Lane thinks we are making progress, and I agree. But I don’t think we agree on what that progress actually is. He makes four points that I would like to address. The first is on the “aliveness” of faith. “But in what does faith’s aliveness consist? Does it not consist in sanctification? Does it not …
Obedience Unto Justification
Let me begin this round of my exchanges with Lane with straight up agreement on at least one point. Lane says: “In my opinion, this whole issue is very parallel to the debate about faith’s aliveness. It is not the aliveness of faith that makes faith the instrument of justification. Rather, it is the fact …
Good and Necessary Consequence
Lane has picked up our discussion of faith as evangelical obedience here, and Tim Prussic has captured the problem with Lane’s argument in the second comment there at Green Baggins. The issue is not really an exegetical one — I granted in an earlier part of our discussion that his exegesis pointing to sanctification is …
Is This Checkmate?
Here is a quick response to Lane’s latest, and then I am content to move on. First, I don’t object to detailed grammatical exegesis, and I don’t object to it in the Thessalonians passage that Lane was dealing with. I was simply pointing out that we were talking about the kind of problem that remains …
The Great Cretan Gaffe
A few weeks ago, N.T. Wright responded to a few of his critics on the debt relief issue here. A more detailed interaction needs to wait for another time, but I want to put a few thoughts up now. As Wright himself put it, “I don’t have time for a full answer, but I hope …
A Worksy Sounding Word
Lane has responded to my post on “jumping and obeying,” and confesses himself a bit puzzled. And I, speaking for myself, am puzzled also. Lane took me as objecting to grammatical and dogmatic parsing generally, when I was only objecting to it as a means of solving non-existent problems. Just for the record, I am …
Popsicle Stick Limitations
One of the things I have been emphasizing in my responses to N.T. Wright on the Third World is the importance of recognizing the complexity of the problem — calls for jubilee mercy in struggling nations are all very well, but suppose it is not like helping a guy with some bruises to the nearest …
Jumping and Obeying
I made a comment in passing about how the language of obedience to the gospel comes naturally to Paul’s pen. Lane picked up on this, and interacted with one of those places, 2 Thessalonians 1:5-8. [Which is] a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom …
A Ragbag Response to Green Baggins
Lane gave me a helpful nudge the other day. What with end of school year frenzy, and a trip back east, I lost track of where we were. I will try to get us caught up here — but that will mean that my responses will be kind of a ragbag and briefer than they …
Spit Spot
As many of you probably know, in the most recent issue of First Things, N.T. Wright wrote a pretty styptic response to Richard John Neuhaus’ review of his book Surprised By Hope. And then Neuhaus responded to that, more or less along the same lines. There are a number of things in that exchange that …