Well, it’s not so new anymore for one thing. It is, however, a perspective on Paul’s writings on justification that suggests that Luther, and Protestantism following him, made the mistake of reading Paul through the lens of a legal mind. It argues that Paul, in relating to Judaism in the first century, doesn’t draw a clear line between a works righteousness legalism of Judaism on the one hand and faith alone Christianity on the other hand. New insights into the Judaism of the day suggested they weren’t the wooden boasters of self-righteousness we’ve been painting them out to be. Instead it suggests that Paul’s principle concern dealt with seeking to understand what it meant to be “in,” to be a part of God’s people, and how that question related to God’s law. I trust such a definition would be deemed reasonably fair if not especially expansive to those who embrace or embraced this view.
It is, however, one of those scholarly debates that a decade or so ago filtered down into educated layperson debates. It became a topic of conversation among the pipe-smoking bearded ones. On the scholar side there was some dots connecting Sanders and Dunn, the two big names in NPP and NT Wright who was, (and is) reaching a broad band of theologically curious laymen. Dr. Wright, in turn, had a significant impact on the thinking of many who came to embrace what came to be known as Federal Vision or Auburn Avenue theology.
The connections, I suspect, ran something like this. Federal visionists, as one can tell by their self-chosen name, were eager to affirm the corporate nature of God’s people. Rejecting crisis decisionism led to embracing varying levels paedo-faith from successional optimism to what some would call sacerdotalism. That is, the movement moved between pilsner to Oatmeal Stout, from a view that suggests we have reason to hope the children of believers are believers, though we can’t know for sure, to the baptized literally are all made believers but must labor to remain so and can fall away. Yikes. Thus the question of seeking to discern who is in and who is not, overlaps the New Perspective and Federal Vision.
Secondly, Federal Visionists and Dr. Wright shared a zeal for the kingdom of God. Both rejected an ideology that suggested that the Christian life consists of getting as many souls on to the lifeboat as possible before the Good Ship Earth sinks into Davy Jones’ end-times locker. If one is a committed justification by faith alone person like me, you can see why this would be troubling. If, however, you are a sawdust trail, the busses will wait, revivalist dispensationalist, you can see why this looks like the fifth plague. In short, there are genuine things to be concerned about from Dunn and Sanders to Wright to pilsener to Oatmeal Stout, though the farther down the road you go the worse it gets.
The good news is that this is generally old news. What drove its spread into the pews, I suspect, was theological pride. When we stopped arguing over reconstructionism a void was left in our puffed up hearts. So we found something novel either to embrace to show how smart we are, or to topple to show how faithful we are. But then I can’t see into people’s hearts of course. I can, however, say this. The sinner who beat his breast and cried out, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner” went home justified. Be that guy.