| Title | : | How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0061730572 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780061730573 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 282 |
| Publication | : | First published March 13, 2012 |
How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels Reviews
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This is my second reading through this book, but there was enough time between the two that many parts seemed almost fresh and new to me. Once again, I am giving this book a solid five-star rating.
Right at the beginning, NT Wright shares how when he was a young student his Bible club wanted to do an exploration of who Jesus was. Different students were to prepare and share different aspects and Wright felt he drew the short straw. It is easy to talk about the birth of Christ. It is easy to talk about his death and resurrection. But his question, "Why did Jesus live here on earth?" seemed quite a bit more difficult. When you look at the Nicene Creed, it jumps right over the life of Christ going from birth to death. NT Wright then uses the picture of surround sound speakers to show that the gospels show four stories that need to be heard in balance in order to understand the music of the gospels.
1st Speaker: "It is important to retell the history of Israel and to show that the story of Jesus is the..." culmination of Israel's history, hopes, and purpose.
2nd Speaker: "The story the gospels are telling, once we turn down the overly loud volume of the second speaker, which has simply been shouting, "He's divine! He's divine!" is the story of how YHWH has come back to His people at last."
3rd Speaker - It isn't just that Jesus was establishing the church. "Rather, the gospels are consciously telling the story of how God's one-time action in Jesus the Messiah ushered in a new world order within which a new way of life was not only possible, but it was mandatory for Jesus' followers."
4th Speaker - "The powers of this world exalt themselves against the Creator God... and God will not be mocked forever. The kingdoms of this world are to become the Kingdom of our God, and He will reign forever and ever." -
The biggest shift in my theological experience can be traced to an understanding of "the Kingdom of God."
I think that this phrase defines Christian denominations--from those who believe it is Heaven, waiting to come to Earth following an apocalypse, to those who believe it is exclusive to the Roman church, a sect exclusively following one Biblical rule or another, to those who see the Kingdom of God as everybody.
I was eager to read N.T. Wright's take on the Kingdom of God. He presents a highly theosophical argument here (quite a few times, I felt that I was out of my league), using the gospels as the guide to what kind of community Jesus had in mind. Wright feels that Christians, who skip from "was born of the Virgin Mary" to "suffered under Pontius Pilate, died..." in the Apostle's Creed, miss out on what Jesus was really about. And he uses the various voices of the gospel writers to show Jesus story as one that confronted Roman misrule, one that fulfilled the prophecies of the Jewish writers, and one who was sent by God to set up a kingdom "not of this world."
This is a solid book. A challenging one. One that I hope to read a 2nd time, just to get everything it offers. Ultimately, I feel that Jesus' kingdom, as described by Wright here, is to be "on earth as it is in heaven," and compels Christians to serve its eternal purposes. -
N.T. Wright Switches Questions with an `Explosive' Result
Millions of Americans know former Bishop N.T. "Tom" Wright as the man who defends the Bible against skeptics. It certainly doesn't hurt that Wright does this in a wonderfully resonant British accent with the confident air of a latter-day C.S. Lewis, who in his day was a famous media personality himself. But, through several recent books, Wright has been trying to change the focus of his message to something he considers much more urgent for our tumultuous times.
Wright certainly is famous as the Bible scholar who answers a hearty "Yes" to the question: Are the Gospels true? The question he is eager to answer is: What do the Gospels mean? In answering that second question, Wright deliberately uses the word "explosive" to convey the kind of passion and power he believes can be unlocked through the Christianity we discover in the Bible to this day. (He uses the e-word in a video he produced for the book, and he uses the e-word in the concluding passages of the book itself.)
Wright has been leading readers down this pathway for years, now, in a series of books that tell general readers about Jesus' life and ministry (especially in his book Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters) and about the entire New Testament as seen through the lens of Wright's Kingdom theology (either in his earlier small-group Bible-study booklets or in his 2011 The Kingdom New Testament: A Contemporary Translation). These ideas also can be found in the 2010 book After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters. In the UK, Wright is well known for his public statements in venues like newspaper commentaries and Anglican gatherings. Here in the U.S., his American fans may still be making their way through his first dozen or so books. Churchgoers on this side of the Atlantic may not have caught up to Wright's current focus in teaching, especially since he stepped down as bishop of Durham in 2010 so that he has more time to teach and write about issues that urgently concern him.
