N.T. Wright and the “New Perspective on Paul”

Mark Roberts: N.T. Wright and the “New Perspective on Paul”

N.T. Wright is part of a movement among scholars that is sometimes called the “New Perspective on Paul.” In this movement you’ll find a wide range of opinion on many things as well as plenty of internal disagreement. But all the scholars connected with this New Perspective see Paul differently than he has been interpreted by Lutheran and Reformed theologians for the past few centuries. And this, as you might imagine, has stirred up the pot.

The New Perspective comes, on the one hand, from an effort to understand more accurately the Judaism of Paul’s own day, as well as the passages in Paul’s letters where he sounds quite positive about the Jewish Law (Philippians 3:5-6, for example, where Paul says he was “as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”) On the other hand, advocates of the New Perspective attempt to read Paul in light of his own issues and concerns, rather than in light of historic Protestant issues and concerns. They see Paul as much more interested in the problem of the Jewish and Gentile relationship in the covenant than Martin Luther’s struggle with his own guilt. In the New Perspective, certain key tenets of Protestantism, such as “justification” become revised. “Justification by faith” continues to be a key Pauline and theological concept, but it doesn’t bear the weight that it has within classic Protestant and Reformed theology.

Some of the Reformed and evangelical critics of N.T. Wright have blasted him with language usually reserved for the worst of heretics. They see him as undermining, not only Protestantism, but also the core of Christian orthodoxy. In an astounding move, one denomination has threatened its pastors with explusion if they adopt the New Perspective. Other of Wright’s critics are less inflammatory and dogmatic, but they nevertheless express great concern about his New Perspective reading of Paul.

I’ve been surprised by some of the arguments used against Wright’s exegesis of Paul. …