Ascension: Happy Feast!

Today, being 40 days after Pascha (Easter) in the Orthodox Church, is the Feast of Ascension. It is easy to overlook Ascension because Pentecost is just around the corner (10 days from now). It's so easy to get wrapped up with the coming of the Holy Spirit – the power and glory involved in this …

Judge Sotomayor

I don't know enough about Judge Sotomayor to know whether she's going to be good -- as if I know what makes for a good Supreme Court Justice! Ha! (Although the Republicans whining about empathy is pathetic beyond words -- Try to find substance to talk about. You're beginning to sound like E! Entertainment Television.) …

St. Paul, Prof. Dunn, Dr. Waters, and Bultmann (the theologian, not the schnauzer)

Alongside listening to and reading James Dunn (see here and here), in an attempt at balance I have been reading Guy Prentiss Waters' Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul (and have John Piper's The Future of Justification in line after I'm done with Waters). The difference in analytical style is so striking that I …

Justification by Faith and Sacramentalism

I just ran across this summary of the Protestant doctrine of justification from Alister McGrath's Iustitia Dei in a footnote (#335) in James Dunn's The New Perspective on Paul, rev. ed., p. 80f: Justification is defined as the forensic declaration that the believer is righteous, rather than the process by which he is, made righteous, …

Don’t Try This At Home; Leave It To the Professionals

On Thursday the Bank of England and the European Central Bank followed U.S. Federal Reserve's lead in practicing some "Qualitative Easing" (or QE),a practice where central banks buy government debt directly. Of course, central banks don't actually have money, so they have to print it in order to accomplish this sleight of hand. Bill Bonner, …

Justification by Faith

The following quote comes from an evening conversation (third file down) between James D. G. Dunn and N.T. Wright held in 2005 at the University of Durham. Dunn and Wright are discussing St. Paul and about 18 minutes into the second half of the conversation, Tom Wright says the following, responding to Dunn, who just …