Reflection: Justification by N.T. Wright

Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision is N.T. Wright's response to John Piper's The Future of Justification. It is a thorough, dense if somewhat brief explanation of Wright's take on Justification and why Piper is wrong. I am not qualified to review this book's content and engage critically with it. It is simply out of my league. It is, however, vintage Wright: Readable, dense, and enlightening, with some good one liners thrown in for good measure. As such, I simply offer some reflections.

Wright believes that justification can only be understood in a covenant setting for a Hebrew lawcourt. Justification is the declaration of God that a certain group of people are in the right and will be found in the right. This declaration is in complete accord with the Abrahamic covenant and so it exhibits God's righteousness. God, in this declaration, has remained faithful to the covenant he established because of the faithfulness of Jesus. Jesus has taken on himself the whole of the law and seen it through to make possible the accomplishment of what the law couldn't do, which was make righteous by the power of the Spirit. Wright works through this belief by emphasizing we read Romans in light of Galatians and all of these in light of Ephesians, Corinthians, and Philippians. Justification is about creating one group of people out of two.

Wright believes this formulations is more trinitarian and that it requires a high Christology and a high ecclesiology. Perhaps this has shied some Protestants away from its full impact. It also has a more robust eschatology because present justification always points forward to a future justification for those in Christ who have participated in the transformative power of the Spirit. Wright's emphasis on transformation as an aspect of justification--not earning it, not solidifying it, but flowing from it--was one of the most pastorally exciting aspects of the work. He believes there has been too much navel-gazing and laziness that has gone on because of fear in "works" and "synergism." He challenges that those who believe he is falling into some kind of works-righteousness have not grasped his pneumatology. It is more reliance on God, not less!

This is not a book that can be read quickly or without thorough knowledge of Romans. It's a challenge, but worth the effort. I expect it will take me several more reads of Romans and another two reads of Justification to begin to get a full appreciation of Wright's argument.

Review: Solomon Among the Postmoderns

SAP is Peter Leithart's attempt to see Solomonic wisdom among postmodern philosophers, but also to take a Solomonic "stance" against their conclusions. The outcome is a bit of a challenging read, but one worth the effort. I say challenging because Leithart is one of those writers who expects you to jump into the conversation he wants to have, rather than introducing you to one already taking place.

He begins by offering a different translation of Ecclesiastes 1:2 than with which most of us are familiar. Solomon didn't say that everything is meaningless and he didn't say it about everything that exists. Instead, 'under the sun' is a phrase of time (the present) and what is translated meaningless should be translated mist or vapor. Leithart says that Solomon believed that everything is fleeting at this present time. You can't shape the wind; you can't shepherd vapor. This, he says, is directly in opposition to the modern project of controlling everything.

Leithart begins with the Renaissance. The Renaissance, a return to classical art and literature, replaced God with humans at the center of creation and appreciated all the diversity of humanity. However, in the wake of the Reformation, the Renaissance helps set the stage for modernity: the human project to control the world, to shepherd the wind, Solomon might say. "We" became different from "They." Freedom, control, and progress became the new trinity. And yet the promise of modernity never materialized. Quantam physics. Violence. Death. Leithart says that postmodernism had three movements against modernity: unmasking, inverting, and instensifying.

Leithart gives three contexts for these movements. First, the elusive word. Postmodernism says that the boundaries modernity sets up between private/public, us/them, religion/politics all fade away. All is vapor. It's not so much that postmoderns are relativists, but that they are perspectivalists. Everyone has a perspective and there are no foundations to stand on. We all have limited, partial knowledge. There is always a way to frame history; never a grand story that is told from the grand perspective; always an element of persuasion in speech; never something outside the text. And Solomon agrees: We don't know the future; we all die. And yet, Solomon believes in God and points to the future where God will reign.

