For those who are interested...
Here is an email that I just sent to the discerning reader:
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Dear Mr. Schlapfer,
I am writing this email with a sense of sadness because I have enjoyed in the past the email updates/catalogs that I have received from The Discerning Reader. I was disturbed to see your unequivocal endorsement of N.T. Wright on your webpage
http://www.discerningreader.com/ntwright.html, despite the fact that Wright is neither Reformed, nor Biblical with respect to the crucial doctrine of justification.
Your "review" of What Saint Paul Really Said is far off the mark:
"While we realize that this book has raised many questions regarding Tom Wright's "orthodoxy", we find his critics just don't "get it." True, he is not content to simply echo the formulations of the Reformers . . . but what he offers is sound, Biblical teaching. Don't be swayed by those who are uncomfortable with exegesis that goes beyond mere tradition: Tom Wright has something to say to us. In fact, few contemporary authors share his profound vision of what the Gospel Paul proclaimed really is. This is a must read . . . but for true, discerning readers.
The Discerning Reader"
Tom Wright indeed has something to say to us - that we must continue to work to be justified, and that the Biblical doctrine of imputation is a ridiculous fiction:
"If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom." (What Saint Paul Really Said, p.98)
"What Paul is saying is that he and his fellow apostles...are not just talking about God's faithfulness; they are actually embodying it... If, however, you insist on reading 2 Corinthians 5:21 with a meaning [of] 'imputed righteousness' - you will find, as many commentators have, that it detaches itself from the rest of the chapter and context, as though it were a little floating saying which Paul just threw in here for good measure." (WSPRS, 105)
It is not mere tradition that needs defending, but the Biblical definition of words, something that is vital to being "discerning." Thucydides' observation on politics more than 2,000 years ago has particular relevance to the current controversy on justification: "Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence, became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence." (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War III.82 (trans. Richard Crawley))
This, coupled with your disdainful and unwarranted language used with Mr. James White:
Topic: Ruminations on N.T. Wright (aka, "Tom" to those who love and adore him so!). Just a quote to warm you up:
God forgive us, within modernity, when often we as Christians thought that the way to use the Bible to address the world was to abstract large chunky doctrines from the Bible and hurl them at the heads of people who believed large chunky modernist doctrines. You have to deconstruct the Bible in order to do that. Much better to let the Bible be what it is, which is a story, and stories are far more subversive and damaging to other alternative worldviews than large chunky doctrines ever were, which are basically shorthand versions of stories."
There's just no other word for it, James. You are an ass.
rob schlapfer
The Christian Counterculture Project
http://www.christiancounterculture.org
have caused me to determine that whatever worth your company might have for the acquisition of books, it is not worth the damage that will result in lives from such advocacy of false teaching. There are many other sources for the books that The Discerning Reader sells, and I will take my business elsewhere (and recommend to others that they do the same). It is one thing to be undiscerning if one if Borders or Barnes & Nobles, who do not claim to have any ability to recommend sound spiritual and Biblical books, nor do they claim to be Christian (much less Reformed) organizations; it is quite another to be undiscerning when one claims to have the ability to recommend sound spiritual and Biblical books.
Please remove my name from your mailing list.
Respectfully,
Fredrick T. Greco
Ruling Elder, Grace PCA (Hudson, OH)
Chairman, Candidates & Credentials Committee, Great Lakes Presbytery
Member, PCA Theological Examination Committee
M.Div Student, RTS-Jackson
[email protected]
"God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him." (John Owen, IX.171)
[Edited on 10/30/2004 by fredtgreco]
is promoting N.T. Wright in a positive light.
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