Bob (Gundry) on Tom (Wright)

In the recent issue of BBR (24.1, pp. 57-73), Bob Gundry published a critique of Tom Wright’s very popular book How God Became King called “An Exegetical and Biblical Theological Evaluation of N.T. Wright’s How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels.  Many of course will know this book. It is typical of the excellent prose and accessible stuff that we’ve come to expect from Tom’s popular writing. The book’s central thesis is that God’s kingdom came by means of Jesus death on the cross, by means of a non-violent martyrdom. Wright believes that Israel’s theocracy in the OT has been transferred to the church in the New Testament. The story of Israel is now continued in revised form in the story or the church. So this is no private, separatist vision of church life. The church as the new Israel has a revolutionary political agenda, a theocratic politician vision. This political vision is a nonviolent one – power through suffering. Gundry characterizes Wright’s understanding of the mission of the church like this:

The Christian church-especially in the West and most especially in the United States – should oppose the use of military force and accompany the preaching of eternal salvation with philanthropic works in society at large, these works being inherent to God’s continuing to become king on earth as in heaven right now, not merely utilitarian for the purpose of recommending the gospel of salvation in the age to come” (58).

Gundry’s concerns are hermeneutical and exegetical. With the former, the question of the relationship between the OT and the NT, the relationship between biblical Israel and the church, is at the heart. In disagreeing with his thesis, Gundry puts his finger on the most important hermeneutical issue of the book – actually, I think this is the hermeneutical problem of Wright’s whole theological project. Wright argues that the story of Israel comes to its climax in the Gospels, in the story of Jesus. This is not the problem for Gundry. The tension emerges however with what Wright means by this. For his thesis to work, the story of Israel is climaxed in the story of Jesus only after significant revisionism. Gundry sees this clearly:

At this point a tension is to be noted in Wright’s proposal. To support its theocratically political aspect, he stresses that “the four Gospels present themselves as the climax of the story of Israel,” so that “Israel had not been abandoned,” the theory of abandonment being “a gross caricature of the actual biblical story.” On the other hand, through Israel “had not been ‘replaced’ . . .[i]t had been transformed” through the inclusion of “pagan converts.” To the extent that this transformation is emphasized, the theocratically political cast of God’s Israelitish kingdom recedes as, for example, in Jesus’ statement that “God’s kingdom will be taken away from you [the leaders of Israel] and given to a nation [called Jesus’ ‘church’ in Matt 16:18] producing its fruits” (Matt 21:43) and in Paul’s distinguishing “God’s church” from “Jews” as well as “Greeks” (1 Cor 10:32) . . . to the extent he allows difference between the old, monoethnic Israel and a new, multiethnic “Israel” leverage is lost for a transference of the Israelitish political theocracy to the church (59-60).

This is a dense passage. And frankly – I hate to say this – but I would have wished for better prose and a more user-friendly structure to the piece. Gundry’s prose and readability do not compare with Wright’s, at least not here. But muddling through the article is worth one’s time. And I found it illuminating once penetrated. If I read Gundry right (no pun intended) he is saying that Tom can’t have his cake and eat it too. If Tom wants Israel’s theocracy in the church he needs ethnic distinctions and violence. The key line in the passage I think is “To the extent that this transformation is emphasized, the theocratically political cast of God’s Israelitish kingdom recedes.” Wright’s hermeneutic, in other words, can’t deliver his conclusion.

As for the exegesis, Gundry tours some of the most important texts dealt with by Wright in the Gospels to show their lack of support his thesis. Gundry’s point is that the Gospel writers don’t seem to underscore suffering in either Jesus’ ministry or his cross-death. And, more importantly, the cross is not presented by the evangelists as the place of the coming of God’s kingdom. Gundry contents instead that the kingdom of God comes “in spite of” his death on the cross, but by means of it. What’s more, the kingdom story is far from over. Gundry concludes his argument observing the violent climax of the coming of God’s kingdom in Jesus’ second coming. He states, “the violence of divine judgment needs to be incorporated into a comprehensive NT theology of God’s kingdom . . . whether we like it or not, whether we take it literally or figuratively, NT language of final judgment bespeaks violence—violence of an extreme sort, in fact” (71-72). Gundry concludes:

God’s kingdom continued despite the cross, God’s kingdom underwent revision because of the cross, and this revision consisted in the internationalizing of God’s people and the delay of his political rule over the world till the second coming of Christ in resurrected, judgmental power (73).

Perhaps I’m not reading Gundry right (again no pun here), but I wonder if he’s denying too much. I can agree to a point, but I think the atoning death of Jesus on the cross is a necessary element of the kingdom come. It has a preparatory function, much like John the Baptist’s function. For example in Matthew it solves the dilemma of Israel’s national sin, particularly the sin of innocent blood (1:21; 23:30, 35; 27:4, 24, 25). Also, I don’t know if I can go with him on his own form of revisionism. I’d like to hear him elaborate particularly on what he means by the revision of the kingdom because of the cross. I don’t see the cross revising either the nature of God’s people or the timing of the kingdom.