Wright is probably the most evangelical representative of the “New Perspective” on Paul, which argues basically that the Reformers got Paul wrong. The NP folks have a lot of different ways of approaching Paul, but they all tend to stress Paul’s Jewishness and to argue that Paul was more concerned with the question of membership in the covenant community rather than the question of how an individual’s sins can be forgiven. They argue that Second Temple Jews did not believe in “works righteousness” and so this pretty clearly was not Paul’s target.
Conservative evangelical theologians, especially Calvinists, are upset by this, because it seems to take out the exegetical foundations of sola fide. (Wright claims not to be attacking sola fide, by the way.) John Piper is probably the most prominent person who has taken Wright on over this. Wright’s original exposition of the NP is What did Saint Paul Really Say? Piper responded with The Future of Justification, and Wright shot back with Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision.
The basic disagreement lies with the idea of imputation. Wright says that the idea of imputing one person’s righteousness to another is completely alien to first-century thought and is a “muddle-headed” way of talking about justification. Piper and other conservative evangelicals see this as taking out the heart of the Gospel.
An interesting feature of the debate (similar to other debates among evangelicals in recent years), which Wright points out in Justification, is that Piper is defending the substance of the Reformers’ teaching while Wright is claiming to be more faithful to the principle of sola scriptura, by challenging the Reformers where he thinks they got Scripture wrong.
In answer to Edward H and lzdaari: no, Wright isn’t part of the “Emerging Church,” but he tends to be a hero to the “younger evangelicals” who are challenging traditional Protestant theology and want to see more focus on ethics and social action. Some of these folks would identify themselves as “emerging,” while others are lumped in with the “emerging church” by their conservative critics.
Edwin
