Yeah. N.T. Wright'll Do That
Anglican scholar N.T. Wright has the ability to get my brain engaged like few other Christian writers. Keep in mind that I have fundamental disagreements with his approach to hermeneutics as well as his eschatology (and, in a new development after reading his latest book, his soteriology), but he's a fabulous thinker.
Anyway, here's some stuff for you to chew on after a week of vacation blather...
"Far too much traditional church has consisted of too much tradition and not enough church. What I'm saying is, think through the hope that is ours in the gospel; recognize the renewal of creation as both the goal of all things in Christ and the achievement that has already been accomplished in the resurrection; and go to the work of justice, beauty, evangelism, the renewal of space, time and matter as the anticipation of the eventual goal and the implementation of what Jesus achieved in his death and resurrection. That is the way both the genuine mission of God and to the shaping of the church by and for that mission.
All of this means, of course, that the people who work at and for this mission in the wider world must themselves be living, modeling, and experiencing the same thing in their own lives. There is ultimately no justification for a private piety that doesn't work out in actual mission, just as there is ultimately no justification for people who use their activism in the social, cultural, or political sphere as a screen to prevent them from facing the same challenges within their own lives--the challenge, that is, of God's kingdom, of Jesus lordship, or the Spirit's empowering. If the gospel isn't transforming you, how do you know that it will transform anything else?"
(helpful hint: he uses the word "justification" in the normative sense, not the theological one)
Wow. The first sentence and the last sentence are enough to get you going...but manalive what I wouldn't give to think like that and write like that.
*pours coffee & laughs to himself, knowing these two paragraphs are pregnant with variables where the discussion can go, which is what's best about The Diner*
Anglican scholar N.T. Wright has the ability to get my brain engaged like few other Christian writers. Keep in mind that I have fundamental disagreements with his approach to hermeneutics as well as his eschatology (and, in a new development after reading his latest book, his soteriology), but he's a fabulous thinker.
Anyway, here's some stuff for you to chew on after a week of vacation blather...
"Far too much traditional church has consisted of too much tradition and not enough church. What I'm saying is, think through the hope that is ours in the gospel; recognize the renewal of creation as both the goal of all things in Christ and the achievement that has already been accomplished in the resurrection; and go to the work of justice, beauty, evangelism, the renewal of space, time and matter as the anticipation of the eventual goal and the implementation of what Jesus achieved in his death and resurrection. That is the way both the genuine mission of God and to the shaping of the church by and for that mission.
All of this means, of course, that the people who work at and for this mission in the wider world must themselves be living, modeling, and experiencing the same thing in their own lives. There is ultimately no justification for a private piety that doesn't work out in actual mission, just as there is ultimately no justification for people who use their activism in the social, cultural, or political sphere as a screen to prevent them from facing the same challenges within their own lives--the challenge, that is, of God's kingdom, of Jesus lordship, or the Spirit's empowering. If the gospel isn't transforming you, how do you know that it will transform anything else?"
(helpful hint: he uses the word "justification" in the normative sense, not the theological one)
Wow. The first sentence and the last sentence are enough to get you going...but manalive what I wouldn't give to think like that and write like that.
*pours coffee & laughs to himself, knowing these two paragraphs are pregnant with variables where the discussion can go, which is what's best about The Diner*
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