John McLeod Campbell

[1] James B. Torrance ranked him highly on the doctrine of the atonement, placing Campbell alongside Athanasius of Alexandria and Anselm of Canterbury.

[2] Campbell took his cue from his close reading of the early Church Fathers, the historic Reformed confessions and catechisms, John Calvin, Martin Luther's commentary on Galatians, and Jonathan Edwards' works.

There drunkenness was frequent, fights common, and smuggling ordinary; religion was conceived only as offering safety from the anger of God and so prayers and worship rang hollow and were often hypocritical.

At issue was the theology of Campbell in his sermons and its relationship and uniformity with the Westminster Standards which all Scottish ministers agreed to preach and teach at their ordination.

Campbell clearly disagreed with the Westminster Confession of Faith's view of a limited atonement, and he was removed from the ministry.

The General Assembly, by which the charge was ultimately considered, found Campbell guilty of teaching heretical doctrines and deprived him of his living.

[6] Declining an invitation to join Edward Irving in the Catholic Apostolic Church, he worked for two years as an evangelist in the Scottish Highlands.

Returning to Glasgow in 1833, Campbell was minister for sixteen years in a large chapel specially built for him by close friends.

Campbell had a close circle of friends, which included Thomas Erskine, Norman McLeod, Alexander Ewing, Frederick Maurice and C. J. Vaughan.

There is some disagreement among scholars as to whether Campbell is rightly accused of denying the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement with his alternate view.

Some critics have argued that Campbell's position was not self-consistent in the place assigned to the penal and expiatory element in the sufferings of Christ, nor adequate in its recognition of the principle that the obedience of Christ perfectly affirms all righteousness and so satisfies the holiness of God, thus effecting a peace and reconciliation between God and humanity—a true atonement.

He sought, with his atonement theory, to move from a purely legal framework (based as it is in the Latin West) to a filial and familial one (more in keeping with the Orthodox East).

This change in language and the concepts behind it is partly to blame for the variety of views regarding whether he ultimately succeeded or failed.