N.T. Wright's theological DNA, part 3

a.      COQG as New Testament missiology

     In a recent publication, Wright offers an intriguing appraisal of his project (COQG):

“What I think I am writing is a kind of ‘New Testament Missiology’[1].  The New Testament was written to build up and energize the church to be God’s people in God’s world, living between Jesus’ resurrection and the final renewal.  A properly contextualized historical account of the New Testament would therefore give priority to explaining how the text was meant to serve that function…”[2]

Once again, we can hear echoes of Newbigin resounding in the beating heart of Wright’s vision: the purpose of the NT (and “theology”) has ever been to serve the church’s mission in the world.[3]  Wright studies the NT, not as a theologian seeking to (re)formulate doctrines, but rather as a missional thinker seeking to contextualize the message of the NT in order to make it intelligible to the post-Enlightenment, post-Christian western world.  Wright is not concerned to defend a particularly Protestant understanding of Paul; he desires to know what Paul “really said”.  Again, Wright is not concerned to bolster the doctrinal confession of any one particular denomination; he desires to understand Paul’s gospel in its original context in order to be able to proclaim it to today’s world[4] – indeed, in Wright’s hands, the NT becomes God’s Word, through the church, to the world.

b.      COQG as a “Lewisian” appeal for a storied reading of the New Testament

                                                                          i.      Between (modern) fundamentalism and modern criticism

     As far as Wright is concerned, if the church is going to fulfill its mission in the post-postmodern world, it must be guided by Scripture.  But how does this work?  Wright begins the first volume of COQG by telling a tale of two groups of scriptural interpreters issuing from Modernity[5] – biblical critics on the one hand and fundamentalists on the other – and what they have done with the NT.  For their part, the critics can’t take the NT’s talk of God acting within history with any seriousness and thus dismiss all that smacks of the “supernatural” as well as, via a historical-critical method, interpreting the NT as being a record of the religious experience of one historical group, perhaps allowing for an appropriation of this obviously important text to contemporary believers by means of existential or psychological categories (e.g. Bultmann).  The fundamentalists, however, remain unmoved by “historical consciousness” and simply read the text of the NT as being the Word of God to them, period.  Indeed, they seek to bolster their confidence in Scripture’s “propositional revelation” with rationalistic notions of inspiration, authority and inerrancy.  On the one hand, the critics seek to bring the NT “down to earth”, to demonstrate its rootedness in history – and thereby reveal that God had nothing to do with the events recorded in Scripture, but rather demonstrate that these events are simply part of the cause-and-effect of the historical process[6] – whereas, on the other hand, the fundamentalists insist on a “literal” reading which assures them of a salvation which, though grounded in historical events, will ultimately lead them beyond this world to “heaven”.  Wright asks if there might not be a third way that could combine the strengths of both these views while eliminating the weaknesses of each.

     Wright’s via media between the Scylla of (modern) fundamentalism and the Charybdis of modern criticism is the category of “story”.  In a 2007 article, Wright acknowledges his debt to C.S. Lewis,[7] and indeed, even a cursory “dusting” of Wright’s tomes reveals that England’s “most reluctant convert”[8] has indeed “had a hand” on the thought contained therein.  Lewis, under the influence of his good friend J.R.R. Tolkien, came to conceive of Christianity as a “true myth”[9].  Indeed, the notion of Christianity possessing an essentially “mythological” or “storied”[10] nature appealed deeply to Lewis, who was himself a professor of English literature, and would be an important factor in his eventual embracing of the Christian faith.[11]  Lewis came to believe that Christianity, like other myths, was a narrative that “worked on the believer” – with the important difference that the events of the Christian myth actually happened.  History and meaning (theology) come rushing together.[12]  For Lewis, Christians must “both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myths”.  He therefore distinguished himself from fundamentalists, who lose the “myth” (imagination), and from modern biblical critics, who eliminate the “become fact” (history).[13]  In Wright’s project, one sees a similar concern to establish the historical veracity of the central claims of the NT, while emphasizing the NT’s storied nature, which allows the first-century events to exert their power on the contemporary reader (without being abstracted into the second-order discourse of doctrines).[14]  While Lewis spoke of Christianity as “true myth”, Wright speaks of the NT as “true story”[15].  Wright, if you will, has “re-mythologized” the NT[16]; he presents it as being, not a proto-doctrinal account of an individualistic soteriology, but rather the true story of God and the world – the narrative that makes sense of all of reality.[17]