I recommend watching the YouTube video in which Wright himself gives a pretty good summary of this book's purpose. We include that video in ReadTheSpirit coverage of the new book. You might compare what he says in the video interview with a similar way he words it in the pages of the book itself. There, he writes: This book is about ... "the new reality of Jesus and his launching of God's kingdom. The new reality of a story so explosive ... that the church in many generations has found it too much to take and so has watered it down, cut it up into little pieces, turned it into small-scale lessons rather than allowing its full impact to be felt. Part of the tragedy of the modern church, I have been arguing, is that the `orthodox' have preferred creed to kingdom, and the `unorthodox' have tried to get a kingdom without a creed. It's time to put back together what should never have been separated. In Jesus, the living God has become king of the whole world."
Provocative stuff! And Wright fearlessly raises a whole range of issues that will spark discussion in your small group. In the middle of the book, for example, he takes a shot at both Fox News as well as more liberal cultural icons. In the closing pages of the book, he outlines various ways that people "read" the church's great creeds today that wind up mistaking the central meaning of the Gospels. No question: A discussion of this new Wright book will draw a lively crowd in most congregations.
Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters
Kingdom New Testament-OE
After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters -
Well that was a challenge...
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The more that I read N.T. Wright, the more I appreciate what he's trying to do with each of his books. Wright's main emphasis seems to be to unwind our overly pietistic reading of the Bible--or as Wright himself says, "we have all forgotten what the four gospels are about."
Now, I understand that Wright often gets maligned for arguing that it wasn't until he began writing and publishing books that we've begun to return to 'the truth.' And sure, it is kind of fun to poke fun at the way Wright sometimes seems to come off when he says such things. But he is right that the church has largely gone astray from the true teachings of Scripture.
Wright begins the book by showing how the creeds themselves overlook the meat of Jesus's ministry by focusing on his incarnation and death and resurrection. But the New Testament uniformly asserts "that Jesus is already in charge of the world. (Check out, for instance, 1 Cor. 15:20–28; Heb. 2:5–9; Rev. 5:6–14.) That was what they understood by “God’s kingdom.” But for the four gospels this wasn’t something that simply began at the ascension. It was true, in a sense, from the moment Jesus began his public career. This was what they were trying to tell us. And most Christians have never even thought about such a thing, let alone begun to figure out what it means for us today. This is the problem, I believe, with the great majestic creeds, full as they are of solemn truth and supple wisdom. They manage not to mention the main thing the gospels are trying to tell us, and they talk about something else instead." p. 15
Wright's "case throughout this book, then, is that all four canonical gospels suppose themselves to be telling the story that Paul, in some of his most central and characteristic passages, tells as well: that the story of Jesus is the story of how Israel’s God became king." p. 38
Wright then goes on to explain how the message of Jesus's enthronement as King of all Creation, NOW, has been lost in the theological battles over Christology, the historicity of the gospels, the incarnation, atonement theology, and so on.
Wright then emphasizes that, "What the four gospels are eager to tell us, then, is that the messianic kingdom that Jesus is bringing will come through his suffering and indeed through the suffering of his followers. But it is Jesus’s own suffering in particular, gradually revealed as unique and uniquely effective, that is highlighted as the gospel narratives proceed." p. 223
He also tells us that, "The slaughtered and enthroned lamb of Revelation 5 is not only the shepherd of his people; he is also their template. Sharing his suffering is the way in which they are to extend his kingdom in the world." p. 203
There's much more to the book, and he goes to greath lengths in the last section of the book to show from the gospels are "telling the story of how God, the creator God, Israel’s God, became in and through Jesus the king of all the world..." p. 273
This is what is missing from so many of the "gospel" books--a theology of kingdom--a kingdom that has begun. Wright is working to restore a balanced understanding of what the gospels, and the New Testament itself are teaching about Christ. I am glad he's doing it, because it is there, and we so readily overlook it. -
I love N.T. Wright's material. He has such a refreshing way of explaining theological concepts I've habitually taken for granted (or ignored altogether).
