N.T. Wright debated James White on the doctrine of justification. That’s all you need to know:
(HT: Lawrence Garcia via Facebook)
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N.T. Wright debated James White on the doctrine of justification. That’s all you need to know:
(HT: Lawrence Garcia via Facebook)
the archives near Emmaus 
No. They didn’t debate. N.T. Wright gave a brilliant presentation and James White made some background noise.
lol, sounds devastating. I haven’t listened yet, but that outcome wouldn’t surprise me.
Who is James Wright?
It’s a requirement that N.T. Wright just be awesome at everything he does. The guy could read the phone book and it’d be spellbinding. I listened to this one as soon as I could and had been looking forward to it all week. After all, Wright is just awesome and James White is just, to me at least, extremely annoying.
Ooops. I mean who is James White. N.T I am well versed with. I have to say I enjoy listening to him more than I do reading him.
Thanks for sharing the discussion!
I’m not terribly familiar with White. I think he is an apologist and I think he is Reformed. Other that that, all I know about him is the articles I’ve seen linked from him by some people I know. Whenever I have read them (very, very rare) I find them overly simplistic, so I don’t pay attention to him much.
Reblogged this on In the Text and commented:
HT: Brian LePort
Excellent debate. In the end i would agree more with Wright and his claim that we need to let the scriptures speak for themselves and not impose any categories on it, even pastoral concerns.
@Craig Benno, James White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries.
Brian, to be honest, I’m somewhat shocked by this. Perhaps this is on account of me not taking White that seriously. At any rate, I’ll check it out.
This was embarassing…
I listened to this whole thing; I think NT Wright is a brilliant guy, and I appreciate him immensely! I would rather have heard though Simon Gathercole engaging with Wright instead of White (who is a very idiosyncratic Reformed Baptist. He obviously just was not prepared to actually engage Wright, and I felt like I was listening to an interchange between a college freshman and their esteemed professor. I think at the end of the day that Wright is half-baked and needs a more radical Christology informing his wits instead of the ecclesiology he has presently.
There still is theological exegesis going on for all of us, including Wright; and I think he needs to be more forthcoming about that. For example it is not enough to say, as Wright does, that he affirms the Trinity and hypostatic union and then not the inner logic of these realities impinge upon the categories from which one interprets. It is not extrabiblical to do this, but intrabiblical in the sense that who God in Christ is orients the whole canon of Scripture. It isn’t second temple Judaism that can ultimately provide this meaning, but instead the concrete particularity that actually contradicts that in Christ’s life itself. So the categories through which we interpret must have Jesus as their explicit orientation, or like the Pharisees we will miss the ultimate import of the scriptures, and think the Scripture itself and its study provides salvation.
Anyway, I just think Wright’s error is that he cobbled everything under ecclesiology and not Christology.
Roger
You’re welcome.
TC
White does seem like an odd choice. Maybe he presented himself as an option?!
Craig Benno asked “Who is James White?”
He is someone who brings out the worst in me .. some who challenged my sense of grace .. and makes me think un-Christlike thoughts.
More generally, James White is a Calvinist who spends most of his time exerting his great intellectually talent and energy evangelizing to fellow Christians about their (theological) shortcomings, snatching them for Calvin, rather than to the unsaved, snatching them out of damnation.
He has great zeal but little grace.
I beg forgiveness ..
At least he showed respectful restraint in this debate ..
White complains about only having 70 hours to prepare for this debate and then goes on to say that he spent several years in the past decade studying the topic. Sorry, James, but you can’t have it both ways.
On the bright side, I thought both White and Wright were very gracious. It was refreshing to hear something more of a dialogue than a virulent attack session on this issue.
Andrew. I contend that he had to. He knew school was in session and that he was about to get smacked down by the professor if he talked out of line. For once, he constrained his ego. Yes. I too am one who finds White to be thoroughly annoying, particularly because of his stance on Calvinism.
Yet I think he’s also a fundamentalist who needs his priorities rearranged. Consider this quote of his I used in my blog yesterday.
“First, William Lane Craig was not jesting with his atheist opponent. He was being perfectly serious in suggesting that his opponent become a Christian “who simply doesn’t believe in inerrancy.” Can you make heads or tails out of such a suggestion, sir? What was Craig asking him to do? Believe Jesus died and rose from the dead solely on the basis of the “greater probability” of the event from a historical perspective? What if his opponent then asked, “But, even if I believe that, what does it have to do with me…and don’t answer by reference to the Bible, since, of course, I don’t believe it is a divine revelation to begin with.” What then? Given the context of the debate, was it not obvious that having this as the final statement made by Craig that night communicated very clearly that the authority, accuracy, and consistency of the Bible is very low on his list of apologetic priorities? Do you think this was a wise way to end the debate? Do you think it is wrong to point this out and discuss it and point to a better way? Why is it “harsh” of me to do so?”
Why yes. I can imagine telling someone to be a Christian even if I disagree with them on something like Inerrancy. Would White be scared to examine the historical evidences of the resurrection? Can you only know Christianity is true upon a presuppositional basis? (And don’t get me started on presuppers.)
btw, White’s response is here if any one wants to make sure I’m being accurate. http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=4790
This is an attitude I think is killing the church today and our youth are the casualty.
apologianick – that’s exactly an example of what disappoints me about White, or more accuractly frustrates me.
I get that White doesn’t agree with Craig theologically – but why snip at his heals like a laptop looking for attention; the heals being those of one of this generation’s greatest theological apologists, given the role Craig plays refuting doubt, and the befuddled thinking of disbelievers, combined with the respect he garnishes from the atheist community for his rational approach to faith. Agree with Craig or not – he’s playing for the good team!
White should recognize this and spend his time elsewhere – namely engaging non-believers. (To be fair he’s been doing more of this recently with his focus shifting to Muslims … however .. he still can’t resist taking on fellow Christiansay (in the mocking way that he does).
… lapDOG not lapTOP …
(silly spell check)
Will Lee, James White was saying that he usually spends months preparing for a debate and in this case it was 70 hours. He studied the NPP in 2003, 10 years earlier, so his freshest material was the 70 hours he recently studied.
I listened to the debate and actually think that if you are not a fanboy of either man (as obviously some of the above commenters seem to be), they scored fairly even.