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Originally Posted by turmeric  Not the NPP? I read a book by Stendhal and he was espousing basically what Wright was saying, that we've historically misunderstood justification - isn't that what the FV is saying? Of course, it's more of a Presbyterian flavor, not Anglican a la Wright. |
There are points of contact between the two. However, the NPP is a New Testament scholarship phenomenon, and originated with Krister Stendahl, George Foote Moore, W.D. Davies, and then the bombshell of E.P. Sanders's book on Palestinian Judaism. In fact, it would be more accurate to state that the NPP is more like a new perspective on second-temple Judaism, claiming that Judaism was a religion of grace, not a religion of works. Hence, legalism wasn't really Paul's target. Rather, he was aiming against exclusivism. So, when it comes to phrases like "works of the law," the interpretation does not exclude all works from justification, but only those which exclude Gentiles, such as circumcision, and dietary laws.
The Federal Vision is a churchly movement, and is concentrated much more on the doctrine of the covenant, with implications for election, justification (this is where the most connection between the two lies), assurance, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. Of course, from the NPP, N.T. Wright has many overlapping concerns with the FV (more so than either Sanders or Dunn, neither of whom could be called evangelical). Hence, you have Mark Horne, Rich Lusk, and Steve Schlissel (all FV guys) appropriating great swaths of Wright's theology (though by no means all of it), whereas you have Doug Wilson repudiating the NPP for the most part.
On the issue of justification, none of the NPP guys have it right. Some of the FV guys are much closer to Reformed orthodoxy than some others. Doug Wilson, for instance, is much closer than Rich Lusk, Steve Wilkins, and Steve Schlissel. But their impetus for their doctrine of justification comes primarily from Norman Shepherd, not from N.T. Wright, although some influence from the latter is there. They wind up saying similar things about justification, ultimately, but because of different reasons: the NPP says different things about justification primarily because of its understanding of Second Temple Judaism, while the FV says different things about justification because of Norman Shepherd.