In this book, he manages to challenge everything I've always believed about the Gospels while at the same time illuminating some of the most confusing aspects of them. His basic premise is just what the title claims: the Gospels, more so than simple biographies of Jesus, or Passion narratives with extended introductions, are accounts explaining how Israel's God (in the person of Jesus), has become king of the world.
This perspective makes so much more sense to me of all the material in the middle of the Gospel; all the accounts of water to wine, healing, walking on water, and teaching are far more intelligible as stories of Jesus establishing God's rule over all creation and over all other worldly powers (both political and diabolical).
I highly recommend this book, and I will most likely be returning to it to continue shaping my understanding. -
Good and thought provoking. Read through as part of a discussion group and breaking out each chapter week-to-week made it a bit harder to keep all the strands together. Still, worth the read.
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Summary: We must not divorce our reading of the gospels from the story of Israel, and a correct reading of the gospels will lead us, like Israel, to full engagement with the world and all its messiness, even as we also live out and know about God's redemptive work and New Creation.
I found it especially helpful to consider how the creeds have tended to shape our view of the canon rather than letting it be the other way around. It is entirely possible for us to affirm each individual phrase of the creeds, yet miss the story of the Bible. Wright is probably in a bee-in-his-bonnet mode more than what is strictly necessary, and he makes more than a few overstatements and generalizations, but that can all be forgiven if you consider the amount of scholarship and content he is compressing into 274 pages. -
Brilliant.
Wright convincingly argues that we have all (the common and especially the western Church) misread the Gospels.
Much of today's Gospel message focuses almost exclusively on the Gnostic gospels. We fail to recognize the importance of the Old Testament and the four Canonical Gospels themselves.
He argues that the Gospel is much more, more complex, more beautiful, and more full when we understand that the Gospel is not just our way to heaven but instead how God, the creator God, Israel's God, became in and through Jesus, the king of all the world.
How God Became King, is excellent. -
Incredibly insightful, and thought provoking. You may not agree with all of Wright's points, but there is no doubt this book has substance. We can get into the habit of crafting the gospel into short little talking points. In that process we may be missing some pretty important elements of the narrative.
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Really insightful
Wright puts his finger in why shorthand explanations of the gospel feel truncated, empty, and detached from the gospel narratives. For those who are looking for a fresh significance to the “middle bits” between the birth and death of Jesus, this is a must-read. -
The basic thesis of the book: while the birth, death, resurrection and second coming of Jesus all find their way into the great Creeds and into formulations of the Gospel proclamation, the life of Jesus gets short shrift. Why did Jesus live? What's the point of the "great middle" between the incarnation and death and resurrection? It's just here that the church stumbles and really does not know what to do with the Gospels. They are treated as back story and as proof a sort that 1)Jesus was God and 2)he was perfectly righteous. Wright posits that attention to the Gospels as story reveals what the Gospel is - Kingdom come through Israel's Messiah. Through Jesus God returns to exiled Israel and reigns as King. I buy in. This transforms the typical Gospel message of the Evangelical from "God is holy and angry at sin-Jesus died to pay the price for sin-belief upon Jesus and receive forgiveness-go to heaven when you die" to "Through Jesus Kingdom has come and the death dealing ways of the kingdoms of this world have been dealt the knock out blow." Through Jesus the prayer "may your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." In other words, the Good News is theocracy - God reigns. For sure, the kingdom has not come in fullness, but after 2,000 years of church history we have demonstrable evidence that it is here. The dispensationalism of American evangelicalism has convinced so many that the kingdom of God is only future and that the mission of the church right now is to get as many into the lifeboats as possible before the world melts away in fire. For sure, this present world will be rolled up like a coat and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. But the fulfillment of kingdom promises does not mean that kingdom is not present until the complete fulfillment. Kingdom presence develops. I am not a postmillenialist who looks to a Golden Age of kingdom come. But neither am I a pessimist who does not see the "saltiness" of present kingdom realities. Through the Second Adam there is on the earth a new race of people who by that presence bring with them the powers of the age to come. This is a robust Gospel that moves the Christian into a life of God's presence as King.
NT Wright interacts with what Evangelicals consider liberal theology. Wright sees liberal theology as addressing issues that Evangelicals have left unaddressed and therefore must be part of the conversation. In the circles I run in theologians like Barth, Brunner, Pannenburg, Moltmann, etc., are not even referred to because of their doctrine of Holy Scripture. If a person is not an inerrantist, that is about all you need to know. Take a pass and move on. Not so fast. Until these people are addressed in the academy, many of the questions of modern man are left in limbo.
