At this synod on the Bible, however, one of the “fraternal delegates,” meaning a representative of another Christian confession, has more star power than most Catholic prelates in the hall: Anglican Bishop N.T. “Tom” Wright, the bishop of Durham in England, and one of the world’s best-known New Testament scholars.
In a room full of people who devour Biblical commentaries the way others churn through spy novels, heads turn when Wright walks in the room.
Though a committed member of the Church of England, Wright belongs to that wing of the Anglican Communion that stresses the grand tradition of Christian orthodoxy shared with Rome. He’s known for respectful, but firm, clashes with liberal Biblical scholars such as Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan on matters such as the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection.
Especially among English-speaking bishops and experts at the synod, Wright has been one fraternal delegate who needs no introduction. Several bishops who know Wright only by name have asked to have him pointed out, or to be introduced to him, because of their esteem for his work. In some cases, bishops have said that meeting Wright has been a highlight of the synod.
Some ten years ago, Bishop Tom visited our diocese (SC) and was having lunch with +Fitz Allison at a local eatery. By chance, we were standing in a buffet line together and spoke. I turned to greet +Fitz’s guest who was unknown to me, he stuck out his hand and simply said, “I’m Tom.” Humility coupled with intellect is incredibly winsome.
In the above, I really appreciated this… [i] In his remarks, Wright called for a “four-fold†reading of scripture understood as the love of God, which he said should involve:
• The heart (Lectio Divina, liturgical reading);
• The mind (historical/critical study);
• The soul (church life, tradition, teaching);
• Strength (mission, kingdom of God).[/i]
N.T. Wright for Archbishop of Canterbury! That Anglicanism continues to produce men like this is a sign of great hope.
In an unrelated question…I am wondering if the Common Cause/New Orthodox Province folk have any Religious Orders of Nuns, Brothers and Monks (especially here in the United States.) I would be very interested to know more about these communities.
He is a funny fish. On the one hand fairly orthodox but often unhappy when he isnt being consulted I find. His comments on Magdalene being an apostle (as opposed to an evangelist) are way off the orthodox scale and show a desperate clutch in defence of his support of WO. Yet at other times he is masterful…I don’t quite know what to make of him.
http://www.sbarnabas.com/blog
While I don’t like his politics, I love his theology. BTW, Mary Magdelene has often been called “The Apostle to the Apostles” because Jesus said to here “Go and tell my disciples….” The word “apostle” means “one sent.”
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
[blockquote] Among other things, Wright’s presentation underscores a “mega-truth†about ecumenism these days, which is that on some issues, and in some cases, the fault lines that truly matter in Christianity no longer run between denominations but within them. When it comes to the Bible, Wright and the Catholic bishops gathered in Rome are arguably closer to one another than they would be to more liberal members of their own churches inclined to adopt revisionist readings and to challenge the historical veracity of key Biblical claims.[/blockquote]
Ain’t that the truth.
4- indeed but what I object to is the twisting of this to suggest that her role was somehow sacramental and therefore a green light for ordination of women…which is pretty much what he suggested
NT Wright is truly a very nice guy, thoughtful, winsome, all the good personal qualities people attribute to him in this thread. He’s also attractive to creedal Christians for his willingness to go to bat against Crossan and Borg and other Jesus Seminar types (e.g. on the question of whether Jesus rose from the dead).
It’s precisely this combination — winsome personal qualities and an anti-Jesus Seminar track record that seems to make him rooted in traditional understandings of the faith — which make him from the point of view of orthodox Protestants (orthodox protestant Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians) so seductive and dangerous.
NTW is one of the biggest proponents of the “New Perspective on Paul” movement — a revisionist understanding of classical Anglican understanding of justification. We see his work here as deeply mistaken and (unintentionally) pastorally cruel. His NPP work is at total odds with the Thirty-Nine Articles and the thing Luther called “that by which the Church stands or falls.”
Here’s a link to a long but very easy to read piece on why many of us are so deeply concerned about the NPP and about Wright’s work on it in particular:
http://www.alliancenet.org/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID307086|CHID560462|CIID1660662,00.html
But Jon (#7), maybe Luther’s take on things needs to be questioned? What if he didn’t get it quite right? Of course, we are saved by God’s grace alone but I haven’t seen anything in Wright’s work denying that – and I’ve read a fair bit of what he has written. To insist on a 16th century view of things in the face of evidence that it may not have quite gotten it right would to my mind be truly pastorally cruel. As important as Luther’s writings and the 39 Articles may be, they don’t have the authority of scripture. The church is always reforming which leaves anyone’s conclusions – Wright’s and Luther’s included – open to examination.
I believe Bishop Wright has a book in the works about justification by faith. And I think I saw something where his next book in the Christian origins series will be mostly about Paul. I look forward to both.
Absolutely Ross… that’s what NT Wright would say: that the 16th Century Reformers (Cranmer, Luther, etc.) were fundamentally mistaken about justification. That Luther and Company were wrong — and he is questioning their understanding of Paul and of justification.
