Into the Wardrobe

Last time I was on here ( a long while ago) I was hit but some crazy new ideas alot of which stemmed out of the historian N.T. Wright. The ideas mostly consisted of a misunderstanding of the way the western world has interpreted Paul. I have read a little bit of Wright and so far found his arguements conise and well reasoned. As an example for the book of Romans you will see Wright comes to conclusions like:

1. the term justification was not meant to be connected to salvation as much as it was a badge for being a follower of christ

2. The theme of romans is less about the developed thoelogies of original sin, and sola fide, and more about universal christianity (niether jew or gentile, the jews not to rely on past rituals like circumsion etc. and the gentiles to stop worshipping idols.

3. While sola fide may be correct, salvation is more about the journey then it is about salvation by faith alone.

Wright does'nt say that the way the western world has created christianity is wrong, but more that it's focus is off from what Pauls main message was.

I have looked for some good books rebutting this,and so far I have only found one called "Perspectives Old and New on Paul" written by Peter Westerholm I just ordered the book and havent gotten it yet but I read what I could of the free preview on the internet and so far it is just a history lesson on some of the foundational Theologians that have created western Christianity. Guys like luther and calvin. If any one has read Wright and has any good thoughts on him positive or negative I would love to hear it. If he is correct, then we that still believe in the inspired word of God, have an interesting dilemma.

I've only read The Challenge of Jesus and found it very interesting. At the very least, Wright is correct in pointing out that our interpretation has been effected, and not always in a good way, by our culture. The enlightenment's emphasis on the individual, for instance. This is a subject that has become of more and more interest to me since I started attending a multicultural church with a Korean-American pastor and an African associate pastor. Because, of course, everyone does the same thing. So, as my pastor says, we can lovingly challenge each others assumptions by saying, "Is that Jesus, or is that the Enlightenment?" or "Is that Jesus, or is that Confucius?" And when you start those question, it's amazing to discover how much of what you thought was just "reading the Bible" is really filtered through Rousseau, Jefferson, or Adam Smith without your even realizing.

Which is a very good thing, imho.

And I might add that this also doesn't mean that Luther and Calvin got it all wrong.

Besides the Eastern Orthodox, what popular denomination in the west has not been effected by either augustine, luther, or calvin? Wright shows some (but not all) core believes in these camps are not well connected to paul, which is where these beliefs supposiviely originate. According to Wright there are problems even in the very basic way we see life after death. Paul was'nt that concerned about what was going to happen to him after death because he thought Jesus would more then likely return in his life time. Not to say I am not greatful for these theologians especially in the political realm. I don't want to know what life would be like if the Catholic Church was still freeing souls from purgatory with cash or credit. There also may be an arguement for scripture having mutiple meanings for different ages (altough I think I see problems with that even as a I type), often it seems even Paul makes slight alternations in meaning to the OT in order to support himself. Maybe God has designed it so revealtion might go from augustine, to luther, to calvin, to wesley, (as well as everyone after and in between) and now for our emerging post modern church to go back to Wright. When I think of pauls focus on universal equality in a multicultural and multirelgious world I see it as possibly having a great and positive impact on today's world (not in the sense that all religions are equal but in a C.S. Lewis style sense, that all good in the world no matter cultural or religion is of Jesus Christ) , perhaps going back to a more basic paul is the new progression of Christianity. I am not saying God Changes, but his revealtions to us may. Interestingly enough within all these changes it seems the creeds would not be overly effected. Just as monotheism from the old testament never changed perhaps the creeds are our foundation, and the rest is open game.

Wright would not say, and his argument on this is pretty convincing, that Paul thought Christ would return in the sense that Scweitzer thought within his lifetime rather he would return in judgement on Jerusalem. See the relevent chapters in Jesus and the Vicory of God and What st Paul really said. As Wright puts it somewhere the scanadal is not that the early Church thought that Christ would return and he did not but that the early Church thought correctly that Christ would return he did return but there is still so much sin in the world.

I also think that N. T. Wright is very solid and much value his work.

More generally, the "New Perspective on Paul" includes a fairly wide number of different approaches and conclusions. Wright certainly makes clear that his work does not mean that one has to sacrifice the key insights/rediscoveries of the Reformation, not does it mean that the reformers were inauthentic in their appropriation of Paul.

The New Perspective does offer a much needed corrective to the truly unfortunate (and grossly inaccurate) caricature that more or less creates a spiritual parallel between the abuses that the reformers were protesting and Judaism.

Recovery of the original Pauline context doesn't take away, but enriches, in my view.

Along with Wright, another key author here that I like is James D. G. Dunn. In Dunn's magnum opus, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, he spends some time making clear that his work does not undermine the classic doctrine of Justification by Faith.