I has been worth the wait; the arrival of Wright's new book "Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision" in the mail today prompted me to get Piper's "The Future of Justification: A response to N. T. Wright". Two books that are making headlines, especially Wright's book which has 'the most debated about blurb in the blogsphere', plunging into the great Justification debate. I'm not really sure whether I will be blogging on the two books but lets see how it goes.
But one book that I will blog about is this one...
...a book written by a local pastor detailing the revival that changed a small, animistic tribal group in the jungles of Borneo called the Kelabits. Actually I am a full blooded Kelabit, so this would be exiting to share about. The book is called "The Bario Revival" and is written by Rev. Solomon Bulan and his sister Lillian Bulan-Dorai. Here is a link with a short description of the book. 
4 comments:
I am excited to hear about this book about the revival in Borneo. I am jealous that you had access to Tom's new book already... not available here until June!
I'll post something soon on the Bario revival. And Wright's book, i saved some money so I had to get the UK version, the American one by IVP just not worth the wait! Come on man, June!!! I couldn't wait that long hehe.
I too have to wait until June, no idea why IVP couldn't time its release with SPCK.
I read Piper's The Future of Justification when it first came out, and I'll be looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it.
Personally I appreciated that he was relatively respectful and gracious about the whole thing. Yet I still felt he was missing the point of what Wright is getting at, and tended to lean more on the argument that Wright was diverting from Reformed creedal tradition, rather than using historical biblical context.
In fact, Piper actually argues against reliance on first century evidence, which I thought was profoundly disturbing, and far from the spirit of the Reformers.
Mason,
I thought Piper was gracious too when i heard he actually sent his manuscript for Wright to read and critique. I don't see many who do that. But I does make me wonder how their interaction shaped the book because Piper it seems to me still doesn't seem to understand Wright.
But that is just my initial thought, because I haven't read Piper's critique of Wright's views. With what you said, i think reading Piper's book would be where i should start first.
And on Piper arguing against first century evidence, it is disturbing indeed. Imagine the length of how new discoveries have shaped our understanding of scripture. I don't presume however that the reformation is the pinnacle point of where we stop with evidence that would enhance or even strengthen our views of interpretation. I think too many in the reformed circles aren't ready to accept that fact.
I also observe that reformed circles want explanations of doctrines to follow a certain way. Any explanation or attempt that 'diverts' normal methods of explaining doctrines are assumed to be wrong.
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