Second, the decentered self. Humans change and as a result identity changes. Descartes, however, wanted to find something that wouldn't, that couldn't, change. And so was born the human as a thinking thing. The human as the soul. The human as immaterial. But doesn't this make identity even more unstable? The human being--who is undoubtedly flesh--is now schizoid. Separate. Along comes John Locke who believes consciousness constitutes identity, but, as Joseph Butler points out, this becomes a constant dying and reforming of the self. Consciousness is never the same; it's always changing. Finally, David Hume believes that all identity is simply perception. This also fleshes out sociologically where people become disconnected from their families, cities, relations. They lose their story. Postmodernity intensifies this problem with urban developments, immigration, and reinvented celebrities. Who are we? Who we're told to be by the myriad of people who live around us. The changing self. Fat people now thin. Redesigned bodies and faces. If modernity said the self was changing, postmodernity through plastic surgery and liquid communities ramps the change up to hyperspeed. We're always playing roles. (I wonder, has anyone heard from Paris Hilton? And, if yes, from which one?) And Solomon agrees: All is vapor and that includes the self. We pass away. We fail bodily. The postmodern emerges with the hope of narrative identity! A helpful and valuable idea, but the postmodern is obsessed with death. And stories too often die with people. Never fear, Augustine (a Solomonic thinker) is here! For Christian identity is not in oneself, but in God, Father, Son, and Spirit.

Finally, Leithart turns to power. Oppressors always have power and in spite of modernity's promise for freedom, it only controlled all the more: There is always a threat to be seen; markets are always manipulated. And yet...economics are complex. Too complex for people. People are complex. Even Foucault, who sought to free forms of knowledge from science, is making a modern move even in his critique of it. Karl Marx, who saw economics in everything, never saw, and never will see, his utopia realized. Even those who see postmodernism as emerging as an unstoppable force are the intellectually elite of Europe and America. Religious fanaticism marches on. Responsible religion marches on. Postmodernity inverts the power of modernism and finds it just as caught up in its tracks. The desire to listen to the voiceless is enacted by cries of shut-up! (Did anyone else see the Gay Marriage episode on Dr Phil?) In other words, there is always, always, always power at play. Does Solomon agree? Yes. The poor are beaten down. The oppressed are silenced. A man who saves his city against foreign powers is forgotten (Ecclesiastes 9:14-16). And yet Solomon does not despair. There is always power, yes. But there is a Power greater, fairer, and better than all.

So, if SAP is Leithart's stance, formed by Solomon, among the postmoderns, then what is it? Simply this: Eat, drink, and be merry. But don't forget that Solomon built the temple and that eating, drinking, and being merry is connected with the promise of the temple (Deut 14:26). Eat, drink, be merry; be of faith, joy, and worship. Work hard and enjoy your work because your days are given by God. Enjoy being a human, even though humans are vapor, because...well, because God.

Nothing Surprising from "Surprised by Hope"

Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright's soon-to-be classic on resurrection, heaven, and mission, was exactly what I expected: very readable, creative and surprising to some, vintage Wright to others, and somewhat long-winded.

SBH is divided into three sections. First, Wright does an extensive (for popular work) ground clearing, exploring contemporary pictures of heaven, describing the environment of 1st century afterlife thought, and then giving the biblical Easter stories. From here, Wright gives his theology of resurrection: The world's trajectory, future judgment and resurrection, Christ's ascension and return, and the afterlife (heaven, hell, and purgatory). Finally, Wright turns his robust resurrection thinking into missional implications for the church.

Wright's thesis is that the resurrection of Jesus took everyone by surprise. Jesus' Jewish followers were surprised by its timing, the Romans were surprised because the resurrection was claimed to be a physical event. This surprising event led Jews to reconsider their thinking of life-after death and spurred Christians on in their mission. All of the sudden, the followers of Jesus became convinced that God would restore justice to this world and that this had started in Jesus. As a result, Paul can write to the Corinthians that they should continue in their work for Jesus because their work is not in vain. This leads to his rejection of contemporary beliefs that the Christian hope is going to heaven when you die or that the soul is the "real" part of the person. Wright does believe in what could be called an intermediate state, but that this isn't the final hope for Christians. (While Wright calls this stage "life after death," he argues that resurrection means "life after life after death.") To stop here is to disregard the doctrine of the resurrection. This means that Wright is looking forward to the final marriage of heaven and earth, the completion of Jesus' prayer. With this in mind, Christians should be about projects of justice, beauty, and hope now. This is the full work of 'evangelism'--living into the future in the present.

