Geoff, for mine one of the biggest implications for Sydney Diocese and as Sydney Anglicans (the group) is that we are wrong to be Protestants. Whatever else NTW says, he says we are wrong to follow Luther and Calvin’s understanding of justification, and wrong to be hasty in condemning Roman Catholic views.
If Luther is right, ‘justification’ as he defined it (and as the traditional Anglican formularies—prayer book, homilies and articles have accepted) is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls. By redefining justification, NTW contributes to the downfall of many churches.
So we’re talking about a fairly radical restructure of our thinking here. More important, however, are the individual implications of the confusion that Wright engenders. Which is why I’d just as soon encourage individual Christians to stay out of this conceptual bog unless, like the late Steve Irwin, they want to go in and play with a few stingrays for the sake of the cameras.
So we will be wrong to be protestants, and we can’t condem Catholics as easy. But will this affect our status with Christ? Is Wright and those who follow his understanding rejecting the Christ of the gospels, or can we worship together the same Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?
So there will be a downfall of many churches? Why is that? If people take on board Wright’s view of things will they have reason to walk away from church?
Thanks for your efforts to help me get my head around why this is so worrying
Geoff, the idea that ‘justification’ is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls comes from Luther, and there’s good reason for arguing this way. I found a useful extract of a Jim Packer quote on the subject here, and I think it’s fair enough to say that until quite recently anyone who wants to call themselves a Reformed evangelical in the confessional sense has followed Luther in taking this view. If you want to argue it biblically then you start getting into the detail of what Paul was saying in Romans, especially those key verses in 1:16-17 where he teaches that righteousness [same Greek word as ‘justification’] is revealed in the gospel: righteousness understood here as a free gift of God given in Jesus by which we are made right with him.
I have no doubt that many of those who are confused by Wright on this question are still right with God, and even if I did doubt that, it’s not my decision anyway but God’s. Your question, though, is really a broader one (of which Wright is just a symptom): how confused about God do you have to be before you can no longer be said to be in relationship with him?
To which I say, best not to ask the question, but rather to work as best we can to avoid confusion. Especially on an area as basic as the nature of justification.
Confusion in this area is going to infect everything. To use a medical analogy, it is more like heart disease or a brain tumour than it is like an ingrown toenail (even granting that all ingrown toenails are undesirable and can lead to fatal complications).
I also heed the warning of James 3:1 about teachers being judged with greater strictness. If we are confused in the pulpit or in the Bible studies we lead, the consequences for our hearers are multiplied.
I wouldn’t predict mass desertions of the faith if NT Wright’s ideas take hold in Sydney, in the short term. More just a woolliness amongst the faithful, and a weakening of our message—therefore, fewer genuine conversions. But like Hillsong, a church with a weak message can still skyrocket in attendance.
To which I say, best not to ask the question, but rather to work as best we can to avoid confusion. Especially on an area as basic as the nature of justification.
But if what we think is a basic area, ie. justification, turns out not to be as simple as we thought, wouldn;t it be better to ask questions for the sake of truth rather than continuing in ignorance. (I’m not saying we are of course, but the argument sounds like, to avoid confusion let’s not talk about it)
Could it be only complicated and confusing because we’ve had it so ingrained in our noggins time and time again the Lutheran interpretation of justification and faith that we can’t see outside of that. However, it Wright were right, eventually ppeople would begin to understand justification and faith in the way Wright does, making it less confusing?
But I’m still trying to get my head around Wright and I don;t know whether or not that’s because I have stuck in my noggin the Lutheran view or because Wright is as Gordon says he is.
Actually Angus, what does the NT Wright view say about assurance of salvation. Can we be confident that we are saved, or ‘justified’ here and now, or is that only made sure at the coming time of judgement?
Thought I would finally make a contribution. Wright would definitely see himself as in the tradition of the Protestant Reformation. The question Wright might ask: Is being evangelical a method or a conclusion? Most of the time, Protestant folk would say both/and, because the belief is that the method (sola scriptura) leads to the conclusion (sola fide - as understood by Luther/Calvin/etc)? Wright is very big on the Protestant principle of Sola Scriptura - he argues that the traditional reading of justification is just that - traditional. And therefore he asks - isn’t the truly Reformed thing to do to constantly question our doctrines in the light of Scripture. Even though he doesn’t reject most of what we believe about justification, his argument is that Paul’s emphases lie elsewhere. Now..Wright might be wrong (I happen to think he is). But his project is Protestant in intent.
I don’t understand him enough to know fully the practical implications. One emphasis would likely be that we would focus far more on the community-producing results of the gospel, because Tom is very big on justification in the context of Jew-Gentile reconciliation and the like. But I think people are right to ask questions about assurance, about gospel proclamation and the like.
Actually Angus, what does the NT Wright view say about assurance of salvation. Can we be confident that we are saved, or ‘justified’ here and now, or is that only made sure at the coming time of judgement?
Hi again Geoff. Yes, Wright does believe we can be assured now ...
NTW ...
Thus, for instance, for Paul it is not the doctrine of justification that is ‘the power of God for salvation’ (Rom. 1:16), but the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Hooker noted, it is perfectly possible to be saved by believing in Jesus Christ without ever having heard of justification by faith. What that doctrine provides is the assurance that, though Christian obedience is still imperfect, the believer is already a full member of God’s people.
When N T Wright was in Sydney, (was it last year, or the year before) I went down to New College at Kensington, to hear him speak.
I found him very informative and a brilliant communicator who takes his evaluation of Jesus very seriously. He seems to have made it his life’s project to relate Jesus to history. To be understood today in terms of how he was undersood in the time he lived in.
