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The best Reformed theology isn't just about careful arguments for theologically sophisticated conclusions. It is about how to live the Christian life.

Oliver D. Crisp

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Oliver D. Crisp
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: January 1
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Life
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More quotes by Oliver D. Crisp

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[ Jonathan] Edwards is one of my heroes. I've learned much from him over the years.
Oliver D. Crisp
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I do think that I have been fortunate to make friendships with other scholars, and form reading groups where ideas are exchanged and papers are read. That is a real boon, and it is something I think every scholar or writer can benefit from.
Oliver D. Crisp
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Now, 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. Crisp
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For 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
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In the chapter on the nature of the atonement [in the book saving Calvinism] I argue that it is a mistake to think that penal substitution is the only option on the doctrine of atonement.
Oliver D. Crisp
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For those who have only ever read about [John] Calvin, reading the man himself is an invigorating experience.
Oliver D. Crisp
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I'm sometimes asked about my productivity, which I find a bit embarrassing to be honest. I don't really have a particularly interesting answer to this question.
Oliver D. Crisp
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Jonathan Edwards developed a Calvinistic strand of the doctrine.
Oliver D. Crisp
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Here is the interesting twist:[McLeod] Campbell came to his views through reading Jonathan Edwards who suggested at one point in his ruminations on the atonement that Christ could have offered up a perfect act of penitence instead of punishment, and that this would have been an acceptable offering suitable to remit our sinfulness.
Oliver D. Crisp
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One of the things we in the Reformed tradition are very good at is writing doctrinal theology!
Oliver D. Crisp
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[John Calvin] writes clearly, directly, without artifice, and gets straight to the practical heart of the matter.
Oliver D. Crisp
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I recommend Doug Sweeney's recent book [Jonathan] Edwards the Exegete (Oxford University Press, 2015), which is a terrific treatment of the way in which Edwards was steeped in the Bible, so that it shaped the whole of his thinking.
Oliver D. Crisp
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[John] Calvin is revered as a thinker of immense importance in Reformed thought, Jonathan Edwards could say in his preface to his treatise on Freedom of the Will that he had derived none of his views from the work of Calvin, though he was willing to be called a Calvinist for the sake of convention.
Oliver D. Crisp
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These days I'm often called a Deviant Calvinist, but I don't really think my views do deviate from the Reformed tradition, though in some respects they may represent views that are not as popular now as they once were, or that may represent a minority report in the tradition.
Oliver D. Crisp
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God shows us in Christ what he would have to do if he were to punish us for our sins.
Oliver D. Crisp
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For instance, there are many mainstream Reformed theologians that deny the doctrine of limited atonement (the L in TULIP, the acrostic for the Five Points of Calvinism). These are not thinkers on the margins or troublemakers. They are leaders at the center of Reformed thinking like Bishop John Davenant.
Oliver D. Crisp
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There is no such thing as a stationary tradition. Traditions are always developing, living things.
Oliver D. Crisp
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[John] Calvin is often identified with his account of predestination. Yet that appears in the third book of his Institutes, not the first.
Oliver D. Crisp
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[I'm often called a Deviant Calvinist] but that only goes to underline the point I'm trying to make about the need to broaden our account of the tradition!
Oliver D. Crisp
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[ Jonathan] Edwards is the person who really made theological determinism a serious option for Reformed thinkers, and the influence his views had in nineteenth century Reformed thought, in the USA and the UK in particular, is enormous.
Oliver D. Crisp