Badly Informed Clerics

Now that I have finished Surprised by Hope, let me reiterate that it is an outstanding book, and just what the doctor ordered for all my conservative friends who are standing in the pond of dualism, up to their chins. But I should also say that I agree completely with the questions/concerns raised in the comments of the previous post. Wright uses the discrepancies in the Easter accounts as an argument for the historicity of the event, thus revealing a deficient view of inspiration. And his brief discussion of hell is speculative and wooly. That said, on the positive side of the ledger, there are statements here in this book, reflecting the orthodox teaching of Scripture, which you are in the highest degree unlikely to encounter in conservative evangelical churches. This book needs to be read by conservative pastors, and the central thesis needs to be grasped and preached.

This recommendation should not be taken as giving Wright a pass on other subjects, such as his astonishing views on women’s ordination, or his confusions over the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, both of which issues I have addressed elsewhere. And in a backhanded compliment, I should also say that this book reveals Wright’s true position on the future of Islam in England, which is that, because of the resurrection of Jesus, it has no future whatever. This stands in stark contrast with Wright’s public trimming and skimming in defense of his friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Now given all these disagreements and caveats, and the detailed one coming up, you should therefore know that the large parts of this book that I am enthusiastically commending must be really, really good, and really, really important. They are. And because they are so important, I really have to say something about the atrocious section on global justice and economics.

Jesus has been raised from the dead, and He has “thereby been installed as Lord of the whole world” (p. 215). “God has brought his future, his putting-the-world-to-rights future, into the present in Jesus of Nazareth” (p. 215). Now in all of this kind of thing, Wright’s argument is structurally and theologically correct, and is most necessary to emphasize. But not only are his suggested applications of this wrong-headed, his theological critique of conservative Christians (especially in the United States) is also somewhat misplaced. The rise of the religious Right in the seventies and eighties occurred precisely because of a rejection of the kind of dualism that Wright critiques. That train has already left the station. Hundreds of thousands of Christians were mobilized on the basis of this rejection, and over the course of the last generation they have been (precisely because they rejected dualism) building Christian schools, homeschooling their own kids, fighting abortion, resisting the homosexual advances, and so on. Evangelicals in the United States (in contrast to those in the UK) have built a formidable political presence. And as is to be expected in such situations, we have also barreled into the public policy arena in problematic ways, the most obvious of which is the attitude taken toward the emerging American empire. Nevertheless, when Wright scores his points against schizophrenic dualism, a large host of engaged American Christians roar their agreement, as if they had one voice, and they all seem to say something along the lines of “Take out Hillary for good!”

Now the point is that a Christian can reject dualism as heartily as Wright does, as a bunch of us over here do, and then turn to particular applications that Wright would find appalling. But when he is appalled by it, he cannot raise the objection of dualism. If someone were to say, “Oh, I don’t vote. This world is not my home. I’m just passing through,” both Wright and I would agree that this is a non-scriptural dualism to be heartily rejected. I recall the striking example of Dave Hunt, who said once that John the Baptist would not have lost his life needlessly if he had just stayed out of politics, by which Hunt meant the prophet rebuking Herod the way he did. But when Wright rejects dualism and says that forgiveness of Third World debt is the first and foremost application, what can he say to the fellow who says no, but rather that “because Jesus is the risen Lord, because He is Lord and Caesar isn’t, we must do everything in our power to resist encroachments on our Second Amendment rights. The only kind of gun control I support is that of using both hands”? N.T. Wright is bishop of Durham, and so he might not be accustomed to this kind of example. But I am a pastor in Idaho, and I am accustomed to it. I, being something of a liberal here, only have three guns at my house.

Put this another way. Wright makes a strong, compelling case that faith in the resurrection sanctifies our labors for justice now (1 Cor. 15:58), rendering it permanently important. He is exactly right about this. But what would Wright say about a Christian who, after rejecting dualism, put his faith into action (as some Christians have actually done) by volunteering to load bombs onto Israeli jets? Is that labor “not in vain” because of the resurrection? Or is it something else, something that requires the forgiveness of justification? Or in some kind of third category? The way I suspect Wright would answer this question is how I would describe what needs to be done for his suggestions on Third World debt, were it ever to be implemented. How does the resurrection incorporate our well-meaning disasters? Our labors for justice are not in vain, that is right. God will recall every cup of cold water given in His name, and He will do so at the day of resurrection. But what will He do in that last day with our horrific but well-meaning blunders? What will He do with the incompetence of Christians that resulted in the agonizing but needless deaths of hundreds of thousands? Should we persevere in our incompetence because our labors are not in vain? Shall we sin that grace may abound?

