“Why Christianity and the ’4th’ are Incompatible” OR “Why this is NOT a day to celebrate” OR “Why my friends wont like me for the next week or so”

June 29, 2010 | by Kurt Willems


I want to start out this post with a huge disclaimer… what I am about to say may sound radical or irrational to some. I also want to say that I have a great respect for those who differ with me on this issue that I am about to discuss, so I invite your ideas on this post as well. Finally, I have a great deal of respect for those who are Christians and who ‘support’ military and our troops. Those who serve our country (although I may disagree with it from my standpoint theologically) deserve respect for their sacrifices and I am glad to have some friends who have served or are serving in the armed forces.

With all of that said, I have been struggling with the idea of the 4th of July for the past couple of years or so. Each year we get together and remember the day when America won her freedom. We reenact the story through live action plays, we set off fireworks as a display of joy, and we sing prideful songs about our freedom from oppression. In many ways, we treat Independence Day like the Jews in Jesus’ day (and even to this day) remember the exodus from Egypt. Now here is the issue I have: No matter what position you hold in regards to being a Christian and war (I happen to hold to nonviolence); I cannot justify glorifying the ‘wining’ of our independence from our friends across the pond, even if using ‘just war theory’ criteria. How can we celebrate that we killed thousands upon thousands of people (MANY OF WHICH WORSHIPED THE SAME GOD!) over the fact that they were taxing our mammon without giving us representation in parliament or whatever?!!!!! This seems just plain wrong!!!!! Yes, there might be some kind of justice issue here, but the greater injustice to taxation without representation is the violent killing of our brethren.

Let me add that I love fireworks, BBQ’s, and any good excuse to hang out with friends. I also love that I have had the privilege to grow up in this country. So, I am not “anti-America” by any stretch; I am happy that I live here. What I think is that as Christians we need to recalculate our past and allow the Gospel to be critical of certain things we now celebrate. Is it honorable to kill because we didn’t like being taxed? I think the Jesus who says “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” would probably say “no.” Mark Noll, who is a historian that is read in almost every seminary across America, said the following in an article he wrote for Christianity Today about just war and the Revolutionary War:

During this confused misunderstanding, the Bible was used as a reservoir of images, moral principles, and types. Many sermons in America (and some in Britain) supported revolt, while a few in America and England argued against it. Serious exegesis, however, of what would seem to us like the relevant passages (such as Romans 13) was very rare. Rather, it was much more common for patriots to liken George III to Pharaoh and George Washington to Moses, or to depict the conflict as a struggle between the Woman and the Beast of Revelation 12. Patriots and Loyalists were both much more likely to add scriptural authority to political reasoning rooted in some other ideology than they were to attempt reasoning from the ground up on the basis of Scripture.



What is quite interesting is that Noll properly points out that the “Just War” principles of St. Augustine were not followed as criteria for the war for Independence. This war was not rooted in scripture, but in a false political agenda. And why was it false? Noll reminds us of how history played itself out: “Americans fought a war to gain the kind of freedom that Canada, New Zealand, and Australia were simply given after not too many decades.” Our nation, in other words, killed other Christians in order to gain independence that would have eventually been granted to them in a “just” fashion, had the founding fathers not been so trigger-happy over issues of taxation and other conspiracy theories.

The most popular rebuttal to what I have said (based on a similar post last year) will probably have to do with the issue of freedom. We have freedom today because of this and other wars. I think that this is a false assumption. I challenge the idea that my freedom to choose came from our independence. I am free to choose because God has given me a free will. Just like the Christians who suffered persecution during the first century and so on, I have the ability to choose because of the grace of God. Even if we had not separated ourselves from England, most likely it would have turned out pretty good. As was already pointed out – Canada never revolted, and they are doing just fine (socialism aside, they have basic freedom).

Is there anyone out there who agrees with me or am I just crazy [if you disagree take it easy on the crazy comments (-; ]? If you agree, why? If not, tell me your thoughts on this historic day and Christian biblical theology.

The End of Men? — A Hard Look at the Future

By Albert Mohler.

What does it mean for large sectors of our society to become virtual matriarchies? How do we prepare the church to deal with such a world while maintaining biblical models of manhood and womanhood? …The real issue here is not the end of men, but the disappearance of manhood.

TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2010
Is our postmodern, postindustrial society simply better suited to women than to men? Hanna Rosin makes the case for this claim in the current issue of The Atlantic, and her article demands close attention. Men, she argues, are simply falling behind women in almost every sector of cultural influence and economic power. This shift, she understands, is nothing less than unprecedented in the span of human history.

