My man Trevin Wax has led me to green pastures once again. I had never heard of Douglas Wilson, but NT Wright is so compelling in his arguments that I need an intelligent, informed counter-balance. I know that I am easily impressed by erudition, and some questions are too important to accept the answers without knowing the whole story. Wax linked to Douglas Wilson, a reformed theologian reviewing Wright’s new book on Justification – itself a rebuttal to John Piper’s attack on Wright’s position previously declared earlier this decade. Got that?
Anyway, Wilson is in the middle of an informative review (see here and so on). Like most theologians of worth their weight in salt, Wilson likes a lot of what Wright says. Wright really is a dynamic thinker – he already has and will continue to revolutionize the field. That said, you can’t just give him a blank check. He has leanings, he has agendas, and he’s just a little more silver-tongued than he needs to be. I, as a result, like him, because I’m about 40% more silver-tongued than he is, only about 1/100th as informed. I recognize my own.
Wilson gives an expert answer to one of Wright’s patronizing parables – I never heard of this Wilson fellow before, but if I ever move to Idaho, I’ll be looking him up.
He then puts into easily understood terms how he views Wright – and I am totally on board with this based on what I’ve read:
“Wright is like a wonderful three-point shooter in American basketball, but one who can’t be troubled to find out who is wearing what uniform, or which team is supposed to be going in what direction, so when he takes to the floor, he scores a dazzling series of points — sixteen for the home team, and twenty-four for the visitors. One can be simultaneously impressed and wish that he would just stop it.”
He goes on to make another fun point:
“And now to Wright’s main point, a glorious one, and again misapplied. Two quotes will suffice.
‘Paul does indeed think of history as a continuous line, and of God’s purpose in history sweeping forwards unbroken from Abraham to Jesus and on through himself and his work, in the mission of the church’ (p. 18).
It is central to Paul, but almost entirely ignored in perspectives old, new and otherwise, that God had a single plan all along through which he intended to rescue the world and the human race, and that this single plan was centered upon the call of Israel, a call which Paul saw coming to fruition in Israel’s representative, the Messiah‘ (pp. 18-19, emphasis his).
This is great stuff, but it is hardly Columbus planting the flag on a virgin continent. Find me one word in that summary that would not bring forth a chorus of amens from B.B. Warfield, Jonathan Edwards, or any Reformed stalwart between the years, say, 1550 and 1900.
Take that phrase ‘almost entirely ignored’ and hold it up to the light in wonderment. So where did I obtain the tall stack of books that I read that persuaded me of this view long before I had ever heard of N.T. Wright? Wright really needs to get out more, and stop acting like he has discovered things that many Christians have known and taught over the course of generations.”
He attributes Wright’s assertion of novelty in thought to the fact that Wright is an Anglican – not exactly a hotbed of Biblical teaching. “If you are treated like a green space alien for years, it is perhaps excusable to begin thinking you are one.” I’m positively giddy – someone just as clever as Wright, looking at him in a new perspective, as it were.
Words 
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