Don't worry - I'm only 75% right - NT Wright

[JJB]

Are you talking about this bishop of Durham?

http://timbayly.worldmagblog.com/timbayly/archives/023346.html

 

[julian the apostate]

I emailed him once

I didnt think he would respond,,(I am frivolous by nature and I didnt think he would take me seriously)

He emailed back quite a nice response,, very surprising

(ps, will sell his email address for the right price anyone interested just email me and I will provide paypal details)

 

[inchristalone221]

(ps, will sell his email address for the right price anyone interested just email me and I will provide paypal details)

*sniff* *sniff*

Is that a scam I smell?

 

[AndOne]

If with all his learning, he can only aspire to that level of certainty what does that say about reformed people who hold that all truth is there to be found in it's entirety - everything that God has put in His word is there to be found.

I would hardly call N.T. Wright "Reformed."

Problem with N.T. is he has way too generous of a view of himself. The number is quite a bit lower than 75% in my opinion. But alas - that is perhaps for another post...

 

[colinlindsay]

Can I widen this discussion?
I'm reformed and believe that without the scriptures there will be no grasp of divine propositional truth. That's not to say that The Word - The Christ can't choose to reveal himself to anybody and in any way he likes.
NT Wright certainly believes that he will get into heaven being only 75% right and that God will probably deal with him fairly indulgently for having preached 25% error at times through his life.
What of those people at the other end of the spectrum? Those people with almost a pathological or even totalitarian need not to be wrong. I've seen web-sites that are so desperate never to preach, believe or hear anything wrong that they exhort their readers to engage in hot-house polemic on their message boards. I read one guy PLEADING never to be allowed to say or believe anything incorrect.I've left those behind - I always felt so ugly afterwards.
Usually these people have an end-times philosophy which is predicated on most of christian believers being apostate in doctrine before Christ returns. It starts with 1% error and expands into antinomianism and ecumenism. I had a leader in our church who preached like that, upsetting the congregation until he was put out. He's now rather contrite, recognising it as a personal quest for certainty and security which failed.

 

[calmcoolandelected]

Funny thing, last Sunday, my pastor had a quote by NT Wright in the front of the worship bulletin. I used that opportunity to make bring up the controversy that Wright is involved in and he said, "Wright is pretty much dead on about everything but the Paul stuff".

CC&E

 

[heymikey80]

Funny thing, last Sunday, my pastor had a quote by NT Wright in the front of the worship bulletin. I used that opportunity to make bring up the controversy that Wright is involved in and he said, "Wright is pretty much dead on about everything but the Paul stuff".

CC&E

I'm not so sure about the Paul stuff, either. I think he's made some missteps there that're big (and secure) in Reformed thinking, but take those away & what's left is ... amazing. It's really big for Reformed thought either way, just to address those problems in Wright accurately, and respond well to what Wright has done well.

He's cerebral and challenging, too. Great to read, just read critically & carefully.

 

[calmcoolandelected]

I'm not so sure about the Paul stuff, either. I think he's made some missteps there that're big (and secure) in Reformed thinking, but take those away & what's left is ... amazing. It's really big for Reformed thought either way, just to address those problems in Wright accurately, and respond well to what Wright has done well.

He's cerebral and challenging, too. Great to read, just read critically & carefully.

Well, I haven't read any of his stuff and I have only read the fringes of the controversial stuff. Maybe when my kids are grown I will have more time to read.

CC&E

 

[Iosias]

What do you people who hold a high view of preaching and scripture think of the Bishop of Durham being honest enough to confess that probably 25% of what he preaches and believes now may be wrong?

If with all his learning, he can only aspire to that level of certainty what does that say about reformed people who hold that all truth is there to be found in it's entirety - everything that God has put in His word is there to be found.

Wright is in serious error over justification. He denies the imputation of the righteousness of Christ!

 

[heymikey80]

Wright is in serious error over justification. He denies the imputation of the righteousness of Christ!

Mmm, he makes an error, yes, but it's not as horrific as you're saying. He denies that we are imputed "the righteousness of God" as Paul uses the term. he also has misgivings about the term "imputation" and switches to "reckoning". That's not denying the imputation of the righteousness of Christ en toto.

