Christianity Today: Everyone Wins a Trophy

St. Peter and St. Paul (El Greco)

One of the most significant events in European and world history could have occurred because of a misunderstanding over a single word in the New Testament.

These ["New Perspective on Paul"] scholars begin with the contention that the Protestant reformers mistakenly read 16th-century debates about grace and works into the writings of Paul.

When Paul insisted that no man is justified by “works” or “works of the law,” they insist, he wasn’t criticizing the Judaism of his day as a legalistic or works-based system of earning divine favor.

It's impossible to understate the importance of Martin Luther's 95 Theses, posted on the door of Wittenberg Castle church in 1517. Luther questioned the Catholic Church's use of indulgences, the purchase of which would result in sins being forgiven. (Indulgence purchases were a form of "good works" through which one could enter heaven.)

Martin Luther (Smithsonian)

Martin Luther declared sola fide ("faith alone") based on his reading of Paul's letters to the Romans and Ephesians. According to Luther indulgences were unnecessary to "justification" (right-standing before God). The authority, not to mention a source of funding, for the Church was challenged, and the Protestant Reformation began.

Some modern scholars, however, now say that Luther's interpretation of Paul's view on good works was over-broad:

Messrs. [James] Dunn and [N.T.] Wright contend he was talking about cultural “boundary markers” separating Jews from gentiles. These include rituals and practices such as sabbath observance, circumcision and food laws.

Whether or not their view is correct, WSJ columnist Barton Swaim opines that the new Perspective allows Christianity to de-emphasize not only the faith-good works debate but also heaven, hell, sin, and faith:

My own suspicion is that the New Perspective achieved popularity mainly because young Protestant ministers would rather talk about inclusion and breaking barriers than about the guilt of sin and the pointlessness of trying to erase it by a regimen of good deeds.

I am not definitively persuaded about priests' motivations ("Judge not, that ye be not judged."-Matthew 7:1), but in a society where everyone wins a trophy it makes a lot of sense.