Simon has an excellent item about an upcoming BBC program on the Atonement, which also makes it clear that some bishops in the Church of England believe it is necessary to attack Dean Jeffrey John, famously abandonded by his friend Rowan Williams, even when they don’t really know what Dean John has said.
Politics aside, do you think it is necessary to believe in the penal substitution theory of the Atonment to be a good Christian? If not, what is an acceptable, um, substitution?