He interprets GAFCON as part of a narrow-minded aggressive conservative Evangelical plan to plant churches illegally under the noses of other gospel churches. If this were the plan, which I don't think it is, it would be one that was kept secret from those at the All Souls briefing and it would be unfair to assume that those who signed the pro-GAFCON petition, as I did, were following it.
I'm a Reformed Conservative Evangelical Anglican but I don't see myself in Wright's description of:
the small-but-loud English group are extremely low-church and anti-social-justice-as-part-of-the-gospel, whereas most of the American reasserters are high-church with strong social concern as part of their kingdom-theology.
Maybe High Church Calvinist / evangelical or Reformed Catholic would be a labels I would be more happy with in some ways!
I think the concern of evangelicals is that social justice should not be confused with the gospel nor should social action displace gospel preaching. Surely we all agree that there will be social justice in the New Creation as fruit of the gospel and we would welcome and work for all that we see of it now as much as we can as part of the spread of the influence of the Kingdom of Christ, if not necessarily itself the "Kingdom" as such.
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Mark
To get an idea of how Tom Wright's thinking works on these matters, you have to see that for him a consequence of the resurrection is that we should relinquish Third World debt (see Surprised by Hope).
Whilst I am all for debt relief, I am not convinced it should be quite so near the top of the list of things the resurrection requires. (I also can't see why, if it applies in the Third World, it shouldn't apply to people in crippling personal debt in this country.)
Thanks, John.
Yes. I disagree with N T Wright on that. Not sure I am all for debt relief as it happens - I would share your concerns.
But I guess we would say that there are ethical and political entailments / consequences / agenda items of the gospel and some of them may be pretty important or urgent depending on the context etc?
E.g. abolition of the negro slavetrade in the 19th C?
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