Rosin begins her article with the fact that sex-selection technologies in the West are now more often used to select a preference for girls than for boys, reversing the historical trend. Why? She explains: “Man has been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But for the first time in human history, that is changing—and with shocking speed. Cultural and economic changes always reinforce each other. And the global economy is evolving in a way that is eroding the historical preference for male children, worldwide.”

Rosin’s article is well documented and forceful in argument. The bottom line is the claim that the trend and trajectory of the global economy have for some time now been headed toward female skills and talents. At the most basic level, this means a shift from physical strength to intellectual energies and education. At the next level, it also means a shift from leadership models more associated with males toward the nurturing leadership more associated with women. In any event, the changes are colossal.

The Return of Patriarchy? Fatherhood and the Future of Civilization
Nothing has brought this into clearer sight than the current global recession. In the United States, the recession has been dubbed a “he-cession,” due to the fact that three-quarters of the 8 million jobs lost were lost by men. Even more devastating to men, most of these jobs will not return, given the vast changes the recession has brought about. “The worst-hit industries were overwhelmingly male and deeply identified with macho: construction, manufacturing, high finance. Some of these jobs will come back,” Rosin predicts, “but the overall pattern of dislocation is neither temporary nor random.”

It’s not just the United States, either. In Iceland, Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir (the first openly-lesbian head of state) ran her campaign for office with a pledge to end the “age of testosterone.”

But the picture in the United States is particularly striking. For the first time in the nation’s history, women now outnumber men in the workforce. The working class, “which has long defined our notions of masculinity,” Rosin argues, is “slowly turning into a matriarchy, with men increasingly absent from the home and women making all the decisions.”

Why? “The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today — social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus — are, at a minimum, not predominately male.”

Rosin actually makes two main points, and both demand attention. The first has to do with what is taking place in working class families. The matriarchy Rosin describes is now coming more fully into view. In many cases, it is husbands and fathers who are unemployed and wives and mothers who have paying jobs. This means a huge shift in male function, and many men just exit the family process or forfeit decision making. Rosin refers to these men as “casualties of the end of the manufacturing era.” Across the nation, older men are increasingly unemployed and younger men face little hope of a job in this sector — the virtual birthright of previous generations.

Of the fifteen job classifications marked for future growth, men dominate only two: janitorial services and computer engineering. The same pattern is now extending to managerial and professional roles, where women currently hold 51.4 percent of jobs. Why are women gaining and men falling behind? Rosin explains:

They make up 54 percent of all accountants and hold about half of all banking and insurance jobs. About a third of America’s physicians are now women, as are 45 percent of associates in law firms—and both those percentages are rising fast. A white-collar economy values raw intellectual horsepower, which men and women have in equal amounts. It also requires communication skills and social intelligence, areas in which women, according to many studies, have a slight edge. Perhaps most important—for better or worse—it increasingly requires formal education credentials, which women are more prone to acquire, particularly early in adulthood.


Beyond the numbers, Rosin reports that office environments and corporate cultures are adapting to women, as well, reshaped by the gender transformation of the last twenty-five years.

And yet, even after all this, Rosin makes her most powerful argument when she looks, not at the current workforce, but at what is happening on America’s college and university campuses. There, she explains, “we can see with absolute clarity that in the coming decades the middle class will be dominated by women.”

She continues:

We’ve all heard about the collegiate gender gap. But the implications of that gap have not yet been fully digested. Women now earn 60 percent of master’s degrees, about half of all law and medical degrees, and 42 percent of all M.B.A.s. Most important, women earn almost 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees—the minimum requirement, in most cases, for an affluent life. In a stark reversal since the 1970s, men are now more likely than women to hold only a high-school diploma. “One would think that if men were acting in a rational way, they would be getting the education they need to get along out there,” says Tom Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. “But they are just failing to adapt.”

While many theories to explain this pattern have been offered, no one can argue with the numbers. Boys are clearly falling behind girls in both educational achievement and aspiration. The long-term consequences of this shift are momentous and virtually impossible to reverse in a single generation. This pattern has vast implications for marital prospects, since women express a strong preference to marry a man of equal or greater educational and professional potential. The collapse of the marriage culture within the working class, Rosin argues, is due to the fact that women are in control and have set expectations “too high for the men around them to meet.”