First, it should be said, I love Wright. I think he gets it right almost always (I fudge a bit with him on justification--I do think justification is how one 'gets in') and admire that he does serious thinking about mission. He is a leader for the next generation of theologians--biblical theologians who are practitioners. (If this is the case, then the next generation has much potential and many pitfalls.) The book reads a lot like his sermons and I even started noticing the same phrases in this book that he uses in his sermons. Which leads to my one and only critique that the book could be shorter and tighter. Wright rambles at times, struggling with redundancy.

This is a great book for people rediscovering their Christian faith or for people open and interested in a more robust view of heaven. I expect preachers will benefit from it greatly, being especially encouraged by its sermonic style.

Review: The Great Emergence

Phyllis Tickle is founding editor of the religious department of Publisher's Weekly. She describes having to become fluent in the conversation of religion quite quickly when the job came knocking. It seems that out of this building fluency, she has developed a narrative to describe and predict the emergent church, a movement she calls The Great Emergence.

Tickle's thesis is that every five hundred years or so, Christianity has a major shift. Gregory the Great solidified the church by preserving its leadership and educated in monasteries. The Great Schism provided the context in which the Western church could bloom. The Great Reformation allowed the principle of sola scriptura to change church structure and theology. And now the Great Emergence promises to do as all other other changes have done, which is to rework the question of who has authority.

What led to this question is the advancements of science and technology. Psychology and biology have destroyed the concept of the soul and the little man inside us all who runs us. Technology has allowed us to become much more fluid and less attached to our familial heritage. Moreover, everything has become relative--even time and space. Just living colours our perceptions. Or, to put it in Heisenbergian language, just observing a particle changes its course. Throw in changing family structure because of World War II and you've got a recipe for religious change. Who has authority when the spiritual leaders don't have a corner on the market of truth and experience?

Tickle says that those asking this question come from four quadrants: Liturgists (Roman Catholics, Anglicans, etc.), Renewalists (Pentecostal, Charismatic), Conservatives (Evangelicals), and Social Justice Christians (Mainliners). They remain in tension because the Lits and the Renewalists follow something beyond sola Scriptura and believe that things that are beautiful are true, whereas the SJCs and the Cons like sola Scriptura and believe God is the source of all truth. Meanwhile, the SJCs and the Lits are concerned with right practice whereas the Cons and the Renewalists like orthodoxy. Out of these tensions, a center forms which values all of these--and the conversations such tensions bring--and this is the Great Emergence. Where this will take us is more wholistic than any one of these quadrants can exhibit on its own. Questions of what is a human being? what is Atonement? what is truth? why is there suffering? In this gathering center, they value Scripture and the community and hesitate to place one over the other. Tension.

Ticke's book is a fun read. It's quick. It's always hard to understand. She talks like those she's wanting to describe which is helpful, but also forces one to be critical of her large beliefs about the promise of the emergent church. Her language is helpful because it forces me to wrestle with a paradigm that is not my own. But I got the feeling that Tickle wasn't just describing a phenomenon, but pushing it forward. Not only is this book about "How Christianity is Changing and Why" (the book's subtitle), but it wants to help it get there; it's really, "How Christianity is Changing and Why and my Part in Seeing it Happen." This comes out in two ways: First, the book's structure moves its story from description (What is it?) to explanation (Why is it?) to prediction (Where is it going?). The prediction, it seems to me, was a little intense--a redescription of all major religious feelings visavis authority in North America and possibly beyond. Second, at times the book is a little harsh or edgy or cutting. Its ability to move along at a quick pace is enabled by its sweeping statements and lack of appreciation for debate and dialog around issues like inerrancy, women in leadership, slavery, philosophy.

The book's impact will not be among those who don't know the emergent church. Frankly, it's too hard to understand at points what the heck she's talking about. As a person trained in theology and philosophy, I just had to admit, "This language is strange and I don't understand." It will help those who like the emergent church and want to see it progress because it reinforces their views over and again. Plus, it's speaking their language.

Review: The Shack by William Young

The Shack, William Young's tale of Mack, his family tragedy, and his divine encounter, has become the NY Times number one best selling trade paperback fiction. Perhaps not exactly what Young was expecting, but certainly a hopeful sign that average people are still captivated by theology. Even good theology.