Wright is not a two kingdom's theologian. There is one kingdom because there is one King. Christ has defeated the principalities and powers and the Caesars of this world. And his subjects live the kingdom of God in the city of man, storming the gates of hell from the inside out. This does not mean that any specific church has a political agenda as much as the Christian takes kingdom life into workplace, community and academy. Through a life of service, weakness and grace, kingdom life dethrones the principles that operate in the city of man. The church does not build alternative societies but transform the one in which they live. -
I have looked forward to reading this book since its publication. I was not disappointed. "Why only four stars?" you may ask. Well, it's not because what is here isn't the best, it's only because I usually reserve my five star praise for his denser, more academic work. However, the more time I spend listening to Wright's lectures and reading his popular level works, the more I value his skill at taking heady stuff and distilling it to people who aren't into footnotes.
In this book Wright makes the case that "we have all misunderstood the gospels." He presents a case that the church has long stripped the gospels of their Kingdom message and allowed the great creeds of the church (and often our misunderstanding of their full meaning) to filter out Jewish messianic, political, and this worldly hopes. As he has often said in his writings, we have made the kingdom about going to heaven when we die, and we have made salvation about escaping from this old world to sit around on a cloud, playing a harp. We focus on Christmas and we focus on the cross, but both of these get pulled out of shape from what the original message was intended to be because we have separated these events in the life of Jesus from his declaration of the Kingdom.
Wright does an excellent job of demonstrating how we came to misread the gospels, why it's not the biblical model, why it matters, and what we might do to fix the situation. This book is important for pastors and church leaders. It is important that we reexamine the lenses through which we read the Bible, and it is important that we help our congregations recover from bad neo-gnostic theology. It's vital that we understand the present ramifications of Jesus being seated at the Right Hand of the Majesty on High.
Some people (my friends included) have busted Wright for being repetitive. He is, indeed, repetitious, but this simply reinforces his ideas. I am inclined to feel that this quality of his writing comes from his years of teaching and preaching. He is trying to impress new ideas on his readers and often combat misreadings of scripture; therefore, repetition serves to reinforce his ideas. I can certainly say that it has helped me remember things I otherwise would have forgotten. I don't have to constantly refer to my highlights and note because I have the arguments etched on my brain. -
As I'm now teaching Mark I was eager to find suggestions on what we might be missing and get ideas on fresh ways to view this gospel. Perhaps it's the difference of place and denomination, but I didn't find Wright's hypothesis to be as strong as he presents it. In my circle the gospels are not viewed only in the limited way he says. And his ideas were not earth-shatteringly new. In fact, as I read I often thought "That's it?" and "Duh". Quite respectfully, of course. :) Perhaps his points are true for churches that rely on creeds. But many don't. He either ignores that fact or doesn't know it, to the point that I almost felt he was building a straw man in the first part of his book.
As I read my heart cried out against the limited view Wright has of present day Christians. I wouldn't have minded as much if he hadn't worked so hard to convince his reader that all Western Christians are narrow-minded in the ways he describes. He tosses around terms like "fundamentalists", "the Western church" and "conservatives" like he's really privy to how everyone thinks. I don't believe he is.
Because of DH's job I've lived all over the US and abroad and gotten to know many Christians from quite diverse backgrounds. Does he really think we don't pour over every word of the Bible, NT and OT? Does he think we don't speak with our Jewish friends about their understanding and read and travel to learn to look beyond our own cultural mindsets? That we treat Jews and the history of Israel as irrelevant? That we actually believe our faith is all about us and heaven and isn't intended to transform our world? I won't argue that our mindset is often not Biblical - Platonic dualism often creeps in, for instance. But I can honestly say that the people - quite simple, everyday people - that I spend time with aren't as limited in their thinking as the ones Wright seems to know. Fortunately. -
Well-developed and argued thesis about the kingdom of God that seeks to mobilize and revive God’s people in great ways. At times confusing or repetitive, but overall very engaging… Wright’s attitude proved entertaining, but is hopefully not one in practice.
