I thank Adrian Warnock for the news that John Stott is to retire at last, at the age of 86.
Adrian also clarifies Stott’s position on penal substitutionary atonement. I don’t think I can fully accept this position. But at least this confirmation that Stott’s view of PSA is clearly different from Chalke’s spares Stott from a danger of severe embarrassment: the invitation for his final speaking engagement at Keswick will not be withdrawn because he is perceived as taking a “soft” position on PSA.
I greatly appreciate Stott’s ministry, despite our relatively minor differences over PSA and also some different opinions on charismatic issues. It is now over 30 years since Stott’s book Christ the Controversialist
Stott will be greatly missed. I wish him a long and happy retirement.
. But these definitions are by no means the only ones; for example 
by Stuart Murray. It leads me to ask myself and my church leaders, how far are we keeping up with vestiges of Christendom and how far are we disentangling ourselves from it? Do we “concede that Christendom inoculates people against real Christianity rather than evangelizing them”? I look forward to a review of the strategy suggestions in part two.
This post is not really about the visual difference between the Maltese Cross (left) and the shape with a longer lower part, the Latin Cross (right), which is more standard at least in western churches. I could argue that equal-armed crosses like the Maltese Cross are originally pagan, and that only unequal ones like the Latin version are truly Christian. But that is not my point here. Nor is this at all about the modern country of Malta or its inhabitants. But I am using the difference in cross shape as a symbol of a difference between two fundamental theological outlooks which affects the theology of the cross and the atonement.