Newsweek has hailed N. T. Wright as one of the world’s leading New Testament scholars. A toned down version of that view was recently reaffirmed at Sewanee, the University of the South, which earlier this semester recognized Wright with an honorary doctorate in Theology. I am the professor of New Testament in the School of Theology at Sewanee, and I recently mustered up the courage to disagree with this assessment of Wright in a letter to the student newspaper, the Sewanee Purple.
It was fascinating to watch my letter go viral in the blogosphere of Wright’s supporters. The relentless name-calling has been painful—painful for what it says about a certain segment of the church and by extension a certain segment of the academy. But there have also been some lighter moments, as when one respondent objected to my criticism of Wright as a book-a-year apologist by saying, “But look how many books he has written!” My favorite one so far has been: “Wright is not an apologist, but a scholar—and a faithful one.”
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