I can’t say whether J T has achieved that aim, but I bought the book “Who was Jesus”. It was easy reading. I wondered about opposition to him by Sydney Evangelicals, and whether I should take his work seriously as being good scriptural interpretation. I have been educated in scripture by Peter and Phillip Jensen, and I take their teaching as being clear and true.
J T Wright says this book relates “who Jesus really was, as opposed to who the church imagined him to be.”
It seems to mainly dispute other people who have an incorrect understanding of Jesus and Christianity according to the historical Jesus. He particularly, in this book writes to oppose and criticise three books on the subject by those he believes are in complete error. Namely Barbara Theiring, Jesus the man, a new Interpretation from the Dead Sea Scrolls, A N Wilson Jesus, and Bishop John Spong Born of a Woman.
In the Bible, of course, the judge is God himself, and the verdict is to be issued on the day of judgement. But with the Gospel of Jesus Christ a dramatic new turn has been taken. God’s verdict has been brought forward into the present.
Even now God declares that certain people are in the right. Even though this declaration concerns sinners, it is itself righteous, because of two things: grace and faith.
We can therefore expand our definition as follows: justification is not
only God’s declaration on the last day that certain people are in the right: it is also his declaration in the present that, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the person who believes the Gospel is in the right.
Justification thus results in holiness and hope. And this proves already that the doctrine is neither immoral, nor incoherent, nor scandalous. It points back to the cross of Christ, forward to the resurrection of the Christian. It is not a fiction, a pretence or a process: it is God’s righteous declaration in the present that the person who believes in the risen Lord Jesus Christ is a member of the covenant family, whose sins have been dealt with on the cross and who is
therefore assured of eternal life.
I hope this link helps to add good information to this discussion.
Gordon, am I misreading you?
Are you saying Tom Wright denies the divinity of Jesus?
I don’t think I’ve read or heard this accusation previously, though I’ve certainly read a lot of other misgivings people have about Wright.
And fair enough too. This basically tells you why NT Wright is never going to have a serious immediate impact on the average punter. He, like that thread, is just too complex, prolix and obfuscatory for anyone whose academic credentials don’t depend on it to be too bothered with. His main appeal is to the intellectual wine and cheeserati who like to dabble with new ideas (present company excepted, naturally)…
NTW has the potential to have serious impact, especially the way he understands the whole biblical storyline in a covenantal way - that’s at the heart of his reinterpretation of justification, church, and the person and work of Jesus.
The problem with NTW, as far as I’m concerned, is that he appears to write very clearly, simply, and in an engaging fashion. But what he actually says, when you have a chance to reflect upon it, isn’t at all clear or obvious. That appearance of clarity, simplicity, and the way he weaves the biblical storyline together in his more popular writings could have great appeal.
I’m merely saying that if it is a genuine characteristic of being Reformed to constantly question all our doctrines in the light of Scripture, then it follows that nothing at all is settled.
So I am asking how this view of being Reformed would apply to a belief such as the notion that Jesus is divine.
One possible response, of course, is that the divinity of Jesus really isn’t up for grabs if you consider yourself to be Reformed (or even Christian, for that matter). But Mark seems to suggest that Wright excludes this possibility, assuming that this summary of Wright:
isn’t the truly Reformed thing to do to constantly question our doctrines in the light of Scripture.
is accurate.
.
Jason, it looks coherent at first sight, but Graham Goldsworthy did it first and better. Still, yes, the appearance of clarity. A master rhetorician.
Don’t log in as often as I used to, so I’m playing catch up.
Geoff Chambers - 23 October 2007 11:03 AM
In a sentence, can anyone define what Luther and Wright define faith to be?
Luther: faith is trust in the promises of God and the person of God.
NTW: faith is faithfulness to God’s covenant; that is, faithfulness as adherence to God’s covenant ...
which, in the case of Christians, is the new covenant as the fulfilment of God’s purposes for humanity and creation set out in the Abrahamic covenant, and that ultimately dealt with the issue of sin.
This, I suspect, is why some have labelled NTW’s view as partially salvation by works, not just by ‘trust’, and hence close to being Roman Catholic, not reformed.
From what I understand, Wright believes that our faith is, of itself, a meritorious act of obediance. Or somethin’ like that.
NO. Wright has always upheld that our faith is purely dependant on God’s grace. He firmly denies Semi-Pelagianism.
So do Roman Catholics - believe faith is purely dependent on God’s grace (although they have a system of grace totally different from the Reformed view, and from NTW’s view of grace). But NTW’s view of faith as faithfulness even empowered as it is by grace of God in Christ and by the operation of the Holy Spirit still sounds something like a confused Reformed fudge of the Roman Catholic position that God does his bit and empowers me to do my bit (i.e., faithfulness to the covenant in NTW’s terms) - both bits being necessary for eternal felicity.
Jason, it looks coherent at first sight, but Graham Goldsworthy did it first and better. Still, yes, the appearance of clarity. A master rhetorician.
Fair point. But not everyone knows or reads Graeme Goldsworthy. And whether first or not, Wright has a wider readership I suspect, not to mention that G.G.’s framework is more complex and sometimes harder to apply than NTW’s.
The opinions expressed in this forum belong to the individual posting the message and may not represent the view of the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church. Click here to read the Posting Policy.
Everyone is welcome on our forums, but please keep comments on-topic and civil. Any flaming or general nastiness will be deleted. No unsolicited advertising is allowed. All comments, suggestions, bug reports, etc. related to the forums should be directed to Robert Moller. Click here to read our complete Posting Policy.
History - is it all behind us, or can our past teach us something valuable for today? Phillip Jensen and Kel Richards find out in The Chat Room.
Get the latest Sydney stories, Culture and Indepth on your mobile device. Visit sydang.mobi
