Has The Church Misunderstood Paul? A Critical Look At The New Perspective On Paul -- By: Gary E. Gilley

Journal: Journal of Dispensational Theology
Volume: JODT 16:47 (Apr 2012)
Article: Has The Church Misunderstood Paul? A Critical Look At The New Perspective On Paul
Author: Gary E. Gilley


Has The Church Misunderstood Paul?
A Critical Look At The New Perspective On Paul1

Gary E. Gilley

Gary E. Gilley, M.B.S., Th.D., senior pastor, Southern View Chapel, Springfield, Illinois

Lately, there have been numerous attacks upon cardinal doctrines of the faith, which most Christians have considered secure and untouchable for years. Nathan Busenitz summarized the issue well: “It seems like just about every major doctrine of historic Christianity is currently under attack. Theology proper faces the Open-Theism debate; bibliology is still reeling from higher criticism; and pneumatology is split over the Charismatic question. For Christology the issue is the lordship of Christ; for anthropology it’s Christian psychology; and for ecclesiology it’s the Church-growth movement.”2

Not even the Gospel is safe from attacks by those who claim to be part of the church. The foremost battle being waged at this moment is with regard to soteriology. Emergent church leaders are in the forefront as they remove, rearrange, deny, and undercut the gospel message as found in Scripture.3 Emergent church leaders fight this battle largely on the popular front, but underpinning their views is the theological framework of what has been termed the “New Perspective on Paul.” Similar to most novel and complicated doctrinal positions, the New Perspective on Paul is not monolithic. Views among leading components vary, but there are some definite foundational beliefs that will be addressed.

Origins

The impetus for the New Perspective on Paul appears to be various searches for the “historic Jesus,” which was initiated by Albert Schweitzer in the early twentieth century. Schweitzer was a liberal

missionary/theologian who concluded that Jesus had tried but failed in His quest to rescue humanity. He further denied the trustworthiness of the Scriptures. In contrast to the Reformers, Schweitzer believed that the foundation of Pauline theology was not justification by faith, but Christ-mysticism, or what he called “being in Christ.” One “got into” Christ through baptism, Schweitzer maintained. He was one of the first to advocate that Paul’s theology was derived from his Jewish roots and not from the Hellenistic culture. Therefore, according to Schweitzer’s way of thinking, Paul’s theology and the rabbinical teachings of the first century were very much in harmony.

Rudolf Bultmann, in the mid-1950s, introduced the second dynamic in this search, arising from sk...

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