     For Lewis, what counts, at the end of the day, is what God has done to save his creation from its rebellion against Him, not our all-too-feeble attempts to theorize about it and formulate doctrines.[18]  Like Lewis, Wright insists that what counts is the event of, e.g., the crucifixion of Jesus, not any particular theory of atonement (e.g. penal substitution).  Long before we have worked out a theory, the event itself has acted upon us.[19]  One of Wright’s recent works is replete with the following refrain: by 6:00 p.m. of the first Good Friday, something had happened, a result of which the world was a different place.[20]  The “truth” of Jesus’ death can never be captured by a proposition which results from an attempt to know the meaning of the cross by abstracting truth from its reality.  As Lewis put it, “Truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is.”[21]  For Wright, Christianity means what it means because of how the actors in the “founding events” (and their subsequent interpreters; e.g. Paul) of the NT faith interpreted those events in light of the biblical story.  Wright is adamant that once, and only once, this story is in place, is it possible for true Christian theology to emerge (ergo Christian theology is inherently narratival in character).[22]  If, however, Jesus’ death is interpreted, not in light of the biblical story, but rather within the story of how individual sinners can be forgiven and “go to heaven”, what we end up with, says Wright, is a “gnostic” soteriology.[23]

     It is basic to Wright’s understanding of Paul that the scriptural narrative forms the foundation for all of the apostle’s thought.  Indeed, for Wright, any theology that claims to be “biblical” must take the Scriptural narrative as its hermeneutical framework – this is the context within which all doctrines make their proper (divinely-intended) sense.  Wright puts forward the notion of doctrines being “portable stories”.  Wright uses the analogy of a suitcase – just as a suitcase is useful for transporting various objects from one place to another, so a doctrine is a vehicle for communicating several stories in a concise manner.  This way, a doctrine is not a substitute for the scriptural narrative, but rather needs to be “unpacked” – the story must be told in order for the doctrine to be properly understood.^[24]

                                                                        ii.      Imagination and improvisation in the ongoing drama of redemption

     It is a basic evangelical conviction that the NT carries ultimate authority for the faith and praxis of believers.[25]  But how can a story be authoritative?  To describe the nature of the NT, Wright uses the image of an unfished script of a Shakespearean drama, containing 4 acts along with several scenes from the end of the fifth act.[26]  The NT script calls us to action, to inhabit its story and become participants in the on-going drama that it proposes to us.[27]  Wright puts forward the claim that the way to be truly faithful and obedient to the NT as the Word of God is to put it into action, to perform it on the “world stage”.  Based on the previous acts of the drama, the church must improvise in the present in order to anticipate the drama’s conclusion, the reality of which can already be glimpsed in the final scenes describing the renewal of all things (cf. Rm. 8; 1 Cor. 15; Rev. 21-22, Eph. 1, etc.).[28]  This way, the church advances through history towards the eschatological horizon of new creation.

     Wright invites us to see all of reality through the lens of Scripture.  The challenge to adopt the biblical worldview has a double edge: to the church, it is the challenge to see the world as Jesus and the NT authors did, and thus to relinquish an understanding of the Bible determined by a dualistic worldview; to the world, it is the challenge to accept an account of reality that differs radically from that bequeathed to western civilization by Modernity (notwithstanding the challenges posed to the Enlightenment worldview by postmodernity[29]).  This then issues a second challenge to the church: that of finding imaginative and creative ways of communicating the gospel in a way that will enable 21^st-century people to glimpse reality as the Bible portrays it.  Indeed, “the imagination”[30] remains a vital “point of contact” for those who wish to render the gospel intelligible in today’s world.  The imagination can be extremely resilient against the onslaught of rationalism and may embrace truths that reason may reject.  In his biography of C.S. Lewis, Alister McGrath describes how Lewis’ fictional works, especially the Chronicles of Narnia series, fulfill just such a function as they open up the reader’s imagination to accept (at the pre-cognitive level), via the medium of fantasy, the narrative (“myth”) of the biblical worldview.[31]  Interestingly, the advent of postmodernism has witnessed the questioning of the modern deference to science as being the only way to “explain” the physical world, thus allowing for a new appreciation of the functions and meanings of “myth”.[32]  Within Wright’s vision, evangelism is not the attempt to convince people of the truth of certain propositions, but is rather the invitation to see, through the lens of the biblical story, all of reality in a new light.