Hanna Rosin’s article is not the first salvo of information on these troubling trends, but the fact that The Atlantic chose her essay as a cover story is itself evidence of how this phenomenon is taking hold of attention, even among the elites.

For Christians, the importance of this article is even greater. God intended for men to have a role as workers, reflecting God’s own image in their vocation. The most important issue here is not the gains made by women, but the displacement of men. This has undeniable consequences for these men and for everyone who loves and depends on them.

The failure of boys to strive for educational attainment is a sign of looming disaster. Almost anyone who works with youth and young adults will tell you that, as a rule, boys are simply not growing up as fast as girls. This means that their transition to manhood is stunted, delayed, and often incomplete. Meanwhile, the women are moving on.

What does it mean for large sectors of our society to become virtual matriarchies? How do we prepare the church to deal with such a world while maintaining biblical models of manhood and womanhood?

The elites are awakening to the fact that these vast changes point to a very different future. Christians had better know that matters far more important than economics are at stake. These trends represent nothing less than a collapse of male responsibility, leadership, and expectations. The real issue here is not the end of men, but the disappearance of manhood.

What makes a good sermon?

Some say that it doesn't matter how you deliver it, the sermon's power is in the message.

I beg to differ. I can say that Jesus saves in such a dull way, as to look that I don't mean it at all.

Haddon Robinson gives us some pointers as to what makes a good sermon.

Calvin Vs Servet in the Afterlife

A funny cartoon, which I think says a lot of true.

Servet was a heretic by denying the Trinity, yet, he didn't deserve to be killed or to be exiled.

This proved that even the Reformers were victim of what they condemned in the Catholic Church, of intolerance.

Sound like the age of relativism started there and then.

The Joy the endures for ever

The Joy the endures for ever

Luke 10:20

Intro

Joy, or happiness, could be said it’s the one thing most looked for in our culture, and for that matter, throughout all of history. Nobody likes living a place where war takes place, famine, hardship, or difficulty. All of us strive to have a better, more pleasant life. It was Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the USA, and the one who wrote the American Constitution, that wrote the following:”We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These three rights form the idea of the “American dream”. However, commentators are saying that that dream is more and more difficult to obtain, because even though Americans may have life and liberty, they don’t enjoy their lives as much as they used to.

Today we see how Jesus deals with the disciple’s misplaced source of joy. It is interesting to see that this passage is found in the gospel of Luke, the gospel that is considered the gospel of joy, due to its many references to joy, chairos (in the passage, and the other forms of Joy in the Greek found in this gospel) more than the other 3. Jesus gives the disciples, and us today, a corrective as what it is that we should consider as the source of our joy, a joy that does not change at all, but is assured for us in heaven.

The wrong sources of Joy

Sometimes we read Jesus and we feel that he may be downplaying his disciples. He just sent them to preach, and they bring a good report. All the things that he has commanded to them in the previous verses, they have accomplished. Yet, Jesus dismisses their reason for feeling joyful. Why????

We all have our moments of joy. This morning, most of us have our families with us, and that’s a source of joy. Do you remember how you felt last Christmas, at the table, sharing with your family, that’s a time of joy. Kids, when they are playing their Xbox, PS3, or Wii games, and finished them, they experience joy at having ‘clocked’ the game. When you finally bought your house and moved in, were you full of joy that now you had a home of your own??

If you think about it, all that you have accomplished in life, has been due to the Lord’s grace to you. Even minute things, it is the Lord that has given you the skill, and intelligence, the ability to accomplish this or that task. Just as the disciples were given authority to do miracles, we have been given abilities to accomplish things in our lives from the Lord. But just as the disciples got carried away by the success of their mission, you may also fall victim to that temptation, of measuring your happiness to what YOU have accomplished. This will be condemned by Jesus again in the gospel, cf. The parable of the Rich Fool, cf. Lk. 12:19 and the Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus, cf. Lk 16:19.

What is then, is the source of joy for us Christians??

The rightful source of Joy/Happiness.

It is amazing for me to thing that my mane, Luis Jovel, is written somewhere in a book in heaven. This idea comes from the Old Testament, especially Daniel 12:1. Jesus is telling his disciples, and us today, that our sources of joy, are but temporary. How long will your house stand? How many Christmas will you be able to get your family together for Christmas, or for any other occasion?? Kids, when you finish a game, how long do you have that joy in you? I have finished many games, and done many things that were joyful at that moment, but now, are just memories, and sometimes, I have forgotten them!!!

