). Today I want to begin with two preliminary comments, and I'm open to corrections if my sketch below is not entirely accurate.How do you understand the "new perspective on Paul"? What do you think is its primary contribution? Which of the new perspective writers do you read the most and why and what do you like about them? How significant do you think this debate is?
First, there is no such thing as the new perspective if one think it refers to some body of doctrine. The New Perspective, therefore, deserves a brief sketch as to how it arose and what it means. It begins with Krister Stendahl's famous chapter in his book Paul Among Jews and Gentile
. This was back in 1976 and Stendahl argued that the post-Reformation doctrine of justification was rooted, not so much in 1st Century Judaism or the apostle Paul, but the "introspective conscience of the West." 
. This was back in 1976 and Stendahl argued that the post-Reformation doctrine of justification was rooted, not so much in 1st Century Judaism or the apostle Paul, but the "introspective conscience of the West." Many folks thought Stendahl's major point was brilliant; the essay was formative. But it was EP Sanders who took the substance of Stendahl and established it on the basis of evidence from Judaism.
So, in 
. Like it or not, this is the most influential book of the second half of the 20th Century when it comes (1) to our understanding of Judaism and (2) how to understand Christianity's relationship to Judaism in light of #1. This book simply must be read by all seminary students. Sanders argued that Luther imposed his complaints with Roman Catholicism upon Paul's complaints with Judaism. Sanders argued that Luther got it wrong and that Judaism was not a works-righteousness religion. It was instead a religion of what he called "covenantal nomism." The covenant got you into relationship with God and the law was given to maintain that relationship. Therefore, much of our reading of Paul since the Reformation has been wrong. 
Not long after this, in 1982 to be exact, Jimmy Dunn began to use the expression "the new perspective" as he tried to express his enthusiasm for the fresh discoveries that were occurring in Pauline studies. (The "new perspective" was used first by Tom Wright in a lecture in 1978.) This piece can be found in a collection of Dunn's studies on Paul and the law (Jesus, Paul and the Law
and now see The New Perspective on Paul
). Then Jimmy went on to write his two-volume commentary on Romans (Romans
) and then his book theology of Paul (The Theology of Paul the Apostle
). There is some development in his own thinking about the implications of Sanders' conclusions but Dunn made a strong case for a more sociological perception of Paul's mission, gospel, and understanding of Judaism-justification. In other words, Paul was against the boundary-marking characteristic of Judaism that kept Gentiles out, and that Paul's mission was to get Gentiles into the one covenant God had made with Israel.
Then along came, and only then did along he come, N.T. Wright. Wright built upon Sanders and Dunn, to be sure, but he paved his own ground -- building in important ways upon CH Dodd and GB Caird -- by pursuing the "end of exile" themes in his early Pauline studies and then his Jesus studies, and then returned to Paul when the New Perspective had taken hold -- and he added to it, supplemented it, and has taken much of the heat by the critics. Wright has refashioned justification less in terms of personal conversion and more in terms of "who is in the people of God." And he has now added to all of this a new dimension, an anti-imperial reading of Paul and earliest Christianity -- and that had little to do with either Sanders or Dunn.But at the bottom of these folks is a belief that Christians have misunderstood Judaism as a works religion and at stake is a profound (changed) orientation to the human problem in much of Reformed and Lutheran thinking: namely, that humans want to earn their place before God, that their fundamental problem is the attempt to establish themselves before God. The New Perspective, in one way or another, does not see this as the problem Paul himself faced and therefore to read Paul in light of this problem misreads Paul in important ways. I call this traditional reading the Augustinian approach to Paul, and I wish more of the critics of the New Perspective would give this Augustinian basis, which most of them think is actually Pauline, more attention. The New Perspective says, "well, yes, perhaps" but that is not what Paul was going on about when he was engaged with his opponents. The issue was not anthropological but both salvation-historical (more Sanders) and ecclesial (both Dunn and Wright). That's how I see things.
The issue then is how to read Paul in his historical context. This is the Protestant approach and many of us think that far too many of the critics of the New Perspective, instead of re-examining the Bible in its historical context, have appealed instead to the Tradition as established by Luther and Calvin. This leads me to another point...
Second, until someone has read Sanders, Dunn, and Wright, and then examined both the Jewish evidence and the New Testament evidence afresh, one should be very careful about criticizing the new perspective ideas. If one does not do these things, one is not being Protestant. Right or wrong, the New Perspective is the most Protestant move made in the 20th Century -- and by that I only mean that it seeks to get back to the Bible and challenge our beliefs in light of what we find in that Bible.
I have heard plenty of folks say "the new perspective is wrong" and even one person saying "anyone who believes in the new perspective is not Christian." I have heard these things far more often from those who have not even read EP Sanders' famous book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, do not know that Jimmy Dunn "invented" the expression [added: as a label for] "the new perspective on Paul" for a lecture he gave at the Manson Memorial Lecture, think Wright is the New Perspective, and do not know that Sanders, Dunn and Wright differ in some significant ways. I hear that the New Perspective -- as it is a fixed body of belief -- often from folks who have no idea what the Jewish texts say about faith and works and covenant and justification.