                                                                      iii.      Doctrine or mission: what on earth is New Testament theology for?

     Wright decries the evangelical practice of treating the Bible as a repository of timeless truths which must be distilled from their historical context, abstracted and fitted into a (“biblical”) systematic schema and considers this to be a failure to respect Scripture for what it actually is.  For Wright, a faithful attempt to live under the authority of the NT as the Word of God must begin with respect for the nature of the NT.  The NT is an essentially narrative document which was written within the context of a worldwide mission,[33] conducted by the renewed people of the God of Abraham within the borders of the Roman Empire and beyond.

     Wright affirms that the: “…‘authority of Scripture’ …is a shorthand for ‘the authority of God exercised through Scripture’ and … God’s authority…is not ultimately about correct ideas but about transformative action.”[34]  For Wright, it is plain that the NT’s raison d’être is not to be a handbook of doctrinal “answers”[35], but rather to empower the people of God for a world-transforming mission.  The NT is not an answer-book; it is an action-book[36].  The fact that the NT is a thoroughly historically-conditioned document is by no means an obstacle to apprehending its theological message.  Indeed, in Wright’s project, it is within the historical events to which the NT bears witness that their theological meaning is to be found.[37]  The NT is the story of what God has done to rescue his world; it is emphatically not a jumbled mess of doctrinal data waiting to be “tidied up” by systematic theologians through the subjection of the scriptural material to some sort of extra-biblical philosophical or conceptual scheme.[38]

     Wright abhors doctrinal abstraction from the text of, for example, Paul’s letter to the Romans.  Wright is rather concerned with what Paul was actually saying, and why and how he said it.  Once we have discovered what Paul really said, then we can proceed – not to crystallize a few propositions, from e.g. Romans chapter 3[39], into an immutable dogma that one may only question on pain of being hounded as a “heretic” – but rather to live in light of the words of the apostle.  Wright rejects the belief that the NT consists of timeless propositional statements about how one can “go to heaven”; Wright insists rather that the NT is itself one of the means by which the kingdom of God can become a reality “on earth as in heaven” (Mt. 6.9-10).  In saying this, Wright is not simply promoting “revisionist” exegesis of the NT; rather, he is (under the influence of G.B. Caird [1917-84]) offering 21^st-century evangelicalism a vision of Christianity – a vision within which the terms “biblical authority”, “salvation”, “theology”[40], “mission”, “church” and even “Christianity”[41] itself, take on new and surprising (biblical) meaning.  The following remarks about Lewis could just as well be applied to Wright:

“What Lewis offers us is not a novel doctrine of Scripture but a new way of thinking biblically, a new way of understanding what it is to be biblical…Lewis cared…more for the substance of the gospel…itself as it is inextricably and irreducibly mediated to us through the literature of the Bible…than for any theory of biblical inspiration…”[42]

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[1] Cf. the words of I. Howard Marshall: “NT theology is essentially missionary theology”; quoted in Wright, Christopher J.H. The Mission of God, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006, p. 50; Christopher is affectionately known as “OT” Wright, due to his being an Old Testament scholar.  Christopher Wright seeks to articulate a “missional hermeneutic”, i.e. a strategy of biblical interpretation that understands the hermeneutical project as taking place within the mission of God to re-create his world, both through his historical people and through Scripture – and ultimately, through the sending of his Son and the Spirit of his Son (cf. Gal. 4.4-6) who empower the church to fulfill its role in the mission of the Trinitarian God; cf. Beeby, Harry Daniel, “A Missional Approach to Renewed Interpretation” in Bartholomew, Craig, et al, Eds.  Scripture and Hermeneutics Series 1: Renewing Biblical Interpretation, Grand Rapids & Milton Keynes, UK: Eerdmans & Paternoster Press, 2000, pp. 268-83; cf. Newbigin, Lesslie, The Open Secret, Grand Rapids & London: Eerdmans & SPCK, 1995, pp. 19-29.