Wright is correct that “doing justice in the world is part of the Christian task” (p. 216). It is an essential part of the Christian task, and one of the first things we must therefore do is get straight in our minds what justice actually is. And simplistic liberal bromides about economics ought not to enter into the mix — because liberals are in love with injustice, promoting it wherever they go. And incidentally, do not take this as a defense of other forms of injustice, promoted by rapacious businessmen or empire builders. It is not. Christians are to confront the wisdom of this world while standing in front of the empty tomb — which is not the same thing as shilling for commies or fronting for mercantile monopolists.

But Wright continues:

“As far as I can see, the major task that faces us in our generation, corresponding to the issue of slavery two centuries ago, is that of the massive economic imbalance of the world, whose major symptom is the ridiculous and unpayable Third World debt. I have spoken about this many times over the last few years, and I have a sense that some of us, like old Wilberforce on the subject of slavery, are actually called to bore the pants off people by going on and on about it until eventually the point is taken and the world is changed” (pp. 216-217).

Well, look at me. Here I am, talking about slavery again. I just don’t seem to learn. Actually, this is yet another illustration of the inescapable nature of this subject for anyone who wants to talk about the relevance of the Bible to public policy today. This is something that Wright recognizes as well: “The heirs of that liberal theology are today keen to marginalize the Bible, declaring that it supports slavery and other wicked things, because they don’t like what it says on other topics such as sexual ethics. But if you push the Bible off the table, you are merely colluding with pagan empire, denying yourself the sourcebook for your kingdom critique of oppression” (p. 219). But the flip side is that if you keep the Bible on the table, sound exegesis requires you to recognize that the biblical handling of the problem of slavery was not revolutionary, but rather a reformational one extending over centuries — which meant that communicant Christians could be slaveowners in New Testament churches, without threat of discipline, provided they treated their slaves with dignity. This is something that Wright himself recognized in his wonderful commentary on Philemon. It is an approach that contrasts sharply with his appeals to the cheap seats in this book.

“Whatever it takes, we must change this situation or stand condemned by subsequent history alongside those who supported slavery two centuries ago and those who supported the Nazis seventy years ago. It is that serious” (p. 217).

Compare this with his much more nuanced and patient (and biblical) approach here:

“Why did Paul not simply ask for Onesimus to be released from slavery? Why (for that matter) did he not order all Christian slave-owners to release all their slaves, rather than profit from an unjust social structure? Slavery was one of the really great evils of the ancient world, under which a large proportion of the population belonged totally to another person, for better or (usually) for worse, with no rights, no prospects, the possibility of sexual abuse, the chance of torture or death for trivial offenses . . . But a loud protest at that moment in social history, would have functioned simply on the level of the old age . . . It would, without a doubt, have done more harm than good, making life harder for Christian slaves” (Wright, Colossians and Philemon [IVP] pp. 168-169).

In his commentary, Wright is correct to note that the logic of the gospel was contrary to the institution of slavery over time, and that it was appropriate for the apostle not to make a big issue out of it prematurely. This, even though Wright grants that the institution allowed for all kinds of horrendous abuses. And not only does Paul not register a “loud protest” in the Church over it, he does not even directly ask anything of Philemon on this point as a personal favor. Wright just takes horrific slavery in stride:

“In addition, inveighing against slavery per se would have been totally ineffective: one might as well, in modern Western society, protest against the mortgage system” (Ibid., p. 169).

But if I take the same approach today, expecting the gospel to transform this situation over the next two centuries, or however long it took for Paul’s logic to get rid of slavery, then I am to be lumped in with the Nazis? Of course, maybe Wright doesn’t really feel this way, and is just covering for a little Pauline faux pas, like he did for the archbishop.

Now Wright’s impatient demand that the problem of global inequities be fixed in our generation is every bit as capable of causing unanticipated carnage as a slave revolt in the first centurty would have done. Wright recognizes Paul’s wisdom on this kind of thing in his commentary — but when it comes to this contemporary issue, he does not imitate it.

