In many ways the book [Saving Calvinism] is trying to argue for a more popular audience things I've said in some more scholarly works, namely, that the Reformed tradition is broader and more variegated than is often reported today, and that we need to recapture something of this in order that we don't end up unnecessarily narrow in our doctrine and in order to keep some perspective.
Oliver D. CrispHow many people in the pews know that [ Jonathan Edwards] is both a founder of evangelicalism and, say, an idealist who denied that the material world exists?
Oliver D. CrispChrist's work is a kind of deterrent to us, and a way of upholding the justice of God's divine government of the world.
Oliver D. CrispNow, don't get me wrong: I'm not rubbishing penal substitution. But there are other options that have been advocated by Reformed thinkers of the past.
Oliver D. CrispFor instance, the notion of non-penal substitution. This idea, found in the work of the nineteenth century Scottish Reformed theologian John McLeod Campbell and based upon his reading of the letter to the Hebrews in particular, is that Christ offers up his life and death as a penitential act on our behalf, rather than as a punishment in our stead.
Oliver D. Crisp