Justification in the present is based on God's past accomplishment in Christ, and anticipates the future verdict. This present justification has exactly the same pattern. (a) God vindicates in the present, in advance of the last day, all those who believe in Jesus as Messiah and Lord (Rom. 3.21-31; 4.13-25; 10.9-13). The lawcourt language indicates what is meant. 'Justification' itself is not God's act of changing the heart or character of the person; .... 'Justification' has a specific, and narrower, reference: it is God's declaration that the person is now in the right, which confers on them the status 'righteous'. NT Wright, The Shape of Justification
​

Still, the specific change is a big issue. I don't think it's as big as denying we receive the righteousness of Christ, or righteousness from God. Wright holds that we are still "reckoned righteous through union with Christ" (cf. Rom 6:6-11) -- but in Wright's estimate Paul never calls this "imputation". Wright also agrees with a rather standard understanding of Pp 3:9: "not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith". Wright actually cites this verse is unaffected by his arguments, as it's worded independently from others talking about the "righteousness of God" -- that is, "God's righteousness".

The critical question for Wright is whether we receive "God's righteousness" -- When Paul uses this phrase, whether he means the same thing as the righteousness we receive from God. Wright does not think so. He thinks that the "righteousness of God" in Paul's letters is really the righteousness of the Judge, not the righteousness given the one vindicated by the Judge. Now, I disagree it's mutually exclusive, but I understand his point. If we don't see our righteousness as derived from God's righteousness as the vindicated, and not as the Judge, then other aspects of justification get confused.

Wright's making a sharp split here -- one I can't support on all accounts. But I also think we Reformed fuse the meaning too far as well. In earlier times God's righteousness could not be ascribed to us so ... directly as is being done, today:

Q. 30. Can these communicable attributes be ascribed to any creature, as they are in God?

A. No; for they are in God, infinitely, eternally, and unchangeably; he is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being; infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his wisdom, and so on of the rest, which would be blasphemy to affirm of any creature (Fisher's Catechism On SC Q.4, OF THE NATURE AND PERFECTIONS OF GOD IN GENERAL)
​

Yet today I hear fairly often that we simply receive the righteousness of God. No qualification. Sometimes the words follow, "by imputation". But they're essentially used to explain why we're not as perfect as God; not much else.

Wright explicitly states he's unhappy with attributing imputation as a Pauline doctrine, not to my knowledge stating whether it contradicts Scripture. He's suspicious, but that question isn't fully addressed (at least in "What St. Paul Really Said", p. 107, 123; I didn't detect it on first read of "Paul in Fresh Perspective", either).

I think Wright is pointing out that the Pauline view seems to work a little differently from Reformed imputation, too. To Reformed thought (at least modern US theology) we exchange Christ's righteousness for our unrighteousness. Yet in the agreed-on illustrations from Paul, God is buying us from the world with the payment of Christ's sacrifice. The imputation exchange is seen from a different viewpoint it seems to me. Are they equivalent? I think the argument has to be derived at length systematically to show the classic operations of Reformed imputation are actually a subset of Paul's view. But it's the omissions of the subset that bother Wright. And it's the omission of "God's righteousness" and indeed a defection from the term "imputation" that bothers the Reformed position.

 

[mlqurgw]

I have never read Wright nor do I think I will but the question for me is what does it mean to have righteousness imputed? Now it is clear to me it is much more than just something pasted on us so that we are counted as righteous before God the Judge. As our Representative and Surety, Christ brought in an everlasting righteousness and we are said to be made His righteousness in the same way He was made to be sin. It became His in more than just a pasted on way.

 

[BBAS 64]

He is dead wrong...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18798066-2,00.html

"I have friends who I am quite sure are Christians who do not believe in the bodily resurrection," he says carefully, citing another eminent scholar, American theologian Marcus Borg, co-author with Wright of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions.

"Marcus Borg really does not believe Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. But I know Marcus well: he loves Jesus and believes in him passionately. The philosophical and cultural world he has lived in has made it very, very difficult for him to believe in the bodily resurrection.


That seems like it will be a weak answer some day

Peace to u,

Bill

 

[Beoga]

He is dead wrong...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18798066-2,00.html

"I have friends who I am quite sure are Christians who do not believe in the bodily resurrection," he says carefully, citing another eminent scholar, American theologian Marcus Borg, co-author with Wright of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions.

"Marcus Borg really does not believe Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. But I know Marcus well: he loves Jesus and believes in him passionately. The philosophical and cultural world he has lived in has made it very, very difficult for him to believe in the bodily resurrection.


That seems like it will be a weak answer some day

Peace to u,

Bill

I was just going to post that! Thanks for stealing my thunder .

 

[heymikey80]

He is dead wrong...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18798066-2,00.html

"I have friends who I am quite sure are Christians who do not believe in the bodily resurrection," he says carefully, citing another eminent scholar, American theologian Marcus Borg, co-author with Wright of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions.

"Marcus Borg really does not believe Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. But I know Marcus well: he loves Jesus and believes in him passionately. The philosophical and cultural world he has lived in has made it very, very difficult for him to believe in the bodily resurrection.


