Christianity as a performance

'One of the things that liberal democratic society has encouraged Christians to believe about what they believe is that what it means to be a Christian is primarily belief! ... This is a deep misunderstanding about how Christianity works. Of course we believe that God is God and we are not and that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit ... but this is not a set of propositions ... rather [it is] embedded in a community of practices that makes those beliefs themselves work and give us a community by which we are shaped. Religious belief is not just some kind of primitive metaphysics ... in fact it is a performance just like you'd perform Lear. What people think is, is that it's like the text of Lear, rather than the actual production of Lear. It has to be performed for you to understand what Lear is - a drama. You can read it, but unfortunately Christians so often want to make Christianity a text rather than a performance.' Stanley Hauerwas, Homiletics Online 2005, cited in Swinton and Mowatt, Practical Theology and Qualitative Research

Dunn and Wright in conversation

There's a really interesting conversation here between James D G Dunn and N T Wright about the New Perspective on Paul.

grace

'grace is not opposed to effort but to earning'
Dallas Willard

The Gift of Tongues

'[tongues] is a gift that can be used to edify the spirit even as the mind is bypassed.' Mark J. Cartledge, The Gift of Speaking in Tongues.
I wonder if this 'bypassing of the mind' has had an effect on Charismatic attitudes to formal theology: if God can be known without intellectual engagement then why bother with academic study!

Evil and the Justice of God

N.T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, (London: SPCK, 2006)


p46 ‘Theologies of the cross, of how God deals with sin through the death of Jesus, have not normally grappled with the larger problem of evil, as I set it out in the first chapter. Conversely, most people who have written about ‘the problem of evil’ within philosophical theology have not normally grappled sufficiently with the cross as part of both the analysis and the solution of that problem. The two have been held apart, in a mis-match, with ‘the problem of evil’ on the one hand being conceived simply in terms of ‘how could a good and powerful God allow evil into the world in the first place?’, and the atonement on the other hand being seen in terms simply of personal forgiveness, of the various categories set out movingly if ultimately inadequately in the hymn, ‘There is a green hill far away’.

some background on the new perspective(s) on Paul

Here is some easy background on the new perspective(s) on Paul: 

article by NTWright on justification.

a new perspective introduction and summary

Wikipedia on E.P.Sanders and 'covenantal nomism'

Wright vs Piper

I'm researching the atonement and justification at the moment. I'll be posting some of the more readable texts here.

interview with N.T.Wright here . Wright summarises his differences with Piper.

A summary of the debate from Christianity Today.