What we Reformation types think is that Luther (Cranmer, John Donne, Richard Hooker, etc.) didn’t get it wrong. We think that for a lot of reasons: one of which is the way their understanding of justification has played out so radically in our own Christian lives. The writer of “Amazing Grace” will give you an idea of this reason: the way that justifying grace was experienced by this man in a very visceral way is what we Reformation types have also experienced in our personal spiritual lives. Then again we also have other reasons — we think it is the reading that makes the most intellectual sense as well — makes the most sense of the text and of the data of human experience.
The one reason we don’t think it is out of a dogmatic worship of Luther (and all the other Reformers) as infallible. Imputing infallibility to certain church leaders is not part of our particular Christian tradition.
Jon, I can identify with a visceral experience although probably not to the same extent that John Newton did. That being said, I try to let scripture inform my experience and not let my experience inform how I read scripture – something none of us will ever perfectly succeed in doing, not in this lifetime anyway.
As for making intellectual sense, Bishop Wright is concerned with what the text actually says, not in what we may want it to say or what our experience tells us it says. His approach is very much in keeping in the truest sense with what the great reformers were also seeking to do.
#9: Jon do you really believe that only Christians who share your understanding of justification experience God’s grace in such a transforming manner?
My basic impression from Bishop Wright’s writing on justification is that he conflates one of Paul’s applications of the doctrine (the gospel to the Gentiles) to be the doctrine itself.
Clifford Swartz (www.christchurchnyc.com)
#11… Jeff, I’m not fully sure how you are using the word REALLY when you ask: “Do you really believe that only Christians who share your understanding of justification experience God’s grace in such a transforming manner?”
I am guessing that the word REALLY was meant to communicate two things:
(1) Jon, in your post you are obviously claiming that only Christians who share your understanding of justification experience God’s grace in such a transforming manner.
(2) Jon, don’t you think that’s an unwarranted claim?
Is this what you meant?
If so, it’s hard for me to respond to it. It’s a bit like saying asking me if I have really stopped beating my wife. Whether I say Yes or No I’ll be implicitly agreeing that I have in fact been beating my wife.
Jon, you present a rather simplistic gloss on the New Perspective on Paul (a perspective which is hardly new any longer) and quite a unfair account of NT Wright’s work. Moreover, it is rather extraordinary for you to claim that “from the point of view of orthodox Protestants” Wright is “seductive and dangerous.” While that may be your own perspective, surely you don’t claim both the rights to define the boundaries of orthodox protestantism and also to speak on behalf of those you believe fit within those bounds. I hope you will take the opportunity to revise and extend that remark rather than letting it stand as is.
One could easily infer from what you present that the NPP is rejecting the entire body of work of the Reformers, and especially that of Luther. That’s simply false. The talk to which you link gives a rather odd account of Wright’s work; the NPP (and Wright’s own contribution to it) has advanced considerably since his “What Paul Really Said” and his “Climax of the Covenant,” and the second generation of NPP is already challenging some of the assumptions of Sanders. Readers should pick up Wright’s “Paul” to get a feel for his more recent published work on that front.
It would be foolhardy to offer a summary of the NPP on a blog (or to suggest that there is a single monolithic NPP that one could summarize), so I won’t try here. But a key point in most NPP accounts is that Paul’s gospel was not merely an account of how to avoid Hell or get into Heaven, as one might infer from the teachings of some in Reformed quarters (such as those descended from the Federal Calvinists). Moreover, it certainly was not an account that saw Jewishness as something to be overcome, as though Paul saw Judaism as a cypher for generic sinful Man, a condition that the gospel was designed to correct. Paul’s gospel was the good news that, with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, a new creation had dawned, a new reality brought about by the faithfulness of Christ, centered in time on this man, Jesus, and all humankind is summoned to participate in this new creation. Moreover, the marker of those who participate in this new creation is trust/fidelity/faithfulness in this Christ: that is, we recognize those that participate in this new creation by their faith (understood as a complex that includes trust, fidelity, and certain beliefs about Jesus) in Christ.
This can be stated another way – similarly to the way N.T. Wright often phrases it: Those who so participate in this new creation share in the destiny of Israel and the promises of God to Abraham; thus, we recognize those who share in the destiny (and thus the vocation) of Israel by their faith in Christ.
Thus, Paul’s gospel is a herald that summons all humans to respond to the good news that in and through this divine act of new creation they have been given a new identity – they receive their identity as a freely given divine gift so that they might themselves become the gift through which God reconciles all creation to its Creator. They are Israel.
Seductive and dangerous? Hardly. Thankfully, the Bible quotes our Book of Common Prayer, so for the ultimate authority one can read this each day in the Daily Office.
Of course this does subvert the claims of those who want to depict the gospel as movement from evil to good for the Jew, now reinterpreted as generic sinful Man. For it claims that Paul understood Judaism as something entirely praiseworthy, and not something to be conquered or overcome. The issue with Judaism was never that it was absurdly legalistic or evil or wrong-headed, but rather that, given the fact of the Resurrection, humankind had been re-created in Christ, time had been bisected by this New Exodus, and so participation in this new reality was through participation in the Cross of the Christ and not in former ways; though they are praiseworthy, those ways are no longer the markers of participation in the destiny of Israel, for we now live in a new aeon; those who formerly lived in Adam now live in Christ.