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A great book with a strong thesis which rings incredibly true and profound. His cases were well made and well evidence. But his application slightly threw me off. His rant against democracy and the modern state seemed out of place and disconnected. His main argument for "new theocracy" that the whole book had been leaning towards was simply a case summarized by saying that just because the idea of a separate state and church would have sounded insane to the jews two millenia ago, it should sound insane to us too. Which is not the strongest argument I have. Although a significantly stronger case can be made with all of the foundation that this book relies on. Wright's set up is great, with all of the right passages placed in the right order. It just needed a better engine to carry what we seemed to have missed to why should we rethink everything we currently have to reintegrate this missing message into broader society.
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I had a hard time getting into this book because Dr. Wright essentially started by saying that Christians have been reading the Gospels wrong for centuries, if not longer. I hate that kind of clickbait online and felt defensive right away. After a while, I realized that Dr. Wright wasn’t talking to me or about me. He was talking to his fellow Anglicans, Catholics, and those of certain mainline and evangelical denominations. The bottom line issue he dealt with was that we can’t read the Gospels from our modern perspective, or through the perspective that grew out of the Enlightenment, but from the perspective of the original audience. That left me feeling grateful to those who discipled and trained me to view the Bible in that way.
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I found the premise of this book to be quite fascinating, as the typical Nicene Creed that is sung at every Orthodox/Catholic liturgy as the declaration of Christian faith goes directly from Christ's incarnation to his crucifixion without any mention of his life. I hadn't paid much notice to this fact and that other than the Gospel reading at the service, there is little mention of Christ's time on Earth. The author makes a very simple case that we ought to read the Gospel books in their entirety and appreciate the story that is told, and he has a masterful knowledge of Scripture. I found myself woefully unprepared to handle all of the Biblical references and was motivated to do a better job of truly learning the Gospels and the life of Christ.
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This is a good book... but it needed more.
Instead of spending so much time talking about how people get the gospels WRONG, I would have loved for Wright to have spent that time explaining what he believed is RIGHT and what the implications of such thinking are. -
A really interesting read and he makes some good points, especially about Christians often missing the point of Jesus's ministry, going from Christmas to Easter and ignoring the time between. Some of the points/arguments however, didn't feel hugely relevant to what's happening today so I couldn't always relate to the issues he was raising. Yet It's a good read and worth giving a go.
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The usual fantastic stuff with the usual problem of encouraging the church to think differently; happy days.
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Clearly written and deeply challenging, Wright makes us think about one of the simplest and yet most perplexing questions about being a Christian: why were the gospels written? We think we know until we think about it. The great creeds do not help us with this. They affirm the virgin birth, the crucifixion and the resurrection. But they never tell us why there are all those parables miracles and other stories. Wright concludes that the gospels are completing the story of Israel by telling the story of Jesus the Messiah who is Israel's God. It is, in short the story of how Israel's God became King through the cross and the resurrection even though that was not the way anyone expected it to happen. In this book Wright puts his deep understanding of 1st century history and biblical theology in an accessible form. He writes for the pastor and church lay person, indeed for anyone who wants to know how to live as a Christian in this world that Jesus already rules.
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classic Tom. everyone from all of history was wrong and he is here to fix it all.
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The central concern in Anglican scholar N.T. Wright’s book, How God Became King, is to demonstrate the importance of the life of Jesus. The problem, as he sees it, is that “most of Western Christianity has simply forgotten what the gospels are really about.” Wright believes that pastors, believers, and creeds have all missed the simple and clear point of the Gospels: that in Jesus, God has visited his people as king.
According to N. T. Wright, Christians have neglected what he calls the “missing middle,” the public ministry of Jesus where he goes around healing, casting out demons, and teaching. If Christians do read the middle, Wright contends they focus on the instructions on how to get to heaven. It is this portion of the life of Jesus that Wright wants to uncover for us.
According to Wright, the great creeds of the Patristic era are largely to blame for having failed to say anything about the life of Jesus. The creeds are limited insofar as they “pass directly from [Jesus’s] virgin birth to his suffering and death.” Because the life lived between birth and death is vitally important to our understanding of Jesus, Wright maintains it would be dangerous to rely solely on the creeds.