The complexity of the issue does not allow the Church to walk away. The Church must be involved, and on this point Wright and I agree. But I want the Church to be involved for actual justice, and not involved with bleeding heart nostrums that only succeed in slaying tens of thousands. This is a point that can be made without falling back into dualism. Wright says, “every time I write on these issues some commentators, usually in the United States, write to tell me that I should stick to Jesus and Paul and not meddle in economics and politics” (p. 217). Notice the dualism assumed by this way of stating it. “You stick with Jesus, and let us deal with the real world.” But the problem here is not that Wright is bringing Jesus into questions of global concern. The problem is that he brings Jesus into the discussion in order to misrepresent Him there. Jesus does not want do-gooders to continue to rampage thoughtlessly about the place, demanding reforms that are intended to fix the previous waves of reform, urged upon us by a previous generation of badly-informed clerics.

So complexity is not a good reason for inactivity or apathy. But it is a good reason for studying the issue thoroughly, and getting your proposed solutions right before insisting on them in the name of Christ. But Wright just confuses the issue when he says, “this is the number one moral issue of our day. Sex matters enormously, but global justice matters far, far more” (p. 217). But these are not just two issues for us to rank in order of importance, sex and justice. They are different kinds of issues. The issues of sex are simple, and the solutions are negative and straightforward. It makes sense to start with them. The Bible prohibits homosexual behavior. Therefore the Church should continue to disapprove, and should discipline any ecclesiastical body that ordains a practicing homosexual. In addition, the Church should prophetically state to our disobedient cultures that homosexual marriages are appalling to God. There you go. That’s what we must do. It is an important issue, straightforward, and, for anyone who has read his Bible, simple.

Now I grant that issues of global justice are just as important. But they are not simple, not by a long shot. Is the demand for global justice any reason to send grain shipments to a dictator so that it will enable him to continue to feed his army, so that he can continue to torture and persecute his people, the pictures of whom caused me to contribute to the grain shipment in the first place? At the judgment, God will remember every cup of cold water that was given. What will He do with those who donated money intended for water, without knowing that the overseas name for the people handling the money was Drought Makers, Inc? Was the chief trait here charity or gullibility?

“We must learn, therefore, to recognize the complex arguments against debt remission as what they are. People tell you it’s a tricky and many-sided subject. Yes, it is; so was slavery. So are all major moral problems. The fact remains that what is now going on amounts to theft by the strong from the weak, by the rich from the poor” (p. 218).

First, Wright had a different view of what complexity requires of us in his commentary on Philemon. Second, the fact that scoundrels hide behind complexity (and they do) is no argument for adopting quick solutions that destroy the people you are trying to help. Suppose a madman pirate of the nineteenth century took it into his head to fight the slave trade by sinking all the slave ships with the slaves still on them. Could he defend himself with a wave of the hand? “Don’t give me your complexities! Slavery is evil, I tell you!” Third, when we go in for debt remission, whose money is it to give away? Don’t say “the banks” because the banks get their money from somewhere. Are the banks allowed to wipe the books clean in that direction too? And what shall we do when Widow Smith loses her pension because her late husband invested in the wrong bank? And don’t say that “the taxpayer” needs to pick up the tab, because what does that do to Widow Jones living on a fixed income? I have already said that complexity is no argument for doing nothing. But it is an important argument for not making things worse.

When we cancel these debts, do we do it with effective conditions for local reform or without? If we insist on certain conditions, then this will necessarily translate into neo-imperialism. If there are no conditions, or ineffective conditions, then we are telling that part of the world to spiral downward into hell. When we have remitted the debts, do we loan them any more or not? If so, do we do it with effective conditions for reform or not? If we do, then we are insisting that they really reform their societies top to bottom, and we have taken up responsibility again, in a neo-colonial way. No more Mugabes, that’s our new rule. But if we just loan them more in order that they might continue to fund their hellhole, what became of our concern for global justice? And if we just walk away from the whole mess, what happened to global justice?

