Clauses 3 & 4 of the Evangelical Alliance's Basis of Faith affirm: 'The universal sinfulness and guilt of fallen man, making him subject to God's wrath and condemnation' and 'The substitutionary sacrifice of the incarnate Son of God as the sole and all-sufficient ground of redemption from the guilt and power of sin, and from its eternal consequences'.
This was the point around which the public debate over the now notorious book The Lost Message of Jesus by Steve Chalke and Alan Mann was organised. Hosted by the Evangelical Alliance at Emmanuel Centre in Westminster on Thursday October 7, around 700 people (including many young people) gathered for the debate. The evening purported to allow 'dialoguing' on 'the main areas of dispute'.
Despite the good-natured manner in which the debate was held, it was, perhaps unavoidably, a sad reflection of the words of Jonathan Stephen: 'Just as in the 19th century "Christianity" came to be defined in terms of whatever "Christians" believed, so in the 21st century "evangelicalism" has come to be defined by whatever "evangelicals" believe. Either way, the inevitable result is liberalism. The elevation of the love of God to the virtual exclusion of his other attributes is one of the basic tenets of open theism, while [Chalke's] explanation of the nature and origins of the doctrine of penal substitution is sheer parody.