Wright argues that the various critical approaches miss the basic, shared vision of God becoming king. He explains that there are four dimensions of the Gospel stories that these approaches generally neglect, overemphasize, or misunderstand. Wright compares these dimensions of the Gospel story to a “quadraphonic set of speakers.” Wright argues that four speakers influence our reading of the Gospels. Because of the Christian tradition, each speaker has its volume controls set incorrectly. These four speakers or influences on our reading the Gospels include:
1. The Gospels intend to depict the climax of the story of Israel;
2. The story of Jesus is the story of Israel’s God;
3. Jesus comes to launch God’s renewed people into kingdom life;
4. The Gospels show how the kingdom of God clashes with the kingdom of Caesar (or this world).
When properly balanced, these four speakers will give Christians a better understanding of the original intent of the Gospel writers.
To some degree, I have to admit that I concur with some of Wright’s contentions. Sadly, there is a tendency to overemphasize the incarnation and the resurrection. There is also very little appreciation for, much less understanding of, the relationship between the story of Jesus and the story of Israel. Although I don’t dispute this phenomenon he refers to as the “gap,” the only evidence Wright can point to is the “gap” where the creeds jump from the birth of Jesus to his death.
Despite its strengths, Wright’s book is marred by several serious blemishes. Like others before me, I felt that Wright’s clarity and writing style is a bit muddled. The book wasn’t the easiest to digest. On occasion, I questioned his exegetical decisions, which he did little to justify. Wright sometimes gives in to the temptation to overestimate the uniqueness of his own contribution. Does Wright actually believe no preachers have bothered to understand the message or story of the Gospels? One serious problem is that Wright is given to overstatement. An example of such an overstatement can be seen when he writes that “It isn’t just that we’ve all misread the gospels, though I think that’s broadly true. It is more that we haven’t really read them at all.” Wright writes as if the creeds were all the church fathers penned. Patristic preaching and writing were highly focused on the life of Jesus. Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of Wright’s book is his prolonged criticism democracy, particularly American democracy.
Although I do not think the problem of the missing middle has anything to do with the patristic fathers or the creeds, I think Wright raises an important question. I am pleased that he is trying to bring the life of Jesus into focus. In the end, Wright’s effort has enriched my understanding of the Gospels. -
Wright argues that we have misunderstood the gospels, teaching they are all about how God became King in and through Jesus, his life, cross and ascension and offers four key themes that run through their narrative and we often miss:
1. The culmination of the story of Israel
2. Jesus as Israel's God
3. The launch of God's renewed people
4. The clash of God's kingdom with the kingdoms of this fallen world
He uses the illustration of surround-sound speakers to say that we need to have these four in balance to understand the whole.
He finishes by arguing we need to understand Jesus better in terms of his kingdom and his cross together, that we have previously failed to hold these two together in our theology.
There are loads of good things about this book and, I think, the works of the author in general:
-because of his own care with words, he pushes the Christian to understand more deeply and speak with more nuance and precision
-reading this book makes you want to go back to the gospels and read again afresh
-he makes plenty of brilliant insights throughout, both about the gospels but also sometimes about 21st Century Western Christianity and academics. For instance, his description of the cultural effects of enlightenment secularism was brilliant and impassioned and it was helpful to point out that the creeds were written in response to error, so are naturally lop-sided.
-he does his best not to fight one particular constituency but seeks to correct all corners of Christianity, which means he comes across a little more fair-minded than he otherwise would have done
-his understanding of the gospels does seem to be largely orthodox and helpfully explained
-Wright has made some big contributions to the Church's understanding of theology, most notably showing us that Jesus will return to renew the heavens and the earth, not merely burn them up. Some of this helpfulness shines through
However, I am not sure I would recommend this book instead of others on the gospels. It is repetitive and has quite an angry tone but its main problem seems to be a lack of clarity of argument throughout, resulting mainly in the book not delivering on its grand promises, ironic given that Wright mainly rails against Western Christianity for not reading the gospels carefully and understanding them clearly. The lack of clarity affects two key aspects:
-lack of clarity in what NT Wright is challenging-the blurb assures the reader that "there is a fundamental problem deep at the heart of Christian faith and practice as I have known them... we have all forgotten what the gospels are about." This is the central claim of the book, which one would assume would be utterly devastating if it were true (imagine if EVERYONE had forgotten what the gospels are about!). Yet, not only does this claim seem unnecessarily grand, Wright fails to prove it throughout his book. There are plenty of assertions of error and plenty of moments when Wright tells us what the gospels are not saying, always done in a style that is polemical enough to be a bit tiring to read. But he rarely quotes his opponents, so it is hard to know if these straw-men exist. Moreover, what he decries is often merely simplified Christian theology; perhaps a bit reduced but rarely wrong (for quotes see below). The result is that Wright spends a lot of time boxing shadows, viciously taking chunks out of all sorts of enemies who are imaginary but who could be every other person in the church.