If we heed Wright’s demand for global justice chop chop, we have to come to grips with the fact that in many of these places such justice will not be realized under any kind of self-rule, which makes Wright an incipient imperialist. And, to make the whole thing even riper, because a bunch of these places have oil, diamonds, and whatnot, “other-rule” is going to be almost as problematic as “self-rule.” So that reminds me, when Western companies invest in these places, are they allowed to make any money or not? Who says, and how much? Maybe we could have a row of bishops determine what a just price is for a barrel of crude. They will likely be just as successful as the medieval churchmen who were greatly worked up over the just price of a loaf of bread. Whatever bread costs in heaven, charge that. Or maybe we could pass a law that requires Western companies to go into these places and lose money. And another law that makes investors here invest in such companies so they can stay afloat.

But Wright dismisses any pushback — “this is routine today as the Western global empire fights back against the cry for justice” (p. 217). But there are reasonable objections that Wright has to address and answer in detail if he wants engaged and economically-informed Christians to join him in fighting what he considers to be the equivalent of Nazism. Which, by the way, means that he is equating a Christian oil engineer building a pipeline for Halliburton with a Christian guard at a death camp killing Jews. Which, by the way, I don’t agree with.

The obligation that Wright has to deal with the substantive objections to his proposals cannot be done with a simple wave of the hand:

“I know, and such people often know in their bones, that wealth isn’t a zero-sum game, but reading the collected works of F.A. Hayek in a comfortable chair in North America simply doesn’t address the moral questions of the twenty-first century” (pp. 218-219).

What does the comfortable chair have to do with it? Suppose I read Hayek while standing uncomfortably on one foot, and asked Wright to address Hayek’s arguments then? All I know from this statement is that Wright considers Hayek insufficient. That could easily be a reasonable position, depending. But why? Do we reject Hayek? Do we put his thought on a biblical foundation? Do we keep some parts and reject other parts? Why? By all means, let us discuss it. But if I were to write a book that maintained that fire fighting is best conducted when you don’t hose down the blaze with gasoline, and someone else were to read that book in the comfort of a North American chair, the comfort of that chair and the urgency created by the blaze are not an argument for proceeding with the gasoline.

“Many conservative churches there still live by the belief that what’s good for America is good for God — with the result, for instance, that if their country needs to produce more acid rain in order to keep up car production, then God must be happy with it and anyone who talks about pollution or is disappointed that the president didn’t sign the Kyoto protocol is somehow anti-Christian or is simply producing a ‘baptized neosocialism,’ as one reviewer accused me of” (p. 219).

Acid rain is yesterday’s newspaper, so we don’t hear much about it anymore. The accusation was made against American polluters, and it was quite the thing back in the day until it turned out that a bunch of the acid in the lakes was actually caused by leaves. Not only was it caused by leaves, it was caused by organic leaves. Even green organic leaves, which is hard to conceive of. These acidic and fraying leaves on the ground leeching acid into the water caused me, many years ago, to propose a sweeping environmental push to solve the pressing problem — the North American Frayed Tree Agreement.

Stewardship of the environment (and of the economy) means that we as Christians have to learn not to panic every time the hennypennys of the liberal world get themselves whipped up into another froth over nothing. Creational stewardship does not mean joining the crusade against global warming six months after all the secularists have finally dropped it as the bogus science it was all along. And if Kyoto was actually about the environment, then why did the treaty allow the Third World countries, which are the worst when it comes to this kind of pollution, to continue their polluting practices merrily and unimpeded? Does Jesus actually want the president to sign an agreement that stipulates that our air be kept clean, thus ensuring that all the really dirty stuff will be pumped into Third World lungs? Seriously? Jesus demands this? I am a lousy Christian if I don’t insist on making all the brown people live in the stinky part of the world, while we white Americanos get to live in the clean part? This is a really sweet deal for us reformer types. Staying away from Nazism is actually kind of comfy. Maybe we can talk them into hosting our landfills too — tell ’em Jesus wants it that way.

Wright actually understands my objection at the structural level — “strong belief in Jesus’s bodily resurrection among conservative Christians in many parts of the world, especially in the United States, has taken that belief out of its biblical context and put it instead in a different one, where it serves agendas diametrically opposed to the biblical ones” (p. 220). He is here talking about the dualistic maintainence of an upstairs/downstairs view of reality. But the statement serves just as well against those who would to take their true and accurate understanding of Christ’s lordship and employ it in the service of destructive reforms and lunatic liberations.

And I suppose now would probably be a good time to reiterate what a marvelous book this was.