[2] Wright, “Paul and Missional Hermeneutics”, pp. 181-82 (emphasis added); cf. the almost identical statement in Guder, Darrell L. Called to Witness: doing missional theology, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015, p. 13, second paragraph; on the following page, Guder refers to mission as “the mother of theology”; cf. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Philadelphia: Fortress, 2013, pp. 1483-84.

[3] Cf. Hastings, Ross, Missional God, Missional Church, Downers Grove: IVP, 2012, pp. 243-52.

[4] Cf. Vanhoozer & Treier, Theology and the Mirror of Scripture, p. 11.

[5] Cf. NTPG, pp. 3-5.

[6] Cf. Bultmann, Rudolf, Jesus Christ and Mythology, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1958, pp. 15-6.

[7] http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=20-02-028-f; cf. https://youtu.be/xksJMBG3qfg (accessed July 11, 2018).

[8] Lewis, C.S.  Surprised by Joy, London & Glasgow: Collins, 1959 [1955], p. 182; cf. the numerous references to Lewis in Wright, N.T. Colossians and Philemon, Downers Grove: IVP, 1986.

[9] Cp. Bultmann’s definition of “myth” as the human existential angst and feeling of powerlessness vis-à-vis the wild and unpredictable nature of life in this world, expressed through stories of gods and demons intervening in worldly affairs: Jesus Christ and Mythology, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1958, pp. 18-21.

[10] Indeed, among most 20^th-century theorists, “myth” is defined as essentially “story”: Segal, Robert A. Myth: a very short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 3-4.

[11] Cf. McGrath, Alister, C.S. Lewis – a Life, Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2013, pp. 146-51; cf. Lewis, C.S.  Surprised by Joy, pp. 178-79.

[12] Cf. Spykman, Gordon J.  Reformational Theology, pp. 126, 129-30; cf. NTPG, pp. 88-98, 109-18.

[13] In the heyday of demythologizing, Lewis critiqued the modern biblical scholars as being anything but critics: “they seem to me to lack literary judgment, to be imperceptive about the very quality of the texts they are reading”: Vanhoozer, Kevin J. “On Scripture”, pp. 76-77.

[14] Cf. Vanhoozer, Kevin J. “On Scripture”, p. 85.

[15] Interestingly, what Wright refers to as “stories” which provide answers to the four key worldview questions, Tolkien and Lewis call “myth”: McGrath, Alister, C.S. Lewis – a Life, p. 279; cf. NTPG, p. 38, concerning the possible link in Wright’s thought between “worldview thinking” and “myth”; cf. Wright, Surprised by Scripture, New York: HarperOne, 2014, p. 187, where – in the context of a chapter entitled “How to Engage Tomorrow’s World” and a paragraph discussing the lordship of Jesus – Paul, Abraham Kuyper and C.S. Lewis are linked in a kind of “lordship genealogy”.

[16] Wright accomplishes this through a re-reading of the NT’s apocalyptic (i.e. “mythological eschatology” in Bultmann) language: NTPG, pp. 280-98; cf. Caird, G.B. The Language and Imagery of the Bible, London: Duckworth, 1980, pp. 219-71.  Wright agrees wholeheartedly with the emphasis of Weiss, Schweitzer and Bultmann on the centrality of “eschatology” in the Gospels; however, he parts ways with their interpretation of it, according to which second-Temple Jews were expecting the imminent end of the space-time universe (i.e. of arrival of “the kingdom of God”).  Wright interprets “apocalyptic” literature as using “end of the world” language in order to invest historical events with their theological significance: NTPG, pp. 298-99.

