The New Perspective on Paul continues its movement in an incredible way. It goes to show that this is not some fly by night scholarly trend that will be here today and gone tomorrow. In fact, it is quite revolutionary. It has, in many ways, overturned the way we think as theologians and Bible scholars.
This is seen for instance in N.T. Wright’s new book (published in the UK, the US version is forthcoming) which is a response to this book by John Piper.
But I am still not convinced that the emperor is in fact wearing any clothes. What is frustrating in reading NPP advocates is trying to figure out exactly what they’re against. They are protesters. They are doing more than simply setting forth a positive new and fresh exegesis of Paul’s writings. They are reacting. They are reacting against what is perceived to be many faults and shortcomings of Western Protestant Christianity.
They are against individualism, pietism, and liberal Lutheran biblical scholarship. OK, good, so am I. But are you getting the sense with me that they are – pardon the hackneyed expression – throwing the Calvinistic baby out with the Lutheran bath water?
Yeah, I am against crass individualism, but that doesn’t mean that Paul does not address the issue of what it means to be “saved” or “justified” personally before a holy and righteous God. In fact, he does. And he also speaks about the corporate life of what it means to be the body of Christ as well. Seems to me both are true – why jettison one of them for the other? Also, it seems that Paul is concerned with what happens when individuals die and how the saints go to heaven (how about the two letters of Thessalonians and the two to the Corinthians?). But, yes, Paul is also concerned with the new creation and the eschatological reality in which God’s people are “declared to be in the right” where he will “set things to rights.” Why the false dichotomoy?!
Its a shame that many Reformed Christians have bought into this movement hook and line (and I speak as one who was almost swept away with it myself). In their (right) zeal to see the importance of the corporate life of the church rescued from the crass individualism of American pietism, they have (wrongly) rejected those areas upon which both Reformed and Lutheran have historically agreed. And that is a recipe for a mass deception of God’s covenant people.
Dear Pastor Jim,
I heartily agree with you. It does seem that whatever adjacent aspects of traditional Protestant Christian faith the NPP is averting from, what makes the NPP so delicious as a movement is that its platform is postured on the dismantling of the material principle of Protestantism, which is justification by faith. It succeeds in the relative disarray of Protestantism in its both liberal accommodation and sectarian fragmentation. And the adjacent aspects the NPP averts from combine with its “Borg-like” mission to accommodate all things biblical in its own truncated view of the narrative story of the Bible. Therefore, those Protestant Christians that are most committed to Reformational confessional are going to be those who are committed against the NPP. It should go without saying then that the NPP is a new form of post-modern post-Protestant confessionalism.
RIXLss You’re the greatest! JMHO
Hi Rob,
I believe you are correct. A disdain for the doctrine of justification by faith alone, even within Protestantism, has been the constant enemy of the church.
Blessings!
D.A. Carson says that the NPP might be all the rage in seminaries, but that it has passed its peak in the world of scholarship.
I gleaned this from an interview of Carson by Mark Dever. See Justin Taylor’s blog 2/26/09 for link.
http://theologica.blogspot.com/2009/02/interview-with-carson-on-books.html
Dr. Carson is most certainly correct. Scholarly trends are like pop music, they have the shelf life the length about one hot, steamy summer.
But my concern is the church. Things always move slower through the church, even the more progressive quarters of the church.
That said, the NPP is also nothing new – really. It has manifested itself in many various forms throughout the centuries.