The Shack is the spiritual story of Mackenzie Allen Phillips (Mack), written by his friend Willie. On a camping trip with three of his children, Mack's youngest daughter, Missy, is kidnapped. All that is found is her bloody dress in an old shack. Missy is presumed dead and Mack returns home under the weight of what he calls, The Great Sadness. His relationship with God, already strained by his own father's abusive ways, becomes one of bitterness and anger. One day, Mack receives a note, inviting him to the shack--the shack--where his daughter was found, signed by none other than God.

When Mack arrives at the shack, God is not who he would expect. The Father, Papa, is a large African-American woman who loves to cook. Jesus is a Jewish laborer who wears work gloves. The Holy Spirit is a small Asian woman, Sarayu, dressed as a gardener. Not exactly who Mack would expect! As Mack interacts with each of them he hears of their internal relationship, their passions and hobbies, and how his own theological beliefs fall dreadfully short. Mack's weekend at the shack, leads to his experience of the full love of God, forgiveness with his father, and the beginning of forgiveness of the man who killed his daughter.

The Shack is better theology than fiction, which is not necessarily a significant critique as its theology is considered and thoughtful. However, the prose felt a little forced at times, trying very hard to be descriptive and detailed, which bogged the story down. Young's Trinitarian theology is solid. While God appears as two women and one man, Papa assures Mack that the Father and the Spirit are neither male nor female, though both sexes are derived from God's nature. God has created humanity to relate interdepently as sexes, woman originally coming from the rib of man (Eden having been a real place), and every man and woman now coming through women.

I would contend with three of Young's belief, however, (at least) two of which stem from his frustration with the institutional church. First, Young commits the heresy of patripassionism. Papa bears wounds on his wrists, just as Jesus does. Mack comments to Papa that he is sorry that he had to die (103), though it is specifically Jesus who dies. Papa never abandoned Jesus on the cross, though it felt like that. While some will wonder why this matters, it is important to maintain the Trinitarian relations that Young has skillfully described. If the Father has the same experience as the Son, then these two persons are in danger of being collapsed into each other. Further, part of atonement is Jesus entering the situation of estrangement from God and being brought back. If the Father has not abandoned the Son (at least politically), then the Son has not entered the fallen state of humanity.

Second, Young's Old Testament theology lacks a concept of covenant. God comments that the 10 Commandments are about teaching people they cannot live righteously. While the law does this on a national level and Paul affirms that the law was powerless to transform people, one must always consider the law as God's gift, evidence God has set Israel aside. But not only evidence, the gracious means of God's setting aside, intimately connected to the story outsiders enter to become Jews. Young emphasizes the relationship God wants with people that is not marked by rules and expectations, but by expectancy and love. However, the New Testament is full of commands, as well, which Young leaves unaddressed.

Finally, Young lacks a solid political theology. Young's Jesus says, "I don't create institutions--never have, never will." Jesus is not fond of economics, politics (179), preferring relationship. Here Young has failed to take seriously that economics and politics--institutions, markets, cities--are relational. They are fallen relationships, but relationships, nonetheless. To remove Jesus from the creation of institutions also removes Jesus from the powers which emerge from such institutions, which is Manichean and certainly against Paul's words in Colossians that thrones, powers, authorities are created by Jesus. Further, if Jesus is not involved in the creation of institutions, then is he not involved in the creation of orphanages? Hospitals? Universities? Publishing houses?

(One might also point out the personification of God's wisdom Sophia, which indicates a fourth 'person' of God. Better had Young somehow worked this into Jesus and how his story reflects the story of wisdom, but I'll leave that to New Testament scholars. As a theologian, I am uncomfortable with a 'personification' or enfleshment of anything in God except God's Word. All enfleshing is in him.)

In the end, I believe Young's work is worth reading and reflection. It would serve as a good text for church small groups to the extent that it raises a number of important issues in forming church. I appreciated Young's creativity and fearlessness in addressing preconceived notions of God. Even in the above criticisms to a partial extent, Young's work is critical and thoughtful. He has not written this work sloppily and would likely have strong and thoughtful responses to my critiques. In the end, my critiques are disagreements and not necessarily points that Young would see the need to change or sharpen. Finally, Young's book is a significant story that could form the imagination of people in need of reconciliation or forgiveness in their own tragedies. It paints a nice picture of God's involvement in this blue-green ball in black space and God's love for it and all its inhabitants.