parables of a prodigal world

I've added a countdown widget to the official U.S. release of Surprised by Hope , not so much for my readers' edification, but as a personal guage for how much longer I have to sleep (if you can call it that) with my trusty .38 Special under my pillow. Chapters 3 & 4 Early Christian Hope in its Historical Setting and The Strange Story of Easter Chapters 3 and 4 summarize Wright's basic argument for the historicity of the biblical Easter narratives. It is essentially a summary of the entirety of The Resurrection of the Son of God , Wright's masterful but super-sized scholarly treatment of the issue. I'm not going to get too in-depth about most of the points in these chapters. Wright delivered a lecture at the Farday Institute for Science and Religion in May of last year where all of main points of these two chapters are discussed. You can listen to the lecture here . Also, Scot McKnight has summarized the main arguments of these chapters at Jesus Creed . Check th...

Last night I heard muffled footsteps outside my window, and faint whispering. I caught an accent. I couldn't quite make it out, some mix of Irish/Swedish. I knew they'd come, but so soon?! But like I promised, I will press on... Chapter 2: Puzzled about Paradise? In this Chapter, Wright attempts to chronicle much of the sloppy thinking of most Christians in relation to the historical Christian hope, identifies the effects of such sloppy thinking in three areas where it is exemplified and reinforced (in many hymns, in the Church's year, and in funderal services), explores the wider implications of such "muddled" thinking, and concludes by using all this as a springboard for the detailed discussion to come in the rest of the book. The theme of the Chapter, in relation to chronicling muddled Christian eschatological thinking, can be summarized in the following excerpt: "A remarkable example arrived in the mail not long ago; a book, apparently a best-seller, by M...

As frequent visitors to this blog will be well aware, I have always had the utmost respect for N.T. Wright and had considered him not only the foremost Christian scholar working today, but someone who genuinely possessed the desire to see the Gospel of Jesus Christ put to fresh and powerful application in the world today, and to that end has worked to "abolish the law with its commandments and ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it." That was all before I learned that this wretched man had the audacity to authorize his newest book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church , to be released in the U.K. some two months earlier than in the U.S.! I guess all that talk about ecumenism, the unity of God's people, etc., what just a bunch of hot air, eh, good ...

Dan Kimball has posted an article on his blog today regarding the importance of definitions in our theological conversations . Here's a brief excerpt: For example (and these all come from real discussions) - someone may say they believe in.... "the church" - but is their definition of church is more of a building and a place. People who say they "go to church" theologically really can't do that since we are the church. It normally means a building when you say you go to church. So you may hear someone say "church" but they are more defining it by the worship gathering that happens in a building vs. the people wherever they may be. "the Gospel" - someone may say they believe in the Gospel, but what is their specific definition of the Gospel? There may be very significant differences in how one defines that. "missional" - someone may say they are missional, but to them it means focusing most of their time on serving the poor and n...

Traversing the Christian blogosphere over the last few months, I've been struck by something that just came to the fore of my mind this evening. I've seen and read so much of people struggling to follow the Lord Jesus Christ in their many-varied and unique ways, but I tend to see one thing lacking. It was something that G.K. Chesterton picked up on in the closing paragraph of Orthodoxy , one of the great pieces of Christian writing of all time: "And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native c...

My 6-year-old daughter was recently mentioning to me that they had been learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. in her 1st grade social studies class. I was curious about how a teacher could communicate the greatness of someone like Dr. King to a group of 6-7 year olds, so I asked her, "So who was Martin Luther King?" She responded, simply, "He was a man who changed the rules." I was expecting to hear a response that I would need to add to, clarify, to get more in-depth upon, to explain to my unusually bright daughter the details. But when I heard her answer, I could only say "That's right, honey." He was a man who changed the rules. Kind of sums up Jesus, too, don't you think? When my daughter grows a bit older, I might get into the details of how and in what sense Dr. King "changed the rules." I might explain that he didn't literally change the rules, but lived by a model, one taught to him by his Lord, that has a natural tendenc...