The Rebirth of Virtue: An Interview with N T Wright by Trevin Wax is well worth the read. It illustrates the challenge of engaging Gospel and culture re UK and USA editions of ethics book by N T Wright, and expounds on virtue (character) ethics. The role of the Christian community is not so clear in the interview but I am pleased to see the role of the Holy Spirit in transforming disciples into the likeness of Christ. I look forward to the book, probably the UK edition for me.

Trevin Wax: “After You Believe is a book about Christian virtue. In fact, the title of the UK version is Virtue Reborn. Why the difference in titles?”

N.T. Wright: “We had discussed the book as a book about virtue, following some work I’d done the previous year for a paper which ended up in Richard Hays’ Festschrift. The people at Harper Collins were excited about the concept but believed that the word “virtue” simply wouldn’t communicate its true content to an American Barnes-and-Noble type audience, which is what they have in mind (following Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope).

“At the same time, Harper realized that in America there is a well-known problem that involves the perception of new converts that, having “prayed the prayer” or “accepted Jesus” or whatever, and being assured of salvation after their death, there seems to be a vacant slot in the in-between bit.

“So… what (other than personal evangelism to get more people into the same position) is one supposed to be doing? What happens, in other words, “after you believe”? I have met this pastorally, so I am aware of the problem, though I have to say it isn’t nearly as common or obvious a problem in the UK (we have other problems but not so often that one!). …”

Trevin Wax: “Can someone be “virtuous” in behavior and yet still be on the wrong path? What is the difference between “virtue” in general and “Christian virtue” in particular?“

N.T. Wright: “All behavior is habit-forming. If we use the word “virtue” and “virtuous” simply to mean “behavior we have had to work at which has formed our character so that at last it becomes natural and spontaneous to live like that”, then obviously it is possible for all kinds of behaviors to be “virtuous” in that sense but not specifically Christian, or quite possibly actually anti-Christian.

“A secret policeman in pre-1989 Eastern Europe may have had to work hard at squashing some humane instincts and developing Party-Comes-First instincts, so that eventually he was an excellent and “authentic” secret policeman but – in Christian terms and actually in human terms too – a seriously malformed human being. A big businessman who squashes humane sensitivity in the quest for yet more money goes the same route. . . you get the point.

“But there are two other things to be said.

“First, the point about “vice”, the opposite of “virtue”, is that, whereas virtue requires moral effort, all that has to happen for vice to take hold is for people to coast along in neutral: moral laziness leads directly to moral deformation (hence the insidious power of TV which constantly encourages effortless going-with-the-flow). The thing about virtue is that it requires Thought and Effort . . .

“Second, the point about Christian virtue is that it claims, all the way back to the Adam-and-Abraham nexus in Genesis 12 and elsewhere and on to 1 Corinthians 15 and Revelation 21-22, that to become part of God’s people is to become a genuinely human being. So many Christians suppose that “normal humanness” is one thing and that “Christian living” is a rather odd and perhaps distorted form of being human, whereas part of the point of being Christian is to be genuinely human.

“Of course, it’s important to realize that there are many distorted ideas of what being “genuinely human” might consist of. But at this point, the Christian church ought to be able to look the wider world in the eye and say, Look: isn’t this what being human was supposed to be all about? The fact that that seems a long way off indicates how far the churches have sunk down from the New Testament’s ideal…

“In particular, the biblical vision of being human is that of being God’s Image-bearers: which means being like an angled mirror, reflecting God’s wise, stewardly love into his creation. The Christian vision is of Jesus as the true image and of Jesus’ followers, shaped by his Spirit, being transformed “into the same image” (2 Cor. 3.18). Thus being truly Christian and being truly human ought to come to the same thing.”

The issue of N T Wright’s view of justification by faith is also the subject of a Trevin Wax interview at Responding to Piper on Justification.