I’ve read a respectable chunk of NT Wright’s work, and he takes up more space on my bookshelf than any other author. It’s not often that I read one of his books and am left wanting. But after reading Justification, that’s where I found myself.

That’s not to say that Justification isn’t a good book. Like most Wright books, it is well written (even when it gets technical), and his arguments are well developed.

I was left wanting more from where I sat as the reader than where he came from as the writer. I have at best dabbled on the fringes of the conversations about Pauline theology — specifically those related to the New Perspective(s) on Paul. It is a large conversation that I’ve not yet had the interest or personal resources (ie time and energy) to invest in it.

My hope was that Justification would take a large theological conversation and present it at the popular level. Wright does this so well, as we have seen in Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope. (Yes, the fact that this was published as part of IVP‘s Academic should have served a warning to me that this wasn’t the case.)

The reader should know that Justification primarily serves as a response to John Piper’s The Future of Justification — a book I haven’t read. I walked away with more understanding, even having only read part of the conversation. But when I do decide to work my way a little further into the Pauline discussions, I hope that someone like Wright will offer a helpful introduction.

We read scripture in order to be refreshed in our memory and understanding of the story within which we ourselves are actors, to be reminded where it has come from and where it is going to, and hence what our own part within it ought to be. — NT Wright

Our Sunday gatherings for Austin Mustard Seed have had a number of different looks in the nine months we’ve been together. Sometimes, it’s been a matter of spending time talking and praying with each other after a particularly hard week. Some weeks have been very structured as I lead us through a more in-depth study of a Scripture text or theme. At times, we have just enjoyed getting acquainted with new faces that God has brought our way.

On Easter, we did something new for our community that has become a favorite Sunday rhythm for me. Rather than talk about the importance of the Easter holiday, or proofs for the Resurrection, or explain theological implications, we just…read the story. We opened a Bible to John 20, and passed it around the room. Adults and children alike read a few verses and passed it along.

Since Easter, we’ve used this same means of hearing Scripture more often than not. A shared reading, usually from the screen, followed by a time of discussion as we talk about how we are challenged, confused, encouraged, or troubled by what we read. Too often, Scripture is given a brief spotlight in a church gathering. Perhaps it gets an extended reading prior to a sermon, or maybe a few brief passages are raised in the course of a topical sermon. But I’m hungry to learn what it can look like when a community engages with the story of Scripture.

If it is part of the privilege and duty of each Christian to study scripture, and to read it devotionally, it is important that the wider church should be able to hear what individual readers are discovering in the text. Of course, not all private readings will come up with significant new insights; but many will. The church needs to facilitate, through small groups, and other means, this bring of particular viewpoints to the attention of the whole body, both so that the larger community may be enriched and so that maverick or clearly misleading readings can be gently and appropriately corrected. — NT Wright

This doesn’t, of course, mean less preparation for me. I still spend the same amount of time studying the text in advance, and usually have a few points of discussion in mind. I come prepared to engage questions about the text, or offer insights from the studies of those who have come before us. But the course of our group study is guided by how the Spirit in engaging the text with the hearts of those who are present.

I don’t know what this way of engaging the text can look like as our community continues to grow. But I know there is something with this that I hope we can always capture. I long to help shape a community to listens to the story of the Scriptures together, and learns from each other what it means to continue with God in the writing of that story.

Both of the quotes above were taken from The Last Word, by NT Wright. You should read it.

In November, N.T. Wright gave a series of talks at the Harvard University Graduate Student Christian Fellowship entitled Reconstructing Hope. Here’s a link to each talk:

• Why Do Good in a Hopeless World?
• What is Good in a World that Defies Hope?
• Doing Good: What Plus Hope Equals Change?

I appreciated the content of the lectures, but what made it worth my time (and yours) the Q&A that followed each. The questions were varied and thoughtful, as were Wright’s responses. My own Christian theology has been shaped heavily by Wright, so it is intriguing to hear how his ideas are engaged by thoughtful students at Harvard. A few times, it seemed as if he stepped around some questions, but it was a matter of reframing questions that were posed from a different understanding of Christian perspective than what he holds.

And this means, as is well known, that his theology has the character of inaugurated eschatology, that is, of a sense that God’s ultimate future has come forwards into the middle of history, so that the church is living within — indeed, is constituted precisely by simultaneously within! — God’s new world and the present one.” — NT Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective

(This post is part of a series reflecting on David Bosch’s six distinctives for a missiology of Western culture. See the introductory post for a little background.)

A missiology of Western culture must include an ecological dimension.

Thanks to my nature loving Grandma, I’ve always had an appreciation for nature that wasn’t really offered in my Evangelical background. Somehow I grew up with clashing ideas that nature can be enjoyed, but ultimately, it will just be destroyed, because the physical realm is corrupt.

