Why Bird’s book is needed
Just after I had finished posting my review of Bird’s book The Saving Righteousness of God (here, here and here) I stumbled across references on Sacra Doctrina to a fierce argument going on in the Presbyterian Church of America. A large part of that debate is being pushed by a group wanting to declare the New Perspective on Paul a dangerous and alien virus in the body of their Calvinist doctrine. The report (whose legality is being challenged by some within the church) is available here.
I don’t intend to intrude on private grief. But I do want to highlight this as a demonstration of the need for the Reformed scholars to engage the New Perspective in the way Bird does. It is at least odd, to someone from my very different standpoint, that a group wanting to anathematize Tom Wright (for he it is who is primarily in view – a nasty Anglican leading all those young Presbyterian pastors astray) for trespassing against Reformed doctrine because of his exegesis, should begin by stating: “We affirm the principle of sola scriptura.”
They are complacent that scripture means whatever their standards say it means. Where is the patient exegetical work, the eirenic engagement with new scholarship, the willingness to learn new things about and from scripture that marked Bird’s work: nowhere! They simply reaffirm their traditional understanding of scripture, show that Wright has a different understanding, and then end by asking for his views to be condemned. Sola scriptura – well, you could have fooled me!
June 7th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I start on shaky ground not having read Bird’s book. However, a scan reading of the ‘Report of ad interim, etc. Committee, etc.,’ left a peculiar taste in the mouth. Academic theological research has left me in no doubt that if you publish material in which you shred and kebab another’s work you offer the courtesy of a reply. I found none in this Report, which immediately raises doubts as to the authority of their analysis – it could be right, but their process smacks of weakness that might scrape by at Master’s level but would not merit much beyond. This is a shame, because the Report’s authors surely have the capacity to work to much higher and more disciplined protocols.
In the film ‘The Life of Brian’, John Cleese’s wonderfully portrayed character, Brother Reg, offers a picture of leadership that offers little, achieves nothing and appears risible to outsiders. I am not saying that sisters and brothers in Christ who take seriously the detail of the Westminster Confession are in a class with Bro Reg, but I would like to know how they sense the NPP/FV debate takes forward the Kingdom of God. The test I invite all of us engaged in the ministry of the Word, whether written, spoken or otherwise portrayed, is to reflect on whether we allow the Spirit to use our gifting to enrich and challenge those looking on whom we reasonably might believe to be not yet of the community of the faithful, whether taken by the definitions offered by followers of the Westminster Confession or those who take a different view. Those who determine this test to be invalid should address the challenge to establish the merit of the authority for their proposition that it is invalid.