N.T. Wright Project

A long passage toward the end of Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God is helping re-hatch and expand my Christology. Moreover, it’s put me in touch with the humanity of Jesus in a profound way. A broad statement, but nonetheless true, is that most Christians today have no problem thinking of Jesus as the lofty and divine second person of the Trinity, yet find themselves uneasy if forced to grapple with his raw humanity.

Perhaps it’s because the church has developed an allergic reaction to anything that smells like Arius (or his contemporary sibling, the Jesus Seminar). Whatever the case, most Christians don’t take seriously the fact that Jesus would have caught common colds, made mistakes in carpentry, and struggled as he got older with what he perceived to be his vocation – unless of course you think baby Jesus knew he was the divine Son of God while still in the crib.

This is the second part of my review of Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision. I stated in the first part the two historical events that kept coming to mind while reading through Wright’s book: (1) the sixteenth-century theological dispute that set the Reformation in motion and (2) Karl Barth’s monumental and explosive Romans commentary published nearly twenty years after the turn of the twentieth century. My earlier post covered how Wright’s new book came about, the fundamental differences between Wright and Piper on justification, what exactly is at stake in their dispute, and why this resembles the Reformation in various ways (if this last line sounds melodramatic then read the earlier post). We now turn to the second half of Justification where Bishop Wright really rolls up his sleeves and does nitty-gritty exegesis. I’ll focus particularly on his treatment of Romans and how its bomb-like effect on the theological world is akin to the one caused by Barth’s commentary ninety years ago.

The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating (and Exegesis)
Wright has already put his cards on the table by the time we arrive at the second half of the book; he’s defined righteousness and justification in terms of God’s faithfulness to the Abraham covenant, argued that justification is only one part of human salvation, and drawn a distinction between how justification works in the present and in the future. He now turns directly to the text to show he’s built his case on Paul’s writings rather than some later tradition of interpretation (he accuses Piper of doing of the latter).

InterVarsity Press was gracious to send me a copy of Wright’s new book to review. While reading Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, two historical events kept coming to mind. The first is the sixteenth-century theological showdown now referred to as the Reformation; the second is Barth’s landmine commentary on Romans published almost ninety years ago. My review of Justification will be in two parts, with the second to be posted in two weeks. In this post I’ll tell how Wright’s book came about, outline its overall argument, and then explain how it corresponds with the first of these historical events, the Reformation. The next post will deal with the exegetical part of Justification as well as its relation to the second of these historical events, Barth’s commentary.

Geocentric vs. Heliocentric
Justification was written in reply to a book published in 2007 by John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright. Piper’s book is straightforwardly polemical (a PDF version is free online, and whether or not you agree with his writings, you have to respect the fact that he makes them free), with the chapters arranged one punch after another, each aiming at a different aspect of Wright’s teaching on the doctrine of justification. I read The Future of Justification shortly after it came out, and I will say that though Piper has little patience for any view other than his own, the overall tone of his book is courteous. (Unfortunately the same can’t be said for many of Wright’s other critics who have used Piper’s book as angry ammunition in their own writings and blogs; hence, Wright’s comment in his first chapter: “It really is high time we developed a Christian ethic of blogging.”)

Back in April I spent a week closely reading Karl Barth’s treatment of war in Church Dogmatics and writing an essay that affirmed some aspects and critiqued others. Over the last few years I’ve developed strong convictions in favor of nonviolence and pacifism through my reading of the Gospels, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Howard Yoder. I’m currently studying N.T. Wright’s Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship with a group of friends, and this morning I read a chapter about the ascension of Jesus that deals with power and empire. I’d like to revisit Barth’s argument in light of Wright’s chapter and see what it adds to the discussion.

To summarize (and grossly oversimplify) Barth’s argument in Church Dogmatics (hereafter CD), I should begin by saying he comes much closer to the position of pacifism than he does just war. In CD III/4 he asks, “Can there ever be a time when war is justified?” He asserts that any affirmative answer to this question is wrong from the very outset and a betrayal of the Gospel. To even discuss the question of just war, one must first admit that the arguments for absolute pacifism are “almost infinite” and “almost overpoweringly strong” (455).

