Kim Gentes

NT Wright has two kinds of primary writing that I am aware of- the scholarly tomes debating and explaining nuances of his theological positions to other academics (such as Jesus and the Victory of God) and the short but complete books meant for summary and concision of a topic for use by pastors and lay people (such as Simply Christian). When I first got my paperback of "Paul: In Fresh Perspective" I assumed it would be a book in the second style- pastoral, easily read and without the dense pressure of theological details. I was right, and wrong.

In this book, Wright definitely is aiming to speak concisely and clearly about a deeply complex set of issues. And in that, the author succeeds marvelously. The book is easy to follow, well structured and moves clearly from point to point, in a building progression. But the book does not "boil down" the points of Pauline theology into a few clichéd notes. Instead Wright grasps with the breadth of not just our perspectives, but with Paul's. In doing so he turns the understanding of Paul's theology away from our context and into Paul's 1st century, monotheistic, Jewish worldview intersecting with the Greek philosophical underpinnings which were itself pounding its ideologies onto the imperial Roman world.

Wright compresses Paul's world into seventeen deft pages of introduction that orients the reader for the journey to discovering- what was Paul really saying about Jesus, the Spirit, Israel, salvation and God. It would be hard to stack together a work that collapses so many controversial theological pivot points as Wright has done here. But he has done it, and done it without sounding defensive, contradictory or condescending. More than that- he has done it convincingly.

The meat of the book is divided into two main parts. The first part deals primarily with the themes that Wright sees in both Paul and the first century Jewish world- creation & covenant, Messiah and apocalyptic, and gospel and empire. Wright lays these themes out for us to grasp the narrative into which Jesus came and from which Paul is now speaking.

The second part of the book deals with resultant conclusions that the work of Jesus now makes within the context of the themes discussed in the previous section. Wright paints the "fresh perspective" across the primary topics of God (monotheism), God's people (election), and God's future (eschatology). The author wraps up this section by looking pointedly at Paul's personal and specific work, and some specific theological hot-points that Wright moves to clarify via more redefinitions of context.

In both of these sections Wright is taking on the task of, as he puts it, thinking Paul's thoughts after him. This is important to realize as a major mechanism employed by the author because the primary assumption he starts with on all of Paul's work (on every subject Paul presents) is that the apostle himself is actually redefining all of the major components of the Jewish theology and narrative around their fulfillment in and through the work of Jesus, his life, vocation, death on the cross and resurrection. The entire force of Wright's arguments are based on his belief that Paul was taking his Jewish monotheistic narrative, redefining it in Jesus as the Christ, and representing it to both Jews and Gentiles alike who found themselves within the context of the Hellenistic world of Roman imperialism.

For example, a snapshot of this is his statement that God was becoming king in the person of Jesus, and the impact of this on the new people of God (the church) meant that Jesus was now king and not Caesar. The shock waves of these kinds of statements are expounded in the Pauline context and purposefully extirpated from our own. The intersection of culture, politics, and religion that we would segment in the 21st century is brought to light as an inappropriate revisionist viewpoint founded in our modern enlightenment worldview. Wright is careful to return to such nuances when necessary, hoping to remind the reader that Paul (and his 1st century world) would not have seen these things the way we do, and thus we must read Paul with his lenses on, not ours. My review would be in danger of becoming more lengthy than the source being reviewed if I tried to quote and support in any level of detail, but perhaps this will whet your appetite to dig into this breathtaking work by this brilliant scholar.

After having read a few other of Wright's books, I was surprised at how short, yet dense this book was. At about 175 pages, this book holds a profound amount of content. In fact, I am now on my fifth reading of the book in the last 12 days, simply because it took me that many repetitions to draw out some of the details, only after I could hold together the main points after a couple of readings. Each page, each paragraph is thick with explanation and exploration. Yet, it is not written as a cryptic scholarly "thesis" with a standard 30% footnote margin at the bottom. This book is very readable, and the words do not require a dictionary to read. But Wright has written this book so well, so densely that it does require digestion time- or like me, re-reading multiple times.

Of interest to the "Pauline" debaters and scholars is Wright's approach to the doctrine of "justification". I would only say this- if you haven't actually read this book, please don't try to attack its premise on this topic. I understand the desire for many to do so, since the point of justification by faith is so seminal to reformed theology and does (by some accounts) go back as far as Augustine. Wright's keen mind, his work as a historian and his equal desire to translate the 1st century message for our 21st century minds in a way that would allow us to understand his theories make all of this possible and accessible even if juxtaposed to what we've been polarized to believe.

An excellent book, incredibly well-written, with powerful (and fresh) perspectives on key Christian thinking.

Amazon Link: http://amzn.to/17pAy9R

Review by Kim Gentes

It's true. There is a long history of a small segment of Christianity that has held to the belief that God will save all people, even those that reject him on this earth. Rob Bell's recent book "Love Wins" takes a look at another spin of this age-old concept of universalism.  Bell writes and thinks well. There is no denying it. But ultimately he stays well within the context of the best argument for universalism- human reason and human attribution of the qualities of "love" on to the Divine Person.  As long as you use logic that does not look at all the scriptural record, and rely heavily on personal anecdotes to frame the "kind of God" that you are willing to believe in (and that He is a good God), then you can arrive at the doctrine of universalism and feel pretty good about it. And this is primarily what Bell does.

I was surprised at how anecdotal the entire book was. I love much of Bell's writing, but his treatment of this topic relies initially on a logical progression of human reasoning (not based primarily on Scripture) and ignores investigation, explanation and support of key texts that seem to contradict Bell's thesis. I wanted to emotionally agree with Rob Bell. But neither the specific texts of the Bible that might seem to support universalism (but on deeper look, do not), the historical context of Jesus timeframe or a comprehensive review of all Scripture (including texts which clearly contradict universalism, and overtly declare literal judgment in a literal hell) line up to do anything but refute the premise and content of "Love Wins". I am not a Bell basher, and I appreciate and like some of his other works. Throughout, there are a number of concepts based on specific redefinitions of words (such as forever not actually meaning "eternal", hell not meaning a non-earthly place of punishment but instead meaning "Hell is our refusal to trust God’s retelling of our story"[1] according to Bell). And you see the conflict here- yes Hell could include our refusal to trust God's retelling, but it is a definition that removes the imagery Jesus used of suffering and eternity.

 Bell begins with exploring some thoughts about what kind of God we might be talking about, who is ultimatley in control, some thoughts about hell as a concept (placing it on earth mostly, and certainly not as a reality in the ethereal world), understanding more about what God's desires are and how they might work and ultimately towards a conclusion that just assumes that a good God would not send a person intentionally to a painful punishment for all eternity. But Bell uses conjecture as his backbone to the book, not scripture. He proof texts some support when possible, but does not draw his primary thoughts from the bible.

I love that Bell asks so many profound questions. For this, his voice is refreshing. But "Love Wins" ultimately answers none of its questions except to give universalism a "pass" because ultimately Bell's anecdotal view of life leads him to that conclusion.

Amazon Product Link: http://amzn.to/sHSMrk

Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Bell, Rob. "Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived". (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2011) Kindle Edition.  Pg. 170