It seems to me that, rather than declare all of Western Christendom to be totally wrong on the gospels, it would have been much kinder, more patient and truthful to say that what the Western church has understood is largely right and good but that it could be improved with a bit more depth of understanding. That would also have given the average Christian a bit more confidence in what they have been taught in church. Instead, says Wright, we are all wrong about everything and everything needs to be rewritten. This brings us to an inevitable second problem:
-lack of clarity in what NT Wright offers as remedy- Wright will often tell us what the gospels are not about before telling us what they are saying. The problem is, his interpretation sounds a lot like the old one he debunks. Consider the following:
"We in the West, perhaps ever since the Chalcedon or even Nicaea, have read as the main text what the gospels treated as presupposition. In all four gospels, Jesus is the embodiment (incarnation) of Israel's God. But this is not the gospel's main theme. Not even, I think, John's. The main theme is that, in and through Jesus the Messiah, Israel's God reclaims his sovereign rule over Israel and the world." (pg240)
What Wright says is great here except that there isn't a lot of difference between the old and new interpretations, save a bit of development and nuance, so it makes it confusing to claim that the old interpretation is totally incorrect.
Consider another quote:
"The baptism narrative, therefore, in all the gospels, is not simply about Jesus' "divine identity," on the one hand, or a particular program of "atonement," in a sense of a rescue from the world of creation on the other. Yes, the gospel affirms Jesus' divine identity. Yes, they affirm his death on the cross as the climax of God's age old plan of salvation. But the purpose of God coming incognito in and as Jesus and the purpose of this Jesus dying on the cross was- so the gospels are telling us- in order to establish God's kingdom, his justice, on earth as in heaven. As in Psalm 2, the point is that in this way, the nations are to be called to account. This is how the creator is bringing his creation back into proper shape." pg216-7
Again, in this extract it seems that Wright's remedy is not too dissimilar to what he was challenging.
Perhaps I have simply misunderstood Wright. This itself would be a problem enough for a popular theologian because laypeople should be able to understand your writing! But I think it is more likely that Wright has offered a new interpretation very similar to the old one. Now that's not a problem; I am a fan of the old kind of orthodox Christianity! But perhaps its a bit much to claim you have the only correct interpretation of the gospels when it is strikingly similar to everyone else's.
However, perhaps I am being unfair. Perhaps the lack of clarity does not come from pride.
-is it unclear because the author actually cannot fully affirm orthodox Christianity?- there are times when it seems Wright is repeating things that Western Christians have always believed and there are others when it seems he is setting himself up to challenge them.
"All this, I submit, generates a vision of the cross and its acheivements so large and all embracing that we really ought to stand back and simply gaze at it. All the theories of "atonement" can be found comfortably within it, but it goes far, far beyond them all, into the wild untamed reaches of history and theology, of politics and imagination." (pg239)
Is he challenging PSA, saying that the centre of the Christian gospel is somehow too small? Typically, hard to say but it is worth bearing in mind Wright's recent output to see his theological trajectory. It is however true that Wright seems to rely a worrying amount on 1st century Jewish writings for his interpretations of the NT, arguing that the NT is primarily another 1st century Jewish text, which can result in him being too focused on the gospel's political implications rather than its personal ones.