In recent years, I’ve been able to reshape these ideas and find that a love of nature and a true Biblical understanding of creation. The works of Athanasius, NT Wright and others have helped me understand that to care for creation is to live in anticipation of God’s restoration of all things, when heaven and earth will be joined again. The physical world is broken, but the shattered fragments still hold glimpes of the glory of God.

This is all true, and all good, but Bosch emphasizes another point. A Western missiology must have an ecological element for the sake of the Third World. He writes, “the current exploitation of the environment in the Third World is often directly linked to the global economic structure that is dictated by the West.” To live with ecological responsibility is to live with the future in mind. But, it is also to live with the present, with the unseen other, in mind.

In Everything Must Change, Brian McLaren quotes Jacues Ellul: “A major fact of our present civilization is that more and more sin becomes collective, and the individual is forced to participate in collective sin.” A statement like that, which I agree with, leaves me feeling helpless.

But I am also hopeful, knowing that my individual choices can serve to weaken the collective. Through the Everything Must Change website, I found a site called Better World Shopper which grades the ecological responsibility of corporations in various industries. It’s a list that I’m consulting more and more, and I encourage you to do the same.

Glory be…it looks like I have another good reason to eat at Chipotle.

Next post: countercultural

We have to create, and sustain, communities where this life is being lived in such a way that when we speak of it we are obviously telling the truth. That is the hard part. As long as our churches are places where we struggle to sustain an hour or two’s public worship per week, with ‘real life’ only minimally affected by it, we will indeed end up like a bunch of vaguely religious cows in a field, mooing on Sunday mornings and chewing the cud the rest of the time. No highs and no lows. But if we really worked at trying to be for our world what the apostles were for their Jewish world, things might change. The gospel might come alive.” – Tom Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part Two

I suppose it’s not a secret that I’ve been reading Surprised by Hope by NT Wright based on my last few posts. After finishing it, I can say that it was what I hoped it would be.

It almost feels crass to say it so, but Surprised by Hope is NT Wright’s theology of end times. I’ve often heard others joke about being a panmillenialist — they don’t know how the end times will look, but it will pan out. I can appreciate the heart of this joke more than I can appreciate the cheesy humor of it. But I’ve come to a place where I don’t see this a valid position to hold.

The hope one holds for how God will ultimately redeem and restore all of creation is at the core of how one will live their faith in the present. Our understanding of faith is strongly shaped by our understanding of what happens “in the end”. Perhaps just as true, our current context and understanding will have a strong impact on how we shape our expectations of the final redemption of the world. But to shape our perspective of “end times” based on what is most convenient to our understanding now is to do a disservice to God’s greater story.

One critique I read on Amazon said that Wright should keep his political views out of the book and stick to theology. That seems to me to be a complete miss of what the book is about. I think Wright helps us to see that these two constructs can’t be so easily detached. And that is what I appreciate…Wright brings his views of what God is working toward to the present and makes them matter now.

The pinnacle of the book for me is Chapter 13 — “Building for the Kingdom” — where Wright lays out how justice, beauty, and evangelism are part of our co-creation of the kingdom of God. Each of these become not just a ‘should’, or a moral obligation, but deeply hopeful acts of inviting genuine human life as God intended it to be.

And salvation only does what it’s meant to do when those who have been saved, are being saved, and will one day fully be saved realize that they are saved not as souls but as wholes and not for themselves alone but for what God now longs to do through them. — NT Wright, Surprised by Hope

So far from sitting on clouds playing harps, as people often imagine, the redeemed people of God in the new world will be agents of his love going out in new ways, to accomplish new creative tasks, to celebrate and extend the glory of his love. — NT Wright, Surprised by Hope

“Dang. NT Wright beat me to it.”

That’s what keeps going through my head as I’ve been reading Surprised by Hope.

When I think of how I want to use my voice, one of the main themes that comes up is dualism. Simply put, dualism is the idea that this physical world is a mess and the only good is that which exists in some other spiritual reality. I want my voice to be one that is not for, but against, dualism.

I often evaluate Christian beliefs and practices in light of how they have been shaped by the influence of dualism. I see how it influences everything from our view of creation, to our view of eternity, to what our prayer requests look like.

In the interest of disclosure, I should say that this is likely a theme for me because it is also a theme in much of NT Wright’s writing, which I’ve read my fair share of. In Surprised by Hope, much of his thinking regarding the influence of dualism on Christian theology has been pulled together in one place. And it is pulled together well — at least in the third of it that I’ve read so far.

And yes, when it comes to writing this book, NT Wright surpasses me in research, credibility, prose, pedigree, name recognition, number of words actually written, and publishers willing to give it a look. And so, reminded of that, I offer what is now going through my head as I return to my reading: “This is the book I rightly hoped that NT Wright would write.”