Even though N.T. Wright has three more chapters to Surprised by Scripture, I believe I can adequately cover them in this post. “How to Engage Tomorrow’s World” (Ch. 10), “Apocalypse and the Beauty of God,” (Ch. 11), and “Becoming a People of Hope” (Ch. 12) all serve as challenges by Wright to Christians of today…
Yes, it was only a matter of time…but you knew the subject of politics was due to come up at some point. After all, if the two things you never talk about in public are religion and politics, then that’s just an invitation to talk about religion and politics. And so, in chapter 9 of…
Unlike chapter 7 in Surprised by Scripture, where Wright took a look at a really big “worldview” issue, chapter 8 gets pretty specific and to a direct point. So what is “Idolatry 2.0”? It’s actually pretty simple: it’s the same old pagan idolatry, but without the pagan names. Let me let Wright explain… First, Wright…
***Let me first apologize for the long post, but it is such a good chapter! If you have read all my posts on Surprised by Scripture, chances are your head is spinning over all the things Wright covers. There’s a lot to digest. Well, when we come to chapter 7, I hope you’ve put on…
If you’re like me, you tend to play a movie-reel in your head as you read the gospels. We can’t help it—living in the age of movies, we naturally allow our view of Jesus to be shaped by the various “Jesus movies” we’ve seen. One particular scene that I think we all view the same…
In chapter 6 of Surprised by Scripture, N.T. Wright tackles the problem of evil: how can you reconcile the reality of evil with a belief in a good God? That is a question that has challenged people for centuries. If you were an ancient pagan, you wouldn’t ask that question, because you didn’t believe there…
I want to take a break from N.T. Wright, and take some time to comment on the recent scandal involving Planned Parenthood and their harvesting of organs from aborted babies for profit. Obviously, one of the key things N.T. Wright emphasizes is the idea of the New Creation and the redemption and transformation of human…
If you do any amount of reading of N.T. Wright, you will quickly see that one of the biggest things he emphasizes about the original gospel proclamation of the early Church wasn’t simply to argue the fact that Jesus was resurrection—although they certainly did do that—but that what Jesus’ resurrection implied about all of reality…
Should women be ordained as ministers? Should women have leadership positions in the church? Generally speaking, your answer to that question pretty much pigeon-holes you into one of two political camps: if you say “no,” then you clearly are a conservative; if you say “yes,” then you clearly are a liberal. This is a good…
In N.T. Wright’s third chapter of Surprised by Scripture, he asks the question, “Can a scientist believe in the resurrection?” In fact, this question does not need to be limited to scientists—it can easily apply to anyone who says, “How can any rational person be a Christian? We all know that dead people can’t come…