Lately, I have begun reading The New Testament and the People of God by N.T. Wright. Lord willing, I plan to read his whole series on Christian origins (3 volumes thus far - around 3,000 pages). Wright, Anglican Bishop of Durham, is probably the world's foremost NT scholar. When I was seminary Raymond Brown (who taught at my alma mater for many years) and Joseph Fitzmeyer were viewed as demi-gods.... all we did was read their works, discuss their writings, etc. So, it is going to be nice to get another point of view, though those two are very fair and centerist scholars.
I think that the crisis in biblical studies and interpretation, in addition to the question of authority, are the most pressing issues facing the church today. They are, in my judgement, the direct cause of all of the heresy that the church has infected the church over the last 35 years or so. It is more than a question of authority (e.g. magesterium/papacy) alone, as some Christians seem to think.
The central problem is knowledge and interpretation. Wright advocates a critical realist epistemology and approach to the scriptures over and above a positivistic or completely subjectivist/reader-response type of approach. This reading is a nice contrast to John MacQuarrie's existentialist-Bultmannian approach in Principles of Christian Theology, which I am in the process of finishing up. Briefly, critical realism in the theory of knowledge still allows for something of a Kantian subject-object distinction typically associated with positivism, but also affirms that we genuinely interact with the "object" and bring our own worldview and presuppositions to it. It does not allow for "brute facts", nor does it feign complete objectivity (a common error made in the realm of science). This is a sound principle to keep in mind, not only when reading theology, but when looking at art, listening to music, etc. We do not always interpret various things in exactly the same way, but there are a lot of similarities. Critical realism does allow one to speak truly of reality, but affirms the challenges wrought by reflection and contemplation, as well as the interplay of our presuppositions. Central to Wright's critical realist approach is the idea of the "story". Verification does not happen as a result of observing sense data to see if they fit a hypothesis, but by devising means based on a larger "story", which includes the hypothesis itself. I realize that is confusing, but I don't have room to go into it more. You can read about on pp.38-46 of his book. But suffice it to say, "story" is used in the same way as "worldview". I think that his use of story in this sense is similar to David Tracy's idea of the "classic" (i.e. a classic book), but I will not go into that now.
John Macquarrie, in my opinion, grants far too much neutrality and objectivity to the field of science and biblical studies. He assumes that the movers and shakers in those fields have no bias in their work, which is quite a faulty assumption. And while it doesn't undermine his whole existentialist philosophical theology, I think that it does weaken it at various points. Despite that, Macquarrie still shines - albeit in other ways. I think that his approach, once understood and mastered, is a very creative way to describe and discuss the Christian faith. It is quite useful to be able to explain the tenants of our faith in a variety of ways to reach as many people as possible, so long, of course, as you arrive at the same place. I can see how his model would be more attractive to people of a certain mindset than, say, reciting "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" to them, or talking about how an angel came and visited me one afternoon.
It is good to read a few books at once, especially in related fields, as it can help in understanding them better, and help one get more out of them. I highly suggest both of these books and authors.