[17] Cf. NTPG, pp. 38-46, 69-80; cf. Spykman, Gordon J.  Reformational Theology, pp. 127-28, where he speaks of the importance of paying constant attention to “the narrative flow in the history of redemption” and the fact that “woven into the fabric of [the Bible’s] many stories is its single story.  And that biblical message must define our biblical method” (emphasis added); cf. Elie Wiesel: “God made man because he loves stories”: The Gates of the Forest, New York: Schocken Books, 1966 [1964], cover page.

[18] Cf. Lewis, C.S.  Mere Christianity, New York: Collier Books, 1952 [1943], pp. 56-61; it is of note that Lewis begins his discussion of the atonement with a critique of the “theory” of penal substitution (p. 57), but then goes on to offer an exposition of his own theory of the atonement, which quite closely resembles that of Anselm of Canterbury (pp. 59ff).  Lewis ends the discussion by saying “if [this picture of the atonement] does not help you, drop it” (p. 61); cf. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, pp. 25-27.

[19] Cf. e.g. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, pp. 11-12.

[20] E.g. Ibid. p. 355.

[21] Cf. Vanhoozer, Kevin J. “On Scripture”, pp. 78, 83.

[22] Cf. Wright, “Historical Paul and ‘Systematic Theology’”, pp. 147-64.

[23] Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, pp. 73-74.

[24] Wright, Pauline Perspectives, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013, pp. 356-78.

[25] Cf. Wright, Christopher J.H. The Mission of God, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006, pp. 51-61; C.J.H. Wright also makes use of Walsh & Middleton’s storied worldview model.

[26] NTPG, pp. 6, 139-43; cf. Spykman, Gordon J.  Reformational Theology, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992, pp. 88, 126, passim; Spykman speaks, in typical Reformed fashion, of the 4 acts of the biblical drama: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration.  Wright, for his part, divides the act of “Redemption” into two parts: “Israel” and “Jesus”.

[27] Cf. Jenson, Robert W. “Scripture’s Authority in the Church” in Davis, Ellen F. & Richard B. Hays, Eds. The Art of Reading Scripture, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003, pp. 27-37.

[28] Jeremy Begbie makes the link between this understanding of biblical authority and Wright’s missional ecclesiology: “The Shape of things to come?  Wright amidst emerging Ecclesiologies”, pp. 196-97.

[29] Indeed, Wright often speaks of the need for the church to prepare itself to engage the post-postmodern world: e.g. God in Public, p. 30.

[30] Cf. Wright, Stephen I. “Inhabiting the Story: The Use of the Bible in the Interpretation of History” in Bartholomew, Craig, et al, Eds.  Scripture and Hermeneutics Series 4: “Behind the Text” – History and Biblical Interpretation, Grand Rapids & Milton Keynes, UK: Eerdmans & Paternoster Press, 2003, pp. 514-16.

[31] McGrath, Alister, C.S. Lewis – a Life, pp. 279-83.

[32] Segal, Robert A. Myth: a very short Introduction, pp. 122-23; here “myth” is understood as having been re-characterized in the 20^th century.  Some thinkers posit that myth is not or not just an explanation of the physical world, in which case its function differs from that of science; others affirm that myth, read symbolically, is not even about the physical world, or, as yet others have claimed, both interpretative options are possible.

[33] Cf. Ben Meyer’s remark: “Christianity was never more itself than in the launching of the world mission”: The Early Christians, Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1986, p. 18 (emphasis original); cf. Pinnock’s remarks: “For centuries, systematic theology has been largely devoid of any missionary consciousness, and even today it resists repenting of its mistake and converting to a kingdom-oriented and mission-conscious way of thinking”: Tracking the Maze, Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1990, p. 5.  Pinnock claims that if theology were to take the Christian mission seriously, it would have to abandon its philosophically determined categories in favour of the biblical narrative of world redemption centred on the death, resurrection and present reign of the Lord Jesus Christ!

[34] Wright, “Paul and Missional Hermeneutics”, p. 181 (emphasis original); cf. Wright’s reference to Marx’s 11^th thesis on Feuerbach about changing the world rather than interpreting it: Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Philadelphia: Fortress, 2013, p. 775.

