Credo Magazine 4, 1 (January 2014)

The current issue of Credo is out, this one devoted to ‘Justification’.

According to the editorial blurb:

‘With over 2,000 years of church history in our rear view mirror, it appears that sola fide is a doctrine that comes under discussion in every generation. Our generation is no exception. Much dialogue continues over the New Perspective on Paul, Protestant and Catholic statements of agreement, and the relationship between justification and the Christian life.’

Among other items, the issue contains a long piece by Thomas Schreiner on N.T. Wright on justification now that the latter’s two-volume set on Paul has been published.

The magazine is available to read here, from where also a 37 MB pdf of the whole issue can be downloaded.

Tom Wright on Creation, Power, and Truth

I was asked to write six brief book notes for the November 2013 edition of EG, published by LICC. I’ve posted them individually here over the last few weeks, and this is the last in the series.

Tom Wright, Creation, Power and Truth: The Gospel in a World of Cultural Confusion (London: SPCK, 2013).

With winsomeness and eloquence, and modelling the best of theological engagement in the process, Wright tackles three prominent cultural drivers – gnosticism, imperialism, and postmodernism. He draws on a trinitarian framework to do so: where the God of creation deals with people in the earthiness of everyday life, and will one day renew the heavens and earth; where Jesus is Lord, whose life and death have redefined power, which frees us to speak truth to power; where the Spirit of truth equips the church not just to enjoy ‘spiritual’ experiences, but to know, speak, and live out the truth.

Centre for Public Christianity (November 2013)

Among other items, the latest newsletter from the Centre for Public Christianity contains a link to a wide-ranging three-part video interview (on ‘beauty, justice and the faith that enhances life’) with Tom Wright, and an audio interview with Michael Jensen on ‘the counter theologies of post-Christian society that today replace belief in God’.

N.T. Wright on the Psalms

Not content with writing semi-devotional short commentaries on every book of the New Testament plus a major multi-volume project on Christian origins, Tom Wright now appears to be turning his attention to the Old Testament in a brand new publication, The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential (New york: HarperOne, 2013).

Andrew Byers interviews him here for Christianity Today, and a few highlights are pasted below.

On the need to make a case for the Psalms in what he sees as their fading significance in parts of the church:

‘The Psalter is the prayer book Jesus made his own. We can see in the Gospels and in the early church that Jesus and his first followers were soaked in the Psalms, using them to express how they understood what God was doing. For us to distance ourselves from the Psalms inevitably means distancing ourselves from Jesus.

‘The Psalms contain unique poetry expressing the biblical faith in God as Creator, Redeemer, judge, lover, friend, adversary – the whole lot. There is nothing like them. The Psalms go right to the depths of the human emotions – they don't just skate along the top. They explore what the great promises of God mean and what we do when those promises do not seem to be coming true.’

On how Psalms can transform us:

‘Within the Jewish and Christian traditions, you get your worldview sorted out by worship. The Psalms are provided to guide that worship. When we continually pray and sing the Psalms, our worldview will actually reconfigure according to their values, theology, and modes of expression.’

On the significance of Jesus for our reading of the Psalms:

‘Since Jesus was raised from the dead, the first Christians understood that he was the expected Messiah. So their approach to the Psalms had to be reconceived. We have to assume that as good Jews, the first Christians were praying the Psalms day by day, but now with this wholly new and unexpected focus.

‘It was actually quite disorienting. Instead of the temple, Jesus is the place where God has decided to dwell on the earth. And since the Spirit has been poured out upon the church, somehow God's presence is everywhere, rather than concentrated in one place. The Psalter needed to be re-read from top to bottom and radically refocused around Jesus and the Spirit. This made the first Christians newly aware of Jesus' personal presence in their worship and prayer.’

N.T. Wright (in Australia) on Paul

Like many others, I am looking forward to the release of N.T. Wright’s forthcoming volume on Paul in his ‘Christian Origins and the Question of God’ series.

In recent days, he has been delivering some lectures in Australia and engaging with fellow scholars around some of the debates. There is an excellent summary here (on the Bible Society Australia website) from Sophie Timothy which I think succinctly and helpfully captures a number of the issues involved.

