismay at the serious doctrinal error that I think Chalke is making. I am not trying to criticize John’s use of the word, but just saying that I myself do not choose to use it in this case.
Wayne Grudem
Continue interview in part eight . . .
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