Editor’s Note: I would like to begin blogging through Piper’s book. I have no intention to be thorough, but merely to offer some thoughts–whether one paragraph or ten.
Pastor John Piper’s book The Future of Justification attempts to answer Bishop N.T. Wright’s profound affect on the Protestant world. Piper’s book is sure to add a new volume of scholarly dialogue. Though I have not yet begun to interact with the substance of the book, the Acknowledgments offer a helpful model for future interaction. On page 10, Piper writes that “more than any other book…this one was critiqued in the process by very serious scholars.” Among those scholars was Wright himself who offered a 11,000-word response to Piper’s first draft. As a result, Piper’s book will be better for this rich interaction. This to me, is a helpful model for proper engagement. Can you imagine what this would do to our churches if certain Presbyterian writers showed the courtesy to send their first drafts to their theological opponents?
Look, I’m getting tired of this whole N. T. Wright vs. Piper thing. Let’s just reallize that Piper is stuck in the old framework and Wright is looking at things from a new perspective. They’re both saying basically the same thing, but from a different angle. And for crying out loud, justification is justification! We agree on ‘the what’ of the issue. ‘The how’ of it is open to further debate, as with most things in life.