[35] Cf. G. Vos: “The Bible is not a dogmatic handbook but a historical book full of dramatic interest”: Biblical Theology, p. 17; cf. McGrath, Alister, A Passion for Truth, Downers Grove: IVP, 1996, p. 108.

[36] Cf. Wright, Tom, Bringing the Church to the World, p. 87.

[37] Cf. Caird & Hurst, New Testament Theology, p. 419: “He goes to his death at the hands of a Roman judge on a charge of which he was innocent and of which his accusers, as the event proved, were guilty.  And so, not only in theological truth but in historic fact, the one bore the sins of the many…” (emphasis added); Paradoxically perhaps, Wright’s concerns about the relationship between biblical and dogmatic theology, at first blush, may seem to mirror those of J.P. Gabler, who, in is famous 1787 address, advocated for a strict separation of the two, in order to allow biblical theology to proceed along its course of historical description, unhindered by the strictures of ecclesial tradition: cf. Klink III, Edward W. & Darian R. Lockett, Understanding Biblical Theology, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012, pp. 14-17.  It remains to be seen whether Wright’s historical method can bear the theological weight; cf. Hays, Richard B. “Knowing Jesus: Story, History and the Question of Truth”, pp. 41-61 and Klink & Lockett, Understanding Biblical Theology, pp. 104-06; However, Wright is not advocating a theology-less history; on the contrary, his historical investigation of the NT has managed to discover theology within the historical events that gave rise to Christianity.  However, the “theology” unearthed by Wright is not that of any dogmatic tradition!

[38] Cf. e.g. Wayne Grudem’s definition of systematic theology: “…any study that answers the question, ‘What does the whole Bible teach us today?’ about any given topic”: Systematic Theology, p. 21; cf. Ibid. pp. 31-32.  This is contra Wright’s insistence on the importance of theologizing in terms of the “act” of the biblical drama within which we find ourselves (Act 5).  Therefore, while we must be faithful to the previous “acts”, we must not reduce the content of Scripture into bits of “data” which must be summarized/ synthesized to create “biblical” teaching on a given topic (interest in which arises out of our own cultural/theological concerns).  The Bible is telling its own story, and, if we are committed to “living under the authority of Scripture”, we must heed not only what the Bible is saying, but also how it is saying it (i.e. narratively).

[39] Rm. 3.21-26 is often taken, by Reformed commentators, to be a complete statement of Paul’s “doctrines” of both justification and the atonement: cf. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans”, pp. 467-68.

[40] Cf. Caird’s statements about what “theology” meant to Jesus: “[not] static formulations about God and the timeless truths of eternity [but rather] a dynamic intimately bound up with the politics, history, and daily affairs of the nation into which [he] was born…”; cf. idem. “All of the things Christians normally associate with the term ‘theology’ – God, Creation, sin, salvation, grace v. law, the Kingdom of God, the last things, Jesus’ person and work – were for him not abstract speculation, but were shaped and guided by his understanding of the calling and destiny of the nation of Israel”: New Testament Theology, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 359, 414; cf. idem. The Language and Imagery of the Bible, London: Duckworth, 1980, p. 265; on Wright’s reading, what Caird considered to be “theology” in the case of Jesus was no less so in Paul’s case.  While Jesus’ (and Paul’s) theology was bound up with the politics and history of Israel, Paul’s theology was also bound up with those of the empire under whose sovereignty both he and Jesus were born; cf. PFG, passim.  Theology is thus locked in an embrace with mission – in the public square.

[41] Cf. Caird: “If there is anything that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions and philosophies it is this: Christianity in the first instance is neither a set of doctrines nor a way of life, but a gospel; and a gospel means news about historical events, attested by reliable witnesses, and having at its centre a historical person.  Whenever Christians have attempted to give to the scriptures a sense other than the plain sense intended by those who wrote them, Christianity has been in danger of running out into the sands of Gnosticism.  And the danger is at its greatest when dogma or philosophical presuppositions are allowed to take control of exegesis”: New Testament Theology, p. 422 (emphasis original).

[42] Vanhoozer, Kevin J. “On Scripture”, pp. 84-85 (emphasis added).