I’m back from a long break and there’s a nice blanket of white snow here in Princeton. Perfect time to start working through Wright’s big blue book, Jesus and the Victory of God (hereafter JVG), which is the second volume in his Christian Origins and the Question of God series.

He begins with a thorough overview of the history of Jesus studies and some of the biographies of this Galilean Jew that have resulted. Playing off of a Schweitzer tune, he says that most historians looking for Jesus in the past were “inclined to see [their] own face at the bottom of a deep well and mistake it for the face of Jesus” (XV). There’s an old jibe that says God made us in his image, so we turned around and returned the favor.

I’ve got a stack of books about Jesus sitting on my desk, and it’s been stimulating (to say the least) to read some other folks’ perspectives on this man from Nazareth alongside my study of JVG. In Mark 8 Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say I am?” and here’s a sampling of some of the answers I’ve come across:

Pope Benedict XVI
“What was true of Moses only in fragmentary form has now been fully realized in the person of Jesus: He lives before the face of God, not just as a friend, but as a Son; he lives in the most intimate unity with the Father. We have to start here if we are truly to understand the figure of Jesus as it is presented to us in the New Testament; all that we are told about his words, deeds, sufferings, and glory is anchored here.” (Jesus of Nazareth, 6)

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Having reached the end of our study of NT Wright, I would like to reflect on one of the things I have most appreciated about Wright’s work: his use of Scripture.  Because so much of our theology depends upon how we treat and use the Bible, understanding the way in which Wright works with Scripture is helpful in understanding the conclusions he makes about certain theological points.  I found this to be especially true when reading “The Future of Justification”, John Piper’s critique of Wright’s treatment of justification.  While reading Piper’s critique, it became abundantly clear to me that in order to evaluate if his critiques were fair, it would be necessary to understand how Wright treats Scripture as he builds his various arguments.

The first place I turned was Wright’s popular work “The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture”.  This proved to be immensely helpful.  His discussion of the authority of Scripture was particularly insightful, because he argues that the authority we are talking about is not the authority of Scripture itself, but “the authority of God exercised through Scripture” (Last Word, 138).  This shift in emphasis helps me to use the text as an avenue to hear and know God, rather than to view it as an unliving document to which my life and every decision must answer.  It allows for flexible and creative interpretations, and it opens up the ability for people who end up with different opinions on matters to respect each others use of the Bible as having led them to that position.  Ultimately, it allows for a much more faithful witness to the truths of God which are revealed in Scripture.

There’s a favorite hymn lyric that goes “They’ll know we are Christians by our love”.  These words are sung in churches every Sunday.  But I wonder if many of the people singing them really want to be known as Christian.  It seems to me that lately we will do anything possible not to be identified as a Christian.  Whether this is because we don’t want to seem intolerant, weak, prissy, or boring, claiming the identity of Christian has become something we do with reluctance rather than pride.  And we take great care to make sure our lives are indistinguishable from everyone else around us.

In reading Tom Wright’s discussion of the very beginnings of the early church in The New Testament and the People of God, I came across a passage which paints a very different picture of Christian identity than the one I just described.  “But that there was a striking difference in general praxis as between pagans and Christians there can be no doubt.  That there was even a viable expectation of a striking difference is remarkable in itself…  Early Christians took it for granted that in the details of their behavior they should be significantly different, in clearly defined ways, from their pagan neighbors” (NTPG, p. 363).

Five minutes ago I finished reading New Testament and the People of God. It is hard to describe the sense of accomplishment that I feel right now. On the one hand, I just finished reading 476 pages. On the other, Wright’s text is so rich that it demands a second reading - perhaps even a third. Tomorrow or maybe the day after, I will begin the critical task of engaging views of Wright’s text within the scholarly community. But for now, I want to bask in the celebration by briefly laying out three reflections about Wright’s work. I will post them in succession.

