The doctrine of substitutionary atonement is both biblical and Anglican, argues Tom Wright

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/?p=1607

[Anglican Mainstream] 28 Apr 2007--Suppose you turned on the radio one day, and heard the following statement: “I once heard a sermon that said that God was like three men together in a boat. What’s more, some people in Crete are saying that there are really three gods. And recently some in this country have said that God is like a man with three heads. Now, even when I was ten years old, I knew this was ridiculous. So let me tell you: this business about the Trinity is just nonsense.”

Of course, nobody in their right mind would make such a silly argument. Certainly the BBC wouldn’t dream of broadcasting it. But that is more or less the type of argument that the Dean of St Albans, the Very Revd Dr Jeffrey John, advanced in his Holy Week broadcast on Radio 4. He once heard a funeral sermon about God’s wrath falling on the recently departed. A Cretan bishop interpreted an earthquake as God’s judgement against contraception. And some people think that God hurled a thunderbolt at York Minster because of Dr David Jenkins, the then Bishop of Durham.