Jesus is showing us a better way, the real source of joy and happiness. It’s not something that we pursue, as Thomas Jefferson suggested, but something that is given to us by God through Jesus, if only we believe in him!!! As I mentioned last week, not all human beings are children of God, despite of popular culture, but only those who receive him and believe in his name that he gives them the right to become children of God, cf. Jn. 1:12.

Conclusion

Let us therefore, get our right perspective as to the source of our happiness. Our successes and good times will pass away, and will be forgotten, or at best, become good memories. But let your joy’s source be in the knowledge that no matter what happens in your life, you can be assure, that your names are written in heaven, and no matter what happens on earth, be it good or bad, nobody can deny you that joy, ever.

Nehemiah 8:10b Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."

Abortion Statistics

A biblical exposition of Mission

Doing Mission like Jesus

John 20:21

Intro

Have you ever been confronted around 6 o’clock with a sales person at your door? You want to take your dinner, or just want to rest from work, yet, they want to convince you that you have to listen to them because they can offer you something that will outweigh the importance of your dinnertime, family time, or any other commitment you may have. They give you all the benefits if you join their company, cause, or product, and have the papers ready for you just to sign them off.

These people are on a mission, a mission for you to join them. They tell you a good story, as to how better your life will be if you do what they say. Some of this people may truly mean what they say, while the vast majority, are just doing their jobs, and what a good job they do!!!

We have been sent by Jesus to accomplish a mission as well, and one that has no gimmicks or very small writing that may make us trap in a contract we later on wish we had never entered into. The mission that Jesus gives to us is the same mission that he got from the Father, to proclaim the good news to a needy world. Today we will see how God has always been a God that is interested in mission, and how He has commissioned us, as those before us, with the tools to carry on with such a mission.

Israel, a kingdom of priests and missionaries

The first missionary of good news that we find in the Bible is Moses, who is sent to preach to the people of Israel who were under bondage, freedom, Exodus 3:7-8. This, as we will later see, was very similar to what Jesus proclaimed he was doing during his mission. But Israel, after being delivered from their slavery, was not supposed to stay with their knowledge of God for themselves. They were rather commissioned to be a kingdom of priests, Exodus 19:5-6. Let’s look closely, we see the Levites are not the only ones who are entrusted with serving others, but the whole nation. The Levites who were set apart to learn the Law, were in turn to teach the people of Israel about the Law, who were in turn to teach the other nations about the Lord.

Their status as God’s messenger on earth was confirmed later on as we see in Isaiah 49:6. But later on, the same Isaiah says that they have failed miserably at their commission, Isaiah 52:5.

But God does not give up, and as God, has a greater plan to accomplish his mission on earth.

Jesus, God’s unique missionary

Israel failed; they did not reach the other nations with the knowledge of the Lord. Jesus was to take the mission that Israel could not accomplish. It is interesting to see that Jesus starts his mission with a similar proclamation as to what was told to Moses, Luke 4:18-19. Jesus was tempted in the desert, just as Israel was, yet, did not fall into sin as they did. He goes up to a mountain, and gives the Law by which his kingdom will be carried out, Matt. 5-7, as Moses went up to Sinai to give the Law that Israel was going to proclaim to the nations. Jesus was faithful to all of what the Father commanded, while not only Israel, but also Moses failed to do this, Numbers 20. Jesus submitted totally to the Father’s will, as seen in John 6:38-39; 8:29. Jesus also limited himself to speak only the Father’s words, Jn. 3:34; 8:28; 12:49; 14:24; 17:8.

Just as it was said that the people of Israel was going to be a missionary nation, Jesus also makes his new Israel a missionary people. John 20:21 can be seen as the commissioning of God’s people to do the mission in the world. Yet, this time we can accomplished the task set before us, because we don’t rely only on our knowledge of the message, but also, in the example and accomplishment of Jesus’ mission. Jesus does not only commands us to do mission, he has done it for us!!!!

The Church’s as Jesus’ missionary

Just as Israel was proclaimed as a kingdom of priests to carry out God’s mission on earth, so is the church, I Peter 2:9. We have been entrusted with Jesus’ message of freedom from the oppression of sin, from the bondage of disease, and from the fear of death. We have been given a commission and the tool to go along with it, the Holy Spirit. It is interesting to see that after Jesus commissions his disciples, he also gives them the Holy Spirit in order to carry out the mission. We do not only have God’s Law in our minds, but also in our hearts, Jeremiah 31:33. At Pentecost, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to empower the Church to carry the message to the ends of the earth, Acts 2. We have a message, and the power to proclaim it today!!!

