Bray on Wright and Justification

As I mentioned previously Dr. Gerald Bray is with us at Union for a couple of weeks as our Scholar-in-Residence. On Tuesday he spoke at our Christian Studies colloquium addressing the current debate on justification particularly the recent interaction between John Piper and N. T. Wright. Bray’s editorial on this topic in the Churchman stirred a lot of conversation previously.

The audio of this lecture is now available here. Bray was informative and entertaining as always! Perhaps the most intriguing portion of the lecture is the beginning where he discusses his personal interaction with and knowledge of Piper and Wright. Bray described the trajectory of Wright’s thought as beginning in a thoroughly Calvinistic framework (Bray referenced Wrights first book, a co-authored piece, published by Banner of Truth) to which was then mixed a more critical approach to biblical studies. Bray then described Wright’s position (apparently his work on Paul) as essentially hyper-Calvinistic.

This is an informative lecture worth listening to.

Carson’s Review of Wright’s Evil and the Justice of God

As I am catching up on some projects and reading, I just read Don Carson’s 10 page review of N. T. Wright’s Evil and the Justice of God. I recommend the review to you. It is good reading for pastors. Dealing with the reality of suffering and evil in the world is a perennial pastoral task (I would recommend Carson’s own book How Long O Lord on this). Carson summarizes the book chapter by chapter noting strengths. Then he turns to critique. The critiques get to the heart of many troublesome issues arising today.

For example Carson challenges Wright’s portrayal of God as “having” to work in certain ways to ‘fix’ the world, and the emerging overly psychologized picture of God needing to “release himself from the burden of always having to be angry with a world gone wrong” (Wright’s words). Carson also challenges the regular description of God’s plan as “daring and risky” involving “so much ambiguity.”

There is much here- more than I can summarize now- so I encourage you to print off the review and take time to read it. It is helpful discussion for keeping our thinking rooted biblically in an age of increasing theological confusion.