There is much more that could be said, but that must suffice for now.
Seductive and dangerous? No, Simply Christian.
Hi Craig! Thanks much for your reply. Very thoughtful. I apologize but will have to step away from T19 for a while. A surprise set of crises in the last 24 hours both at work and in the lives of some friends is going to take up all my time for the next several weeks. Please mention me in your prayers tonight.
That said, I’ll try to say just a very few things by way of reply — and then wish you every good thing and goodbye for a while. My love to you and best wishes in your obviously very thoughtful and committed walk with our Lord.
When I refered to “orthodox Protestantism” I meant only that kind of Protestantism rooted in the peculiar doctrines that 15th Protestants felt were especially important to them and which were cast into formal shape in their early writings and for which they were willing to die — doctrines that distinguish them from Roman Catholics for example.
So let’s take an example of orthodox Romanism for example; that might make it clearer what I am saying. Actually I don’t think I could do a better job here than by quoting from that link I gave you:
So imagine that this RC scholar were to do what is described above. If I were an RC I would say that this guy is dangerous because he is leading people away from Orthodox Romanism. And if the guy had lots of wonderful personal qualities and was a great writer and furthermore appeared in other ways to be a big defender of Roman doctrine (due to battling with critics of Rome) — I’d also call him seductive as well. Because he’d be so very attractive to lay RC parishioners.
Note however that by saying he should be opposed by “orthodox Roman Catholics” I wouldn’t be using “orthodox” to mean simply all RCs who accept the Creeds and traditional apostolic teaching — and thinking about it know I can see that this is how “orthodox” is used at T19. An RC and a Lutheran and a Presbyterian and a member of the Greek Church can all be equally orthodox in that sense — but our imaginary RC scholar would not be being orthodox in his ROMANISM — in those distinctive doctrines which make him ROMAN rather than Presbyterial or Lutheran (etc.).
The fact is that, if NT Wright were to time travel to the 1500s and explain his ideas about Paul and about justification in detail to Luther and Calvin and Cranmer and Hooker and so on, they would NOT say “Thanks! Good points. You may be right. We gotta revise the Augsberg Confession and the 39 Articles and so on.” On the contrary, they’d horrified and do their best to explain to him that he was moving down a very dangerous direction.
Now… is it possible that these guys (and there are scores of other great Protestants I could mention) were all mistaken? Absolutely. So NT Wright certainly should feel free to continue his work, and in NO WAY should he be considered not a Christian. Maybe Wright is right and these other guys are wrong.
Let me add one more personal comment here, and that is that I have GREAT respect and have received great benefit in my own life from persons who are NOT Protestants. In my own Anglican parish my two closest friends and the persons with whom I did most of my own lay mnistry with were a Benedictine and a Franciscan!
I hope that makes sense for how I am using the phrase “Orthodox Protestant” (orthodox in his classical Reformation understanding of justification) and some idea of why we regard this understanding to be so precious to us — why we’d feel that people who attempt to lead people away from it are dangerous.
If you go back to the original post, you’ll see that this is what I said there too. It says those of us who are classical orthodox Protestants (I have since clarified what I mean by that) view NTW’s “New Perspective” work with great dismay. We are concerned that Protestants will view his conflict with the Jesus Seminar as giving him street cred to dismantle precious ideas about justification and that lay people won’t realize that he is doing that to them — because they’ll assume that a guy who bashes Borg must be on “our side.”
Hope that clears some things up. Again, my fondest wishes for you and your own ministry. Much love… J.
[blockquote] Romanism [/blockquote]
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means” – Inigo Montoya
Actually, you may. It’s a slur, reminiscint of the old “Know Nothing” party. The correct term would be CATHOLICISM.
Hey Chris, just stepping in to apologize quickly if I upset you.
I promise you didn’t mean the word ROMANISM as a slur. The word certainly doesn’t seem to have anything in it that denigrates that system of Christian belief unique to the Church of Rome; any more than I’d be offended if you refered to Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, etc. Also, be aware that I tried to go on record as stating my great respect for Roman Catholics and declared that the two local Christians I am closest to are members of monastic orders.
The reason that some of us outside the Church of Rome look for a better moniker than Catholic for RCs is that, if we agreed to use to it, we’d be implicity agreeing that all persons outside the Church of Rome (Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc.) are also outside the catholic church, i.e. outside the church universal, i.e. outside Christ’s church. Obviously we don’t think that, so we look for a name that nonjudgmentally describes a communion of Christians who affirm the leadership and doctrines asserted by the Bishop of Rome.
Perhaps it would have been better for me to use the term “Roman Catholicism” — a descriptive and neutral term I am also happy with. And which my guess is you would have been ok with too.
PS. In case there’s some confusion, let me clarify that the example I gave in which I used the word “Romanism” in no way said anything critical about RC faith or doctrine. Indeed, it was saying that if an RC scholar were to implicitly attack Roman Catholic teaching, I as a Protestant would definitely understand and be sympathetic to RCs who got very concerned about that.