Just Seething With Latent Hostilities

We really need a substantive, book-length response to N.T. Wright on these global justice issues. Given his position of influence, because of his significant theological stature, because he grounds his proposals in the glorious basics of the gospel, and because of the real passion he brings to the issue, this matter is now squarely on …

First, Do No Harm

Rob Hadding poses a reasonable question here. My apologies for the techglitch (which we have not been able to solve yet) that keeps Rob from visiting us directly. The short form is that Rob is not sure Wright deserves the “bludgeoning” for those global justice pages that he sees me trying to administer. “Shouldn’t we …

The Complete Life Lived, Graven Images and All

Okay then. I have finished Piper’s book, and I still like it. It is well worth reading, and should be taken seriously. He emphasizes a number of things that I believe that Wright should incorporate into his broader insights, without giving up those broader insights. There are any number of places where the sweep of …

Whatever We Call It

The next to last chapter of Piper’s book (not counting appendices) returns to the question of imputed righteousness. “Wright regards the imputation of God’s righteousness as something that can be imputed to us or counted as ours as at best a category mistake” (p. 163). And of course, we need to return to a distinction …

Speaking of Second Temple Judaism . . .

There are a couple of things to be drawn out of chapter ten, in which Piper argues (and in my view, demonstrates) that there is a single self-righteous root for both “self-help moralism” and prideful “ethnic badges.” That is the first point. But the second, and the one where I want to spend some attention, …

If That’s Grace, Then We Don’t Want Any

In the ninth chapter of Piper’s book, he starts to get into the issues that make Wright’s project really vulnerable — if we take Wright’s offerings in the “take it or leave it” way he offers them. For my part, I intend to continue to learn from Wright, but that can’t be done on Wright’s …