2011 Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar

The 2011 Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar will be a dialogue between Tom Wright, Mike Goheen, and Scott Hahn on the topic of ‘Jesus – A Public Figure Making a Public Pronouncement: Mission, Worldview and the People of God’.

For those able to be in San Francisco on Friday 18 November later this year, perhaps there for the AAR/SBL and ETS meetings, this has all the makings of a great free event. I hope the fruits of it will be made more widely available afterwards.

Here’s the blurb:

‘SAHS presents an engagement with Tom Wright and his magisterial work on the New Testament. Tom’s work rightly alerts us to the importance of big-picture work in biblical studies without compromising on rigorous exegesis. Our event will focus on the big-picture elements of his work, namely mission, worldview and the people of God, and how they relate to Jesus’ ministry and his proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom of God. All these elements are central to Wright’s work and the work of our two respondents.

‘Mike Goheen did his doctoral work on the missional ecclesiology of Lesslie Newbigin and continues to write on worldview as well as missional church. Scott Hahn’s doctoral work was on a biblical theology of covenant and he continues to publish on a wide variety of subjects. Mike and Scott will engage these major themes of Wright’s work constructively from their particular perspectives, Protestant evangelical and a Catholic, respectively. Tom will then have time to respond.

‘The importance of this dialogue should not be underestimated. Wright’s work is widely known and influential but these central elements in his work have still to be fully engaged.’

N.T. Wright on Bible Translation

N.T. Wright, ‘Lost and Found in Translation: From 1611 to 2011’, ABC Religion and Ethics (10 May 2011).

This sprawling essay by Tom Wright begins with the significance of translation for the Christian faith seen, not least, in the conviction that Jesus is ‘the rightful Lord of all the world’.

‘Translating the message into the world’s many languages is... organically linked to the central claim of the gospel itself... To translate is to imply that, just as the gospel of Jesus is for all people, so the early Christian writings which bear witness to Jesus are for all people.’

He takes in the King James Version of 1611, reflects at some length on the appropriate translation for ‘Christ’ and ‘righteousness’, before making a distinction between the ‘technical accuracy’ of a translation and ‘the accuracy of flavour and feel’. In this respect, commenting on Paul’s letters, he says that it is ‘imperative to allow the New Testament to speak with different tones of voice, aiming often for street-level English rather than the somewhat donnish tradition of the King James, the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version’.

He finishes with a mention of his own forthcoming translation of the New Testament which he hopes will perhaps ‘jolt people out of the familiar, and open their eyes and imaginations to new possibilities’.

IVP Academic Alert 20, 1 (Spring 2011)

The latest Academic Alert from IVP (USA) is available here, profiling (among other titles) the forthcoming collection of essays from last year’s Wheaton Theology Conference on the work of N.T. Wright.

Marc Cortez on the Evangelical Theological Society 2010 Meetings

The 62nd Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, recently concluded, provided an opportunity to consider ongoing debates on justification by faith, with the help of three plenary speakers – Tom Schreiner, Frank Thielman, and N.T. Wright – all of whom have published extensively on the topic.

Bibliobloggers have been summarising sessions – especially the key ones on justification. I’ve particularly benefited from Marc Cortez’s reflections over at Scientia et Sapientia, and have linked to his summaries of those papers (as well as some others) below.

Jason Sexton

The State of the Recent Evangelical Trinitarian Resurgence

Tom Schreiner

Justification: The Saving Righteousness of God in Christ

Gregg Allison

Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Promises and Pitfalls for Evangelical Appropriation

Frank Thielman

God’s Righteousness as God’s Fairness in Romans: The Oldest Perspective on Paul

Megan DeFranza

Sex and the Image of God: Dangers in Evangelical and Roman Catholic Theologies

Jonathan Morgan

Christus Victor Motifs in the Soteriology of Thomas Aquinas

N.T. Wright

Justification Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Three posts – here, here, and here.

Sung Wook Chung

Calvin on the Church as the ‘Mother’ of Believers

More on the Wheaton Conference on N.T. Wright

I’ve already linked (here) to the video and audio of presentations at the recent Annual Wheaton Conference on ‘Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N.T. Wright’.