Conclusion

As a church, are we carrying the mission of Jesus today??? Are we being priests to the people around us, or do we keep the good news of freedom and salvation to ourselves???

Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to empower us to carry on with the mission that Jesus gave to us, so that we may bring all to the knowledge of Jesus, and in turn, to salvation.

Why Do You Think Tom Wright Is So Popular?

May 7, 2010

IVP

The recent Wheaton Theology Conference with Tom Wright as the keynote speaker was sold out weeks ahead of time. As we observed the masses at the event itself, a professor acquaintance asked me why I thought Wright is so popular. “It’s great academic theater,” I answered glibly. Where that came from, I don’t know.

I’m a serious reader of Wright’s stuff. I have been so for over twenty years. And as many times as I’ve heard Wright speak—and those times are numerous—I’m still fascinated by his substance and delivery. I simply don’t know anyone else—at least in the theological world—who can speak like Tom. And he communicates effectively up and down the register of audiences. Without pauses, without “uh’s,” his speech flows forth in great verbal profusion, eloquence and substance. And so, at risk of utterly downgrading any scholarly gravitas I have left, let me gush a bit.

Editors (and many readers) know that a good speaker doesn’t make a good writer, or vice versa. But Wright’s writing is just as good as his spoken delivery. Only once have I surprised myself in telling someone that I thought one of his books was boring. But what I actually meant was that it was written for a popular audience, and I knew what he was going to say. In that sense, I found it boring, though I’m sure many others did not. So one reason for NTW’s popularity is that he is spellbinding.

But he also has some very important things to say. I recall wondering for several years about the fact that the return from exile (think Ezra-Nehemiah) was a far cry from the prophesied future return (think Isaiah) and how that might relate compellingly to Jesus. I could see the “return” motif in the Gospels, for instance. But my best attempts to think through this conundrum and see it as a whole were only halfway satisfactory. Then Tom came along and offered the missing piece: there is an interpretive tradition in second temple Judaism that understands the exile as ongoing, with Israel still in exile under Rome. Why of course! The penny dropped and some oddly fitting Gospel and Pauline texts quivered, shifted and fell into place. While Tom’s thesis has not gone uncontested, its main lines remain compelling for many of us. So too for his understanding of the first Adam, Israel and Jesus, the Last Adam. I could see a rude outline of Israel as Adam (particularly as I taught the Pentateuch for a few years), but the picture did not stand out in relief until Tom turned on the backlights.

When The New Testament and the People of God first came out, I immediately read it, and then reread sections repeatedly as I taught NT.

Then too I vividly recall picking up my copy of Jesus and the Victory of God at SBL right after it rolled off the press. I had been eagerly anticipating its publication. Between Thanksgiving and New Year I devoured it. I’d read tons of material on the historical Jesus and the Gospels, and initiated and was in-house editor of the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. But I remember telling friends that if they read Tom’sJVG, they would never read the Gospels in the same way again.

Tom was repeatedly shining a bright new light on old and familiar texts. And it was exciting. Here was serious historical scholarship that did not lose itself among the trees but showed the way toward a high Christology from the bottom of Israel’s story on up.

Later I was excited when we were able to publish The Challenge of Jesus, a book that has served as a wide-mouth funnel for introducing general readers to Tom’s work on Jesus. It was fun also to initiate a book we called Jesus and the Restoration of Israel, in which (under Carey Newman’s editorship) we enlisted a number of notable scholars to interact with aspects of Tom’s work on Jesus. (Perhaps the best part of that book was that his critics drew him out, encouraging him to clarify for us his thinking in several respects.)

And what can we say—that has not already been said—about the significance of The Resurrection of the Son of God. Then too, over the years I have repeatedly returned to my thoroughly marked-up copy ofThe Climax of the Covenant to be reminded of his insights into difficult Pauline texts. And many other books of a more general or less technical nature could be mentioned.

Why Tom Wright is so popular is a question that could have been asked at any time over the past five to ten years as his popularity has increased. But it’s a question that bears further reflection after the Wheaton Theology Conference (WTC) last month. With 1,100 registered attendees, it was the largest conference ever held at Wheaton College during the school year. And thanks to the Internet, many more have been downloading, listening to, discussing and blogging about the addresses made at the conference (and this conversation leaps geographical bounds).

