Multi-Part Review of Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision by N.T. Wright: PArt 1
I received a review copy of N.T. Wright’s ‘Justification:God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision’ a few days ago. It has been written by Wright as a response to a critique of his position on justification by John Piper. John Piper has been a tremendous help and influence, particularly in my late teens and early twenties,on myself. Piper’s writings, sermons, and conference messages introduced me to a passionate Calvinism which is God centred and values the glory and sovereignty of God. For this I am thankful. However, as I look back on these years, I realise that ,although I had a doctrine of God, my theology of creation was stunted. God, I believed, was the creator (literal 6 days) but his plan, to bring glory to himself, concerned his choosing, justifying and glorifying of the elect. The cosmos, the created world, was merely the backdrop and stage in which this saving action took place. I favoured evangelism over what I perceived as a liberal concern for social action and justice. I would not say that Piper explicitly taught a dualistic (secular/spiritual divide) world-view but I think it is fair to say that there was not enough ‘creation theology’ within Piper to counteract the implicit dualism of much on evangelicalism. At this time I began to explore the work of N.T. Wright. I began with ‘Jesus and the Victory of God’ and before long had consumed, with youthful energy, most of the N.T. Wright books I could get my hands on. Instead of a reduced gospel of individualism and evangelism, I was developing a larger theology in which God is calling a people to himself to be a blessing to the world. A gospel which embraced justice and social concern as well as a need to evangelise. So here I find myself reading the second part of a dialogue/conversation/polite argument between these two men of God, and biblical scholars, who have shaped, at two different stages of my life, my thinking. After reading each chapter I will seek to jot down a few comments.
Chapter One
This will be a multi-part review. Here I will offer my comments on the first chapter entitled ‘What’s all this about, and why does it matter?’ which covers 20 pages of the total of 224. Wright begins this chapter with a provocative illustration in which Piper is seen to be similar to a friend who thinks the earth goes around the sun. He offers this illustration for a number of reasons but one of them stands out. Wright says ‘we are not the centre of the universe, God is not circling around us. We are circling around him'(7). I agree wholeheartedly with Wright’s statement but it does seem to suggest that Piper holds to a gospel of ‘it’s about me, I’m the centre of the universe.’ This, if I am reading Wright correctly, is a gross caricature of Piper’s position. In fact I know of no other Pastor/Teacher/Theologian who has consistently taught from such a God centred perspective as John Piper. For those not convinced read John Piper’s The Pleasures of God or spend a few minutes looking around any of his writings. Like I said in my introduction I think Piper is God centred, but from my many years of listening/reading Piper, I find that salvation is to easily reduced to individualism and God’s salvific purposes for the cosmos are not given enough status. …… (more to follow soon)
jonswales, I find Wright not explicit enough about what he thinks Christians should be doing in respect of the cosmos. It seems to me the cosmos, certainly physically conceived, is not something anybody can do anything significant about, they must wait on God. Christians should be socially concerned, but they are, aren’t they, it is all part of being morally transformed. Romans twelve seems to be Paul’s charter for what Christians should be about, and there doesn’t seem to be anything there about Wright’s suggestiveness that people should maybe be about large scale dabbling in the movements of galaxies billions of light years away.
thanks for your comment Daidv
“Christians should be soically concerned” agreed… but I don’t think on the whole we are, we have adopted a reductionistic gospel (by this I mean contemporray evangelicalism) where social action is reduced to ‘justice issues’ and long term cultural engagement and culture shpaing is neglected. By cultural engagement I mean Romans 12, being YHWH’s presence in the world. Wright stress that this shoudl be in all areas of life, arts, politics, education. There is less of a stress of this in Piper.
Jonswales: ‘all areas of life, arts, politics, education’. That’s well said. But, I get the impression Wright implies Christians will succeed in making a difference (and it seems to me it is this that principally enthuses his followers, who look forward triumphalistically). As also they will succeed in being less sinful than Israel (who were a failure). The latter seems to me empirically false, and the former not promised in the Bible.
@ david yates: While Wright does exhort Christians to get our hands ‘dirty’ in this world, through justice, beauty and evangelism (as in Surprised by Hope) anticipating the new heavens and new earth, he specifically devotes a chapter to what he calls “Building for the Kingdom”- as opposed to building God’s kingdom ourselves. He is very clear that God brings His kingdom- we on the other hand, are called to anticipate that coming kingdom- not only in word but in deed.
There is a book in my local library which has 2000 names of God from many different times and places. Plus a brief description of the origins of each particular name of God.
We also live in a time when all of the Sacred Texts of the entire Great Tradition of Humankind are freely available to anyone with an internet connection.
So isnt it rather presumptuous to talk about “god’s plan”, especially if you are not thoroughly familiar with the Sacred Texts of all the other traditions.
And why should an obscure PRESUMED event in Palestine/Israel 2000 years ago have a binding hold on all of Humankind?