Discuss Theology

N.T. Wright, Federal Vision, Auburn Avenue, New Perspectives, Orthodox Presbyterain Church (OPC)

Ron and I have been discussing N.T. Wright with an undergraduate student of the University of the Nations. It is an on going topic for me since I am a member of an Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) congregation in Montana and have attended a PCA congregation in Vancouver WA. Kevin Johnson has posted the report regarding the OPC’s Report of the Committee to Study the Doctrine of Justification, submitted to the 73rd General Assembly, at www.reformedcatholicism.com. This is a paper regarding Federal Vision and New Perspectives. I will also add to our blog.

Much of what we have discussed is the orthodox aspects of Wright’s works, and there are many useful insights to be had. Ron and I are still attempting clear up what we believe Wright’s understanding, and teaching, on justification. My initial thought is that his views are orthodox, but not reformed (Lutheran). This is a major distinction. I hope we are able to explore this in greater detail overtime. Over the next months, as I work through his doctrine, I will add snippets from my readings which will help us understand scripture a little clearer fashion.

With that in mind, I wish to turn to N.T. Wrights work on Paul. He discusses Monotheism: The Jewish Roots, in his volume Paul (pg. 86).

“Within the twenty-first-century world of religious discourse, it is a matter of sensitive debate whether we should suppose that the one God revealed in Jesus is identical to the one God known in Judaism or the one God revealed in the Koran – or whether, to put that more carefully, the language used in these different traditions about the one God does in fact refer to the same being, even though the things predicated of God contain serious mutual incompatibilities (it is analytically true of the God of the Koran that he would not and could not have become incarnate in the form of a ‘son’, and that he neither would nor could have died on a cross). Whatever we say about that, my point is that Jewish monotheism of the sort that Paul knew when he was growing up is a particular type of monotheism, which elsewhere I, and others, have called creational and covenantal monotheism. The one God of Israel made the world and has remained in dynamic relationship with it; and this one God, in order to further his purposes within and for that world, has entered into covenant with Israel in particular.”

One of our purposes for beginning this blog was due to several within our mission thinking they could do away with the Trinity to convert Muslims to Christ. We were not shocked, but rather horrified at this level of ignorance in our missionaries. I believe part of the failure of those missionaries is their misunderstanding of the covenantal nature of God, as opposed to individualistic salvation. They have tried to build a church of individual converts from Islam, but there is no community (in fact they have encouraged the converts to stay within the mosque). The Church is not the mosque; it is Israel, through God’s creation and covenant. New Perspectives, Federal Vision and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church