"As an example, in Pauline studies we are now used to the claim, whether or not we agree with it, the 16th century Reformers read Paul as if he were addressing the problems of the late 15th century, whereas in fact he was addressing the significantly different problems of the mid-1st century. That debate is still rumbling on. I am anxious lest, in our own new eagerness for political relevance, we assume that the early Christians were addressing the socio-political problems of the late 20th century, whereas in fact they were addressing the significantly ifferent socio-political problems of the mid 1st century." (pg167)
How do we know that these 1st Century writings are infallible? Why is the Bible not clear enough to provide its own literary context? Why should I have a degree in inter-testamental Judaism to read a gospel? Even worse, isn't the NT primarily scripture and therefore addressing the problems of the human soul? Isn't what it says always relevant because it addresses eternal problems, not 1st century ones? It is true that the NT is written in 1st century language but if it was only to address 1st century problems that impacts its perspicuity and applicability.
Overall, this lack of clarity really damages the book and I am not sure I would want to recommend it. -
Could it be that Protestants have so emphasized Paul that they’ve left Jesus in the dust? What if we returned the Gospels to the place of primacy they were given in the early church? What if we interpreted Paul in light of the message of Jesus, rather than vis a versa? What would change in our theology?
In this book, Wright argues that we have somewhat forgotten the story the gospel narratives are trying to convey, and we have instead downloaded a systematic theological grid and mapped it upon the Gospels, thus rendering them treatises on doctrine rather than narratives of the surprising nature of YHWH’s return to Israel as her king. We know about the importance of Jesus’ death, but what was Jesus up to during his life? If Jesus was simply, “born to die” (as one dispensationalist I am reading has asserted), what is the purpose of Matthew chapters 3-25? Why not record his birth, then skip on to his death, the important part? Why, in fact, are the largest portions of all the Gospels dedicated to Jesus’s adult life and ministry? Wright argues that we have largely lost sight of what Jesus was up to during his life, and this is unfortunate, because it is here where all the magic happens.
A fascinating read for anyone who has only read Reformed or Dispensational biblical theologies of the Gospels. What Wright offers is something almost entirely fresh compared to those mentioned perspectives. One may disagree with Wright’s interpretations, but no one will walk away from this book with their mind not having been stimulated. -
Review for Presbyterian Outlook
Those of us who are following N.T. Wright's massive scholarly project, Christian Origins and the Question of God, are eagerly awaiting his projected fourth volume in the series, which will be on Paul. So we are somewhat frustrated by the seemingly never-ending stream of popular and semi-popular books which flow from his pen. This is not to say that these are bad books, far from it. It's just that we would like to see the major project brought to its completion, which seems more and more unlikely as time goes on. We are compensated for that disappointment, however, by getting some sense of where he is going through these other publications.
In this latest book Wright gives us a semi-popular overview of his considered thoughts on the four canonical gospels, focusing on what they have in common, but also showing how each individually develops their common themes. Each in its own way, he says, tells the story of Jesus as the unique human embodiment of God, inaugurating God's kingdom. They share four themes in their telling, 1) it is the climax of the story of Israel, 2) the nature of the God revealed in the story, 3) Jesus as the one who launches God's renewed people, and 4) the clash that ensues between the coming of God's kingdom and the kingdoms of this world. These themes find their proper place and balance when we attend to the way the kingdom and the cross of Jesus shed light on one another.
Along the way Wright has a running argument with what he sees as the misreading of the story by most Western Christians. This misreading results in part by treating the historic creeds as outlines of the content of the scriptural canon. The positive role of the creeds is to mark the way through particular areas of controversy that arose out of interpreting the texts. But used as outlines, the silence in the gap between “born of the virgin Mary," and "suffered under Pontius Pilate," leads to the neglect and the misreading of the Gospels. Similar distortions ensue when the" divinity" and "humanity" of Christ are used as templates for reading the gospels. He doesn't disagree with those doctrines, but finds it unhelpful when they are searched for and found in a way that abstracts them from the story of the coming of Israel's Messiah.
The book is full of insight into all four gospels and sheds new light on many familiar texts. It's unfortunate that it has only come out in mid-March, which doesn't allow much time to benefit those preaching through gospel material as we approach Easter. And make no mistake; there is a lot of help here.
There is also plenty with which one might take issue. One major example would his assessment of Jesus’ conflict with “the powers,” where, curiously, he ignores the emphasis on confrontation with demons found in the synoptic gospels. There is also his tendency to set up “traditional” interpretations using “straw men.” Some suggestions for further reading would have been useful. All in all, though, the book is well worth the investment of time and money.
