Saturday, January 05, 2008
Wright, N.T. (2006). Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. SanFrancisco: HarperSanFrancisco
But what does it all mean? Here recent generations of Western Christians have taken a drastic w
rong turning. Faced with an increasingly secular world all around, not least with denials that there is any life at all beyond the grave, many Christians have seized upon Jesus' resurrection as the sign that there really is 'life after death'. This just confuses things. Resurrection is not a fancy way of saying 'ring to heaven when you die'. It is not about 'life after death' as such. It is, rather, quite straightforwardly, a way of talking about being bodily alive again after a period of being bodily dead. Resurrection is a second-stage post-mortem life: life after 'life after death'. If Jesus' resurrection 'Proves' anything about what happens to people after they die, it is that. But, interestingly, none of the resurrection stories in the gospels or Acts speaks of the event proving that some kind of afterlife exists. They all say, instead: 'If Jesus has been raised, that means that God's new world, God's kingdom, has indeed arrived; and that means we have a job to do. The world must hear what the God of Israel, the creator God, has achieved through his Messiah.'pp98
From that point of view, as the Eastern Orthodox churches have always emphasized, when Jesus rose again God's whole new creation emerged from the tomb, introducing a world full of new potential and possibility. 99
the world's evil - then clearly there is indeed a task waiting to be done The music he wrote must now be performed. The early disciples saw this, and got on with it. When Jesus emerged from the tomb, justice, spirituality, relationship and beauty rose with him. Something has happened throug Jesus as a result of which the world is a dif-
ferent place, a place where heaven and earth have been joined for
ever. God's future has arrived in the present. Instead of mere echoes,
we hear the voice itself. a voice which speaks of rescue from evil and
death, and hence of new creation.
100
Ot is about becoming agents of God's new world - workers for justice; explorers of spirituality., makers and menders of relationships, creators of beauty
161
three options of understanding God
This is the launch-pad for the specifically Christian way of life. That way of life is not a matter simply of getting in touch with our inner depths. It is certainly not about keeping the commands of a distant deity. It is, rather, the new way of being human, the Jesus-shaped way of being human, the cross-and-resurrection way of life, the Spiritled pathway. It is the way which anticipates, in the present, the full, rich, glad human existence which will one day be ours when God makes all things new. Christian ethics is not a matter of discovering what's going on in the world and getting in tune with it. It is not a matter of doing things to earn God's favour. It is not about trying to obey dusty rule-books from long ago or far away. It is about practising, in the present, the tunes we shall sing in God's new world.
189
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rong turning. Faced with an increasingly secular world all around, not least with denials that there is any life at all beyond the grave, many Christians have seized upon Jesus' resurrection as the sign that there really is 'life after death'. This just confuses things. Resurrection is not a fancy way of saying 'ring to heaven when you die'. It is not about 'life after death' as such. It is, rather, quite straightforwardly, a way of talking about being bodily alive again after a period of being bodily dead. Resurrection is a second-stage post-mortem life: life after 'life after death'. If Jesus' resurrection 'Proves' anything about what happens to people after they die, it is that. But, interestingly, none of the resurrection stories in the gospels or Acts speaks of the event proving that some kind of afterlife exists. They all say, instead: 'If Jesus has been raised, that means that God's new world, God's kingdom, has indeed arrived; and that means we have a job to do. The world must hear what the God of Israel, the creator God, has achieved through his Messiah.'pp98
From that point of view, as the Eastern Orthodox churches have always emphasized, when Jesus rose again God's whole new creation emerged from the tomb, introducing a world full of new potential and possibility. 99
the world's evil - then clearly there is indeed a task waiting to be done The music he wrote must now be performed. The early disciples saw this, and got on with it. When Jesus emerged from the tomb, justice, spirituality, relationship and beauty rose with him. Something has happened throug Jesus as a result of which the world is a dif-
ferent place, a place where heaven and earth have been joined for
ever. God's future has arrived in the present. Instead of mere echoes,
we hear the voice itself. a voice which speaks of rescue from evil and
death, and hence of new creation.
100
Ot is about becoming agents of God's new world - workers for justice; explorers of spirituality., makers and menders of relationships, creators of beauty
161
three options of understanding God
- Pantheism - God in everything
- Deism - God is and world a long way from each other - Christian ethics becomes a matter of struggling to obey a somewhat arbitrary lawcode promulgated by a distant deity. Sin is then seen in terms of breaking laws and salvation is the rescue of humans from the punishment that this deity would otherwise inflict on those that disobey
- God and the world are different but not far apart. There were and are ways in which heaven and earth interlock.
This is the launch-pad for the specifically Christian way of life. That way of life is not a matter simply of getting in touch with our inner depths. It is certainly not about keeping the commands of a distant deity. It is, rather, the new way of being human, the Jesus-shaped way of being human, the cross-and-resurrection way of life, the Spiritled pathway. It is the way which anticipates, in the present, the full, rich, glad human existence which will one day be ours when God makes all things new. Christian ethics is not a matter of discovering what's going on in the world and getting in tune with it. It is not a matter of doing things to earn God's favour. It is not about trying to obey dusty rule-books from long ago or far away. It is about practising, in the present, the tunes we shall sing in God's new world.
189
Comments:
'But, interestingly, none of the resurrection stories in the gospels or Acts speaks of the event proving that some kind of afterlife exists.'
No, the Gospels have Jesus 'proving' there is a resurrection, and saying things like 'I am the resurrection'.
They also have Moses returning from the grave to speak to Jesus.
NT Wright has emailed me to say that it was 'very unlikely' that the Christians in Corinth had heard stories of Moses returning from the grave.
What on earth did Christians spread oral stories of the Gospel events, if such monumental events as the return of Moses from the dead were 'very unlikely' to have been heard?
And why did converts to Jesus-worship in Corinth simply scoff at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse?
Why did Paul not rub their nose in the fact that the Lord and Saviour that they worshipped had allegedly 'proved' a resurrection?
Because Paul thought all discussion of how a corpse could rise from the grave was 'idiotic'.
The corpse dies, he tells the Corinthians. Jesus became a 'life-giving spirit'.
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No, the Gospels have Jesus 'proving' there is a resurrection, and saying things like 'I am the resurrection'.
They also have Moses returning from the grave to speak to Jesus.
NT Wright has emailed me to say that it was 'very unlikely' that the Christians in Corinth had heard stories of Moses returning from the grave.
What on earth did Christians spread oral stories of the Gospel events, if such monumental events as the return of Moses from the dead were 'very unlikely' to have been heard?
And why did converts to Jesus-worship in Corinth simply scoff at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse?
Why did Paul not rub their nose in the fact that the Lord and Saviour that they worshipped had allegedly 'proved' a resurrection?
Because Paul thought all discussion of how a corpse could rise from the grave was 'idiotic'.
The corpse dies, he tells the Corinthians. Jesus became a 'life-giving spirit'.
