Gas Too!

“Refusing to admit narrative into this debate is therefore like refusing to put petrol in a car because you know that what you need to drive is tyres and a steering wheel.” – N.T. Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective

I like the way Wright writes. This is my first foray into his corpus and, so far, it has been delightful (of course, this quote comes from page 9, so we’ll see how he holds out). Paul was one of the books cited in the PCA Study report and, from the preface, this book looks to give a fairly concise summary of some of the issues involved in the FV/NPP controversy. It is “this debate” that Write is referring to in the quote above, well the NPP side of it for him at least. The title of the book is telling in a way because Wright wants to, I think (and I’ve read elsewhere in the blogosphere), separate him self, to a certain degree, from those who are participating in the new perspective(s) movement. Though he has contributed largely to it (again, as I’ve been told and as I’ve read elsewhere), it seems to be going in directions that he, perhaps, is not comfortable with.

As to the quote itself, this analogy seems quite an appropriate analysis of what’s going on with all of these reports coming out in the Reformed arena. I’ve always felt a certain affinity for narrative, perhaps due to my love of books/story in general (and all the videogames I’ve played) and my college years only bolstered my conviction that there’s a distinct lack of emphasis regarding narrative as far as systematic theology is concerned. It is likely why I consider myself an FV sympathizer; FV theology resonates with me on that narrative level where the formality of systematic theology and the practicality of biblical theology meet. And I don’t mean “meet” like when you meet new friends, I mean “meet” like accelerated nuclei. To go with Wright’s analogy here, many of the reports are concerned with the integrity of the steering wheel and the tires, which really is important. But most of the FV/NPP people are asking questions about gas, not about the tires and steering wheel (much less about the vehicle as a whole).