That seems like it will be a weak answer some day

Y'think? I've heard much more conservative teachers say much the same thing about others: "I fully believe _____ is a Christian, and someday God will clear up all his crazy, mixed-up ideas about Him."

I don't know Marcus Borg, though reading him seems to indicate he's further afield than that. Still, I know of a number of people who don't think Christ was raised from the dead. There's too much of a barrage of other facts for them to deal with the question decisively in their minds. They rely on Him, not knowing.

Was Thomas a non-Christian up to the week after Jesus was raised? Or was he a believer with profound doubts about the reality he's being confronted with?

 

[jbarcher]

Here is a different approach (sadly to say)...

I was leading a conference for a number of United Methodist pastors...mostly southern....mostly rural and moderately conservative...

At lunch, I overhead a particular fire-brand say "I do not believe 60% of what the Bible says...and the other 40%, I take with a grain of salt."

I almost choked on my tuna sandwich! This guy is standing in the pulpit Sunday after Sunday and preaching a gospel that he does not believe....how many others could be out there?

That's terrible. Tuna is pretty good...

I hate it when I come across people who think that being a pastor is just another job. It makes me sad.

 

[calmcoolandelected]

He is dead wrong...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18798066-2,00.html

"I have friends who I am quite sure are Christians who do not believe in the bodily resurrection," he says carefully, citing another eminent scholar, American theologian Marcus Borg, co-author with Wright of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions.

"Marcus Borg really does not believe Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. But I know Marcus well: he loves Jesus and believes in him passionately. The philosophical and cultural world he has lived in has made it very, very difficult for him to believe in the bodily resurrection.


That seems like it will be a weak answer some day

Peace to u,

Bill

Interesting. I believe the whole Gospel hinges on Christ's resurrection. If you don't believe in that, the rest unravels pretty fast. I posted some quotes on the ressurection under an Easter thread here on Semper, maybe I'll try to dig those up again.

CC&E

 

[colinlindsay]

Let's get back to the orginal thread.
It's not NT Wright I'm particularly interested in, but the project of 'getting all the T's crossed and the I's dotted' in exposition of God's written word.
I've had a man express this as his life's desire as a Christian. No wonder he doesn't enter the life of any fellowship - he just listens to sermons.
I had another man in my church who said start from the presupposition that any new preacher you hear is wrong then check it out. Be SUSPICIOUS because in these last days there will be false preachers who will lead most of the flock astray.
I've seen web-sites where the writer is so afraid of being wrong or so confident that he is 100% right that he runs message-boards filled with the most bad-hearted backbiting, m-calling and cristicism of people I thought were just mainstream evangelicals.
I've know given up internet ploemics as a forum for finding truth since I saw what happened to this man.

 

[GLJCA]

Honestly, if I thought anything I preached was wrong I wouldn't preach it. I just don't preach anythng I am not sure of. I do not preach my opinions but what I am convinced is the truth of Scripture.

Edit for additional comments:
I am very aware of the responsibility that I have as one speaking in the name of Christ and the fact that those who hear me may not live to see another hour. I care far too much for the souls of men and women to give them fluff or something that may or may not be true.

I used to think just like you then I found out that the things that I was sure of were not correct. I used to be Baptist missionary in Mexico and a Dispensationalist. At that time I preached and taught a lot of things that were not correct even though at the time I thought they were. That is the sanctifying process. I am sure that you and I will find that many things we believe now will be incorrect as we continue to grow. N.T.'s admission doesn't set me back it spurs me on to read him more. Most of the time when the Word of God comes out of our lips it is mixed with error because of our sinfulness.

I have read several books from N.T. and have an awesome respect for his teaching.

GLJCA

 

[GLJCA]

Well, I haven't read any of his stuff and I have only read the fringes of the controversial stuff. Maybe when my kids are grown I will have more time to read.

CC&E

Herein lies much of the problem with the N.T. Wright controversy. Most people only hear of his teaching from someone else and are informed by them that his teaching is all wrong. I agree with Mikey, read him carefully and critically and you will be blessed. Draw your own conclusions not someone elses.

GLJCA

 

[mlqurgw]

I used to think just like you then I found out that the things that I was sure of were not correct. I used to be Baptist and a Dispensationalist. At that time I preached and taught a lot of things that were not correct even though at the time I thought they were. That is the sanctifying process. I am sure that you and I will find that many things we believe now will be incorrect as we continue to grow.

GLJCA

I have to say that in all the years that I have been preaching I have changed very little. I have grown in truth but the truth hasn't changed.