There are many reports and reflections on the conference now available online, including by the following:

William B. Evans (at Reformation21)

Michael Gorman (five posts, beginning here)

Nijay Gupta (two posts on Day 1, beginning here)

I read the news earlier today – and by now everyone will probably know – that Wright is moving from Durham to take up a post at the University of St Andrews. It’s reported on here (from the Durham perspective) and here (from the St Andrews perspective).

The 19th Annual Wheaton Theology Conference (April 16-17, 2010) on ‘Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N.T. Wright’

The sessions from the recent Wheaton Theology Conference on N.T. Wright have generously been made available here as flash videos and mp3 downloads. I’ll be indulging in a few of these at some point…

Richard Hays
Knowing Jesus: Story, History, and the Question of Truth

Marianne Meye Thompson
The Gospel of John Meets Jesus and the Victory of God

N.T. Wright
Chapel Message

Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat
‘Outside of a Small Circle of Friends’: Jesus and the Justice of God

Nicholas Perrin
Jesus’ Eschatology and Kingdom Ethics: Ever the Twain Shall Meet

Wright, Hays, Walsh, Keesmaat, Thompson, and Perrin
Panel Discussion

N.T. Wright
Jesus and the People of God: Whence and Whither Historical Jesus Studies and the Life of the Church?

Kevin J. Vanhoozer
Wrighting the Wrongs of the Reformation? The State of the Union with Christ in St. Paul and in Protestant Soteriology

Jeremy Begbie
The Shape of Things to Come? Wright Amidst Emerging Ecclesiologies

Markus Bockmuehl
Did St. Paul Go to Heaven When He Died?

Edith Humphrey
Glimpsing the Glory: Paul’s Gospel, Righteousness and the Beautiful Feet of N.T. Wright

Wright, Vanhoozer, Begbie, Bockmuehl, and Humphrey
Panel Discussion

N.T. Wright
Paul and the People of God: Whence and Whither Pauline Studies and the Life of the Church?

UPDATE (28 April 2010)
I added two sessions above which were subsequently added to the recordings after this original post.

N.T. Wright on Paul and the Faithfulness of God

I’ve just seen news from the Center of Theological Inquiry that Tom Wright is working on volume 4 of his ‘Christian Origins and the Question of God’ series.

The following summary (found here in the members’ profiles) whets the appetite:

‘Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Volume IV of Christian Origins and the Question of God) combines history and theology (exegesis being a branch of both), using the worldview-analysis outlined earlier. I shall examine (i) Paul’s characteristic praxis, stories and symbols, and his answers to the key worldview questions; (ii) his theology in terms of the revision, by means of Christ and the Spirit, of the central Jewish topics of monotheism, election and eschatology. At each point we see Paul in implicit dialogue and/or confrontation both with other Jewish readings of scripture and with hellenistic and Roman ideologies. His central aim was to found and maintain united and holy Christ-communities as a sign of new humanity to the wider world.

Theologically, this demonstrates a deep inner coherence throughout Paul’s theology, reconciling otherwise puzzling topics (e.g. the classic stand-off between ‘justification’ and ‘being in Christ’), and reframing ‘ethics’ and ‘ecclesiology’ in a more central and positive role than usual. Historically, I shall reconstruct Paul’s worldview and mindset in terms of a complex but coherent relationship (part derivation, part confrontation, part creative engagement) with the multiple worlds of C1 Judaism, Hellenism and Roman imperialism.’

Trevin Wax on N.T. Wright and John Piper on Justification

Trevin Wax, ‘The Justification Debate: A Primer’, Christianity Today (June 2009).

Although I continue to follow the issue with interest, I haven’t had the will or managed to muster the energy to blog about the ongoing debates surrounding justification, particularly as they are centred around the respective positions of John Piper and N.T. Wright.

However, I am happy to draw attention to this handy summary statement, by Trevin Wax, of the approaches taken by the two ‘pastor-theologians’ on the problem, the law, God’s righteousness, first-century Judaism, the gospel, how justification happens, and future justification.

A 4.56MB pdf, preserving the original look of the magazine pages is available here.

A related piece – ‘Not an Academic Question’ – features some pastors’ reflections on the significance of the debate for ministry.