There are comparisons being drawn with the Together for the Gospelconference that met at approximately the same time and what these two events tell us about evangelicalism today. There are critiques of what Wright or someone else said (and sometimes these critiques reveal a spotty acquaintance with Wright’s work). And there are some interesting reflections on Richard Hays’s paper, which exposed an important perspectival tension between these two long-time friends.

Beyond Wright’s exegetical brilliance, rhetorical skill and remarkable self-confidence—all of which do indeed make great theological theater!—there is this significant fact: Tom Wright has shone his interpretive lights on many an overly familiar or elusive New Testament text, and he has done so under a grand and sacred canopy of interpretive plausibility. I hesitate to make the comparison for obvious reasons, but—hey, this is a blog!—Bultmann is the twentieth-century icon who comes to mind as one who had somewhat similar influence in shaping a big picture—but in quite the opposite direction! Tom Wright shows us how the Bible—and primarily Jesus and Paul—“make sense.”

With his increasing popularity comes a company here that demurs on this (yes, that would include me), one over there that opposes him on that, and another that finds him downright dangerous all around. So far as I observed, the latter were not in evidence at the WTC. But no one who attended or has listened is unaware that even Tom’s friends differ from him in matters small and large. So it is and, in fact, should be. But I think most who attended the conference would say that even if they are not fan boys, or even have significant differences, Tom Wright has stimulated their thinking like no other NT scholar of our day. And perhaps some, who had viewed him as strictly an academic or a hoity-toity Anglican, were struck by his passion for the gospel on display in his flying overview of Ephesians in a chapel talk or the virtual altar call that concluded one of his plenaries.

Tom Wright has a brilliant mind and stunning eloquence. That makes great academic theater—and more (as I’ve hinted above). But more importantly, he’s also got a heart and soul that is not ashamed of the gospel and its saving power.

Here’s a small collection of blogs and comments on the conference:

John Armstrong

William Evans

Michael Gorman (Scroll down)

Christianity Today

Craig Carter and here.

Daniel Kirk (follow through with his three parts)

N. T. Wright: Is He the Most Dangerous Theologian of Our Time?

by John H. Armstrong

From the first moment I heard the name of N. T. Wright, about twenty years ago I think, I was told to avoid him like the plague. Why? He was a dangerous man with a theology that would undermine the entire Protestant Reformation. Dutifully I avoided him because those I respected told me to do so. I limited my reading of Tom Wright to a few articles and to only one book about him (not by him). I was told that he embraced a position called "The New Perspective on Paul" (NPP). This position was a damaging (some say, quite literally, a damning) stance on Paul's corpus of New Testament material because it directly attacked the most important truths of the Reformation. Thankfully a very good friend, who had taken the time to begin to read Tom Wright for himself, challenged me bluntly and forcefully to my face. In effect he told me to keep my mouth shut about Tom Wright until I had really bothered to read him for myself. In the mid-1990s I began to read Tom Wright and have appreciated his work profoundly ever since.

Shortly after I began to study Wright's work I decided to conduct an interview (a friend did it for our journal) with Bishop Wright. (He is the Anglican Bishop of Durham today.) We published this interview in our quarterly journal. Later on we did an entire issue of our journal on the theology of N. T. Wright. Time and again I heard stories of people saying that John Armstrong had given up the gospel and embraced the NPP. (Oddly, I heard all of this second-hand and in books and articles after the fact.) In almost every case the people who made these statements didn't seem to realize that Wright actually did not promote the NPP at all. He is admittedly appreciative of certain aspects of the NPP and openly writes of which parts he agrees with and why. But it made no difference to his critics. A label was found and a great scholar, who was and still is doing some remarkable biblical work, was deemed dangerous. The only problem with all of this hype was that it all only made Wright more interesting to a horde of younger readers, some inquiring pastors who would still read beyond what they were told to read, and a lot of us who just wanted to know what the hullabaloo was really all about. The end result is that Tom Wright is now one of the most widely read biblical theologians of our time.

I remember the first time I heard Tom Wright preach. I thought to myself, "If this man doesn't preach Christ and the gospel then who does?" He warmly commended the grace of God and the sufficiency of Christ alone to save those who believed the good news. He spoke with spiritual fervor and human warmth. I knew heresy when I hear it and see it and this did not seem like heresy to me. I was not alone in this response. A growing number of people made this same discovery by meeting and listening to Wright and over time they too found Wright compelling in so many ways.