1. Critical realism

Many evangelicals have a difficult time accepting the mediated character of theologizing and biblical interpretation. By mediated, I mean coming to terms with the fact that theology and biblical interpretation involves human beings making claims about God; and further, that in making those claims, they are inevitably making choices about the meanings of words, the themes of a particular book, the leading images for taking about God, etc. The deep suspicion - which is not an unwarranted one I might add - is that acknowledging the the mediated character necessarily means that talk about God is nothing more than projecting human dramas onto a divine cansas that may or may not exist. Out of disquieting fear, the question then arises: are there any philosophical resources for evangelicals - who rightly believe that we can speak truly of God, and of God in relation to Scripture - desiring to acknowledge the mediated character of theology without subscribing to “your guess is as good as mine” relativism?

The church I grew up in didn’t observe the liturgical year, nor is it part of the larger evangelical tradition I come from. Other than Christmas and Easter, I never knew there was something called the “Christian calendar.” Strictly speaking, the church’s liturgical year revolves around the key events in the life of Jesus: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. Over the past few years, as I’ve learned more about this liturgical tradition, I’ve also come to understand the reluctance that many Protestant streams have in going down this path. Stemming back to the Reformation of the 16th century, many Protestant leaders chose to preach through whole books of the bible rather than follow the church’s liturgy which bounced around in different books of the bible each week. The  liturgy of the Catholic church was blamed (and rightly so) for much of the biblical literacy permeating the Christian landscape of the time, infecting both clergy and parishioners. The liturgical year was limiting (such as not including any Old Testament passages) and had become empty ritual rather than tradition loaded with significance.

Reform is good. In fact, it’s essential. Christianity has an element of self-critique built into itself, dating all the way back to Israel’s prophets.

But, as always, one mustn’t throw the banana out with the skin.

Over the past few years I’ve begun to reclaim some of the ancient liturgical tradition that Christians down through the ages have observed. I’m learning how to anticipate the gift of Christ long before December 25th, remember death while having ash smeared on my forehead, repent and make a sacrifice during lent, and party like it’s 1999 when Easter rolls around. And part of my learning curve has been figuring out what the heck All Saints Day is. So last week I read Wright’s small book, For All the Saints?, and saw just how goofy we are in America for dropping the real celebration at the end of October/beginning of November (’All Hallows Day’ or All Saints Day on Nov 1st) for a pagan offshoot of it instead (’All Hallows Eve’ or Halloween on Oct 31st). Not only have we embraced this weird pumpkin-carving, death-dressing festival with open arms, we’ve cultivated it into a full-blown money making scheme. Sounds like one big fat adventure in missing the point (instead of tossing the banana out with the skin, we ditched the banana and are eating the skin). Ah, it’s times like this that make me proud to be an American.

“The important thing is that we grasp the central hope of the ultimate resurrection, set within new creation itself, and that we reorder all our thinking and speaking about every other after-death question in that light.” (Surprised by Hope, 174)

This simple statement helps me see questions of the afterlife in a new light. When reading a book it’s much more important to grasp the thesis, the author’s underlying argument, than details or specifics of its chapters and passages. When watching a play it’s much more important to catch the plot, the storyline that is pushing the play along, than one scene or a dialogue within the play. In a way this describes the importance of grasping the hope of resurrection in the New Testament compared to other afterlife issues. This is not to say the other details are not important such as the intermediate state between death and resurrection, the realities of heaven and hell, etc. These specifics are important, for together they must constitute a coherent whole. However, it would be a grave mistake to weigh these after-death details with the same heaviness as the great after-death question the New Testament is concerned with: resurrection. Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong questions. Where will we go? What will it be like? Will I still be married? Come to think of it, we’re pretty good at asking the wrong questions. Wright says the question ought to be, “How will God’s new creation come?” and then, “How will we humans contribute to that renewal of creation and to the fresh projects that the creator God will launch in his new world?” (185). Resurrection and new creation are at the center, the very core, of Christian hope; they’re the plot holding the play together. And understanding the plot of a play is the first step in making sense of its smaller scenes.