Perhaps this is a third point: to extrapolate from the exegesis in historical context of Stendahl, Sanders, Dunn, or Wright to "what they must believe theologically" is dangerous business and more often than not simply unfair. In other words, to say they have denied the Reformation etc requires that they say that very thing. Often I hear critics "extrapolating" to what these New Perspective folks must believe and then engaging with this "reconstructed theology" to show that that reconstructed theology is not consistent with the Reformation. Hold on I often say. Let's see what these folks have to say about these things. One example: Tom Wright is not alone in saying that it is more than a little difficult to prove that Paul believed in double imputation. That does not mean that Tom Wright thinks we stand before God on our own righteousness. It only means that, in his view, the Reformers' doctrine of double imputation is a development of Paul and not something Paul actually states explicitly. That's an example.
A nice review of NT Wright's newest book by Craig Blomberg.
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Mark @43,
I wish we could sit down over coffee and talk about this.
Nobody's views about justification can turn people's hearts toward one another. Knowledge of theology alone does not cause people to forgive one another.
I think a big part of the problem you describe is how some Christians have made an idol of marriage and the family.
Another piece of it is that we think that after we turn to God, somehow He expects us to be sinless; I think this is a wrong view of God, and of humanity.
Yet another piece of it is asking why people in the US and Europe view marriage as not necessary, and then grappling with what we find out without turning to a kind of legalism.
Your concern is very real, about a difficult problem.
Dana
Dana and Mark (47 and 43)-- thank you for your patient and caring approach in this interchange.
This is maybe partly responsive to Mark's plea for relevance to our hurting world-- Wright sometimes says that we are saved by faith IN CHRIST, not by faith in "justification by faith." One point he is making is to turn us back to Jesus and not to focus on our efforts at systematic doctrine. So I think he would support your "so what" question. If faith doesn't move us to action, is it there?
Similarly, Wright's view of justification seems to come to grips more explicitly with the demand of James and others that our faith be demonstrated--making it harder for people to mis-interpret the traditional reformation view as permitting people to get "fire insurance" and then wallow in their sins.
So, while his point isn't directly to address divorce, I'd say his approach drives us to live out our faith in practical ways including holding up marriage vows.
Any help?
Steve
#43, 47, 48.
It seems to me that Wright's view elevates the 'so what' question and moves us in a direction which we desperately need in many of our Churches. While divorce and pornography are undoubtedly great sins in our time, I feel a bit unsure about claiming either is the 'number one sin' as though we could somehow rank the sins of our time.
To my mind it is clear from reading Wright's work that this is far from just an 'academic exercise'. Wright's urge for us to care about such things as third world debt, the devastation of the worlds ecosystems, and the plight of the poor is not a slide into liberalism but rather a vision for the faithful working out of the Gospel as the whole people of God. Who are we to dismiss these as a mere 'political' addendum to the more important work of personal holiness? Never does Wright let us off the hook to get our own houses and bedrooms in order, but rather offering a vision for faithful witness to Jesus Christ.
There is a strain within the old reformed view that would say you can't do any good (political activism, social change, etc) until you get right with God. This of course privileges justification and rightly so. But, it seems to me that we cannot dwell on justification forever or we end up missing the point - which is faithful living in love of God and neighbor. It occurs to me that a new generation of believers is far more interested today in honoring God through their eating and consumption habits than they are figuring out who is in and who is out of the covenant community. Let us just hope that we as the Church can encourage and support such acts of faithful living whilst deepening theological understandings for why such is, in fact, good.
The question about the connection between justification and faithful living is a live one and I often worry that our protestant history still plagues us when it comes to right living. My own background leaned so far on the side of grace as to avoid lifting a finger for fear of 'works-righteousness' (while patently enforcing a legalistic set of do's and don'ts of course). To my mind the NPP offers hope to get past the debates which the Reformers fought so long ago and on to living faithfully in our own world - which, I believe, includes faithful practice in both family and ecology.
It should probably also be said that the best view of Wright's "so what" is probably not found in his writings on NPP or even in the series, but in 'Surprised by Hope'.
SM&D I appreciate your help. I have found the "fire insurance" comment very relevant. Here is my problem with Wright, emergent Church and the political active... When I listened to the Lectures I immediately felt like I was drinking water spiritually. However as an Armenian attending a reform church, I see absolute outrageous women's apparel, I see a divorce policy that would make Henry VIII blush both in catholic and reform indulgences. Here is my Hypothesis, birth from a layman's perspective. The Church as well as Israel according to Wright, have this unbroken line of redemption plan for the world. Every moral problem that the world has faced since Noah, God has provided a people or plan for salvation that answers the sin of their time. Yet Wright and others take this new and correct outlook and try to fix the problems that the world says are important and that they blame on Christendom or colonialism.
If family is not important than why is it the only human example of covenant relationship that we have. All other covenant's are abstract, which is not to say they are not real. How do you teach covenant relationship of belonging and allow the most basic commandment of covenant relationship to be disregarded. If marriage is not relevant covenant theology, what is. As every married person knows that living a Holy, selfless and loving life is most difficult with a spouse. It is the only physical qualification for ministry. Global warming has killed absolutely no-body and is as harmless to people(not christians) as was the Roman Law and system of Government. The west's embrace of Freud and the dissolution of marriage has killed and maimed millions physical and mentally and wrecked Generations and the Church is silent in the west and provides no answer for they are just as divorced as the world. But then it seems we would rather attract people with "relevant cause and remain silent on things that could shrink our churches(temporarily).. Miss California poses half nude and condemns Homosexuality - she is the church!
In Love venting frustration.
Mark,
Thank you for your thoughts on marriage and family. Having worked with youth and families locally, nationally and now internationally I have come to have great respect for the role of the family as the building block for a healthy community.
Frustrated with you bro
Chris