Some years ago, before John Piper decided to write his book against Tom Wright's teaching on justification, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, several friends joined me for an evening of discussion with John about Paul's teaching on the nature of saving faith. It was a spirited and revealing dialogue. We clearly disagreed about some aspects of faith and the doctrine of imputation but parted peacefully. I had no idea, at least at that time, that John would eventually devote an entire book to this subject, seeking to show why Tom Wright's views compromised the gospel at several serious points. Wright then answered John Piper in his 2009 book, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision.

I have longed argued that the vast majority of ordinary folks, and many pastors must also be included here, criticize Tom Wright without paying careful attention to what he has actually written or spoken. I often begin a conversation about Wright with one simple question: "What books of Tom Wright's have you read in whole and what did you learn? Tell me what he actually says about such and such and tell me what did you object to and (very specifically) why?" The silence is often staggering. One critic, according to a source who knows this author personally and informed me of this fact recently, has read one small book by Tom Wright, What St. Paul Really Said. Based upon his reading of this little popular primer (with its one offensive chapter about imputation and 2 Corinthians 5:21) this man has written a rather large book that can very easily be construed as one of the more anti-Tom Wright books available to ordinary readers. (There are some excellent scholars who do disagree with Wright in a serious and engaging way and have done a wonderful job of expressing disagreement in a rigorous and proper academic way!) So hearing Wright critiqued in a context where he would personally interact with critics has always been a personal hope of mine. This is precisely what happened at the annual Wheaton College Theology conference on April 16-17. I was pleased to attend the entire event and enjoyed it immensely. I was not surprised, however, that I could not find a serious critic of Wright's in the entire crowd as I mingled and engaged scores of people one-on-one. (I am sure there had to be a few in a crowd of 1,100 plus registrants! ) The serious academic critics who disagree with Wright will tell you why. Some of this came out at the Wheaton Conference as you can see for yourself. He doesn't pretend to have everything figured out and admits he is still thinking through the implications of his own paradigm.

For those who are I remind you the same is true of great theologians of the past like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, etc. Scholars speak, for example, of the early-Luther, the middle-Luther, and the late-Luther. Why will we give him a pass and if a living teacher like Tom Wright admits he is growing this is a sign that he is dangerous? Like I tell friends, fall in love with the work of a theologian who is dead and things will be tidier and a great deal safer for you.

This theology conference was filled with hordes of ordinary people, local church pastors and bible professors who have read Tom and wanted to hear him speak. Like me they wanted to hear various academics respond to his work in a gracious, critical and helpful way. You can be the judge of all of this for yourself since the entire conference is now available on video at Wheaton College. I hope you will take the time to watch and listen. I think you will find Tom Wright to be one of the truly great Christian thinkers of our time. And I also think you will be impressed by his gracious, humble and winsome manner throughout. If you are going to call this man dangerous then make absolutely sure that you know why before you repeat such a warning. If you are wrong then you may well be keeping yourself, and a lot of others, from the very theological truths that need recovery in our time so that we will discover the unity in the church that Jesus and Paul worked and prayed for in their own ministries.

Personally, I think Bishop Tom Wright is very dangerous. I think he is dangerous precisely because he winsomely and powerfully challenges some esteemed (and I think incorrect) ideas that need to be challenged by a fresh and faithful biblical theology. He seeks a theology that focuses upon the Jesus who is revealed to us in the New Testament. He wants a theology that lines up with the central emphasis of the Apostle Paul upon our unity in Christ in the church. (He refers to this as covenantal inclusion!) Two presentations by Wright were the very best in this conference if you do not have time to watch them all. First, watch the short chapel address that he gave the Wheaton student body on Ephesians. Second, watch his Saturday night presentation on the theology of Paul. I was moved deeply by both messages and gladly commend them to you. Meanwhile, be forewarned. Tom Wright may well be a dangerous theologian in your life. I believe he is so dangerous that his work will very likely change your thinking in ways that call for repentance and real faith. He will make you see the Jesus of the Bible and long for the unity of the Spirit that Paul labored for throughout his entire ministry. I have grown to love Christ more by reading and listening to this highly esteemed teacher of the gospel of Christ. I believe this is a danger that we can afford to take on board when the church is in desperate need of a new biblical reformation.

Is Gallipoli/ANZAC Day a christian celebration?

Gallipoli or Calvary from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.