N.T. Wright's theological DNA, part 2

 

1. Brian Walsh’s kuyperian “worldview” model for theological cultural engagement

     There is a trajectory within 20th-century Reformed evangelicalism of (biblical) worldview-based programs of cultural renewal and political engagement.  The conceptualizing of Christianity as a worldview was initially an apologetic reaction to the totalizing claims of Modernity and an attempt to demonstrate that the Bible and Christian faith could also offer a comprehensive view of reality.  The evangelical worldview movement desired to articulate a holistic Christian faith which would result in the church taking action in the public sphere.[1]  The worldview tradition represented by Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd insists on the fundamentally religious dimension of human nature and epistemology.  There is no neutral, objective reason universally accessible to all (pace Aufklärung).  Everyone has religious allegiances, be they to the biblical God, on the one hand, or to idols, on the other.[2]  As an up-and-coming NT scholar, Wright would add his name to the roster of worldview thinkers.

     Shortly after having received his DPhil from Oxford[3] in 1981, Wright moved to Montreal to teach at McGill University.  It was there that Wright would encounter “worldview thinking” in the person of Brian J. Walsh, who would nurture Wright’s budding theological vision.[4]  Emerging as he was from the visionary, agenda-setting atmosphere of the evangelical Anglicanism of the 1970’s, Wright’s thought would, due to Walsh’s “pruning” during the 1980’s, be given its characteristic world-engaging style and political edge.  In 1984, Walsh, together with J. Richard Middleton, published The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian Worldview.[5]  In this work, Walsh and Middleton offer a definition of “worldview” that Wright would later adopt for his own purposes[6] and would inform Wright’s understanding of the fundamentally epistemological nature of worldviews, the Bible as embodying a specific way of viewing the world (that all Christians should adopt) and a sustained critique of the worldview of the modern West.  For Walsh, the roots of the Enlightenment worldview lie in classical Greek thought[7] and were corrupted from the outset by a philosophical Achilles’ heel – dualism![8]  The poison of this anti-biblical notion had begun seeping into the Christian Tradition from the time of its earliest contact with Hellenism[9] and had reached the point of saturation in the 18th century, with the result that modernity was characterized by a split-level world where the public sphere of (“empirical”) “facts” was “secular” (i.e. pagan) and where God had been banished to the private sphere of “values”.[10]  Wright credits his abandoning of “dualism” to his writing of a commentary on Colossians[11].  However, credit must be given in at least equal measure to Walsh, who served as Wright’s sounding board while he wrote his Colossians commentary.[12]  Walsh would play a definitive role in shaping the methodology of COQG;[13] not only is the first volume dedicated to Walsh, but Wright offers a glowing homage to his friend and mentor in the Preface.[14]

     In case one fears that this means that Wright is simply offering up another oppressive metanarrative (albeit clothed in NT garments) designed to take us back to, say, Calvin’s Geneva or perhaps to something akin to the agenda of the American Evangelical Right, it is crucial to take a closer look at Walsh and Middleton’s vision of worldview Christianity.  Their vision is sensitive to the postmodern situation in the Western world and, while they encourage Christians to read the Bible as a single, “controlling story”, they categorically reject the notion of using metanarratives as a means of domination.  Indeed, Middleton and Walsh expound what they understand to be the Bible’s “antitotalizing metanarrative”.[15]  In line with this “worldview ethic”, and although he does use the language of “theocracy”[16], Wright describes the mission of the church as being, not coercing the world into compliance, but rather of suffering for the sake of the world, and in this way to actualize the victory won by Jesus on the cross.[17]

     Thus was the stage set.  Thinkers such as Newbigin and Walsh understood the church’s mission to be a) that of restoring the credibility of the Christian faith in a (post)modern Western world[18] who had convinced itself that Christianity had been tried and found wanting and b) to renew a Western culture that was perceived to be coming apart at the seams and that required a new vision to carry it into the “post-postmodern era”.  Dared the culture-formers hope for a scholar who would provide the biblical exegesis and evangelical theological vision to legitimate such an interpretation of the “signs of the times” and inspire such a mission?  Enter N.T. Wright.

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[1] Cf. Naugle, David K.  Worldview, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002, pp. 4-32.

[2] Cf. Ibid. pp. 25-29.

[3] Under the supervision of G.B. Caird.

[4] An account of how Wright’s friendship with Walsh developed is offered in: Walsh, Brian J. & Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire, Downers Grove: IVP, 2004, pp. 8-9.  Brian’s (then) wife-to-be (and [now] co-author), Sylvia, was a student of Tom’s at Oxford from 1989-1992.

[5] Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1984.

[6] Walsh, Brian J. & J. Richard Middleton, The Transforming Vision, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1984, pp. 34-36; cf. NTPG, pp. 122-39.

[7] Cf. Bultmann, Rudolf, Jesus Christ and Mythology, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1958, p. 25 where Bultmann affirms this same point.

[8] Cf. http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_My_Pilgrimage.htm (accessed December 21, 2015).  See, once again, the third-to-last paragraph, where Wright claims that he had been a dualist until 1985.

[9] Cf. Wright’s remarks about the Church, since the fourth century, trying to “make theological bricks without biblical straw”: “Historical Paul and ‘Systematic Theology’: To Start a Discussion” in Walsh, Carey & Mark W. Elliott, Eds. Biblical Theology, Eugene: Cascade Books, 2016, p. 157.

[10] Cf. Wright, Surprised by Hope, pp. 189-232, where effecting cultural transformation through works of peace and justice become part of Wright’s definition of “salvation”; cf. Newbigin, Lesslie, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989, pp. 14-17.

[11] Cf. Wright, N.T. Colossians and Philemon, Downers Grove: IVP, 1986, pp. 83-4, where Wright comments on the passage that provoked, as he puts it, “the most significant change of my theological life.  Until then I had been basically, a dualist.  The gospel belonged in one sphere, the world of creation and politics in another.  Wrestling with Colossians 1:15-20 put paid to that”: http://ntwrightpage.com/2016/04/05/my-pilgrimage-in-theology/ (accessed November 9, 2017).

[12] Walsh, Brian J. & Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed, pp. 8-9; in this book, Brian and his wife Sylvia locate the genesis of their commentary to the discussions that the-as-yet-unmarried Brian had had with Tom in the early 1980’s about Tom’s work on Colossians.

[13] Cf. Hastings, Ross, Missional God, Missional Church, Downers Grove: IVP, 2012, pp. 42-43.

[14] “One…who in many ways has been a sine qua non for the whole project, and for my theological and particularly hermeneutical thinking over the last decade, is Dr. Brian Walsh of Toronto.  It was symptomatic of his enthusiasm for the work that he took six weeks, in the summer of 1991, to help me think through and reshape the crucial first five chapters of the present volume”: NTPG, p. xix, (emphasis original).  The “first five chapters” that Wright refers to are those where Wright presents an exposition of his methodology which is foundational for the entire series.

[15] Cf. Middleton, J. Richard & Brian J. Walsh, Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1995, pp. 87-107.

[16] Cf. Wright, N.T. Simply Jesus, New York: HarperOne, 2011, pp. 207-31.

[17] Wright, N.T. The Day the Revolution Began, New York: HarperOne, 2016, pp. 383-416; cf. Wright’s (oft-repeated) remarks about how the church should be praying “where the world is in pain”: e.g. The Crown and the Fire, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992, pp. 81-94, 107-18.

[18] Cf. Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1958, p. 16; this was also Bultmann’s motivation for his program of demythologization.