I’m currently working on a couple of posts, specifically:

• a discussion of the ideas in the shocking final episode of Life on Mars
• editing some of my contributions to online discussions of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (such as on Ship of Fools), defending the idea that Jesus died in our place to take away the punishment for our sins and bring us to God.

On the subject of the controversy in Christian circles over what Jesus did on the Cross (see my previous post here, and some of the latest in the discussion here, here and here), I’d just like to return to some things I said about intellectual maturity in the first in a series of posts I began but haven’t yet found time to return to. As I said back then,

One example of immature thinking on the part of Christians is to label certain speakers, writers, books or organisations as “sound” or “unsound”, and to then either accept or reject what they say fairly uncritically. This goes right against the command to “Test everything. Hold on to the good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21)…

I think the original post is worth reading, and it uses the atonement argument as an example of discussion. To elaborate a bit on that quote, one of the ways we allocate these labels is through a process of guilt by association – because speaker X is friends with person Y who worked with “unsound” organization Z, speaker X is obviously clearly beyond the pale, too.

Whether or not someone signs a doctrinal statement can also be a basis on which someone gets either uncritically accepted or rejected. Don’t get me wrong, doctrinal statements are important and useful. But we’re misusing them if we use them as a substitute for actually thinking Biblically about what people have to say. Just because someone can sign up to a statement of essentials shouldn’t mean that they get a free ticket on everything else they say, and just because someone is wrong on something important doesn’t mean that everything else they say is necessarily mistaken.

So when I get on to discussing PSA, I’m going to try my best to discuss the theology, weighing it up against the Bible, rather than the personalities and the politics involved in the current debate. Naturally I’ll refer to the likes of Jeffrey John, Steve Chalke, and the authors of Pierced for our transgressions and so on, but hopefully to discuss their ideas. If you’ll excuse me quoting from myself again:

Part of becoming mature as Christians is being able to engage in debate and discussion lovingly, listeningly, and carefully, and to be able to value discussion and diversity. I do not mean a pluralism that accepts every view as equally true, but a valuing of debate and discussion as a useful way of refining our views to bring us closer to what’s true…

If we really have confidence in the truth of the Gospel, then we need not be afraid of examining it, asking honest questions, and working through difficult issues.