N.T. Wright and Our Urgent Task

N.T. Wright is taking part in a point-counterpoint forum at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.  Here is a snippet from the Baptist Press news article on one of his thought-provoking lectures.  Really good stuff on living redemptively.

Armed with the hope that comes from Christ's resurrection and from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, possibilities now exist for lives to be healed and for communities to be mended, Wright said. Followers of Christ should strive to be the model and the means by which renewal comes about in the surrounding communities, he said.

"If we are even beginning to do any of this, we will also be, as part of our conformity to the pattern of the Son of God, people in whom the battle for the Kingdom of God becomes apparent," Wright said.

Indeed, living Christianly in the present postmodern society often proves to be a battle, he said, while noting that postmodernism also can be a positive agent for the spread of God's Kingdom.

"The task of postmodernity within the purposes of God has been to preach the Fall [of man in the Garden of Eden] to arrogant modernity," Wright said. "I regard this as a necessary task."

Modernism taught that mankind could rise to any level, even to the point of redefining good and evil and placing mankind in God's place, Wright said, whereas postmodernism's legacy is that it reminds proponents of modernism that knowledge leads to power and power often corrupts. However, postmodernism cannot complete the task, he noted.

"Postmodernity can condemn, but it cannot give life," Wright said. "In putting down the arrogant modernist self, [postmodernism] collapses all human identity into a morass of invention and experience.

"It carries no possibilities of new creation," he said.

Christianity must take up the challenge where postmodernism falls short, Wright said.

"Though postmodernity has shown the modernist empire to be dangerous, it can't do anything about it. It can't stop it," he said. "Part of the task of living Christianly in today's world and living by a new creation is the task of finding a way through postmodernity and out the other side."

Wright challenged Christians to take seriously the part of the Lord's Prayer that says, "Thy will be done on earth," and to find confidence in Jesus' statement that "all authority in heaven and on earth" has been given to Him.

"We have to learn -- and I think this is the most urgent ethical task of the 21st century -- how to live as new covenant people in new creation, submitting neither to modernism nor to postmodernism nor to empires or anything of the sort but to the Gospel imperative," Wright said.

Comments

[Chris W]

Nice. Here's where we stall, however:

We are talking about WHAT needs to change, WHY it needs to change, but we seem to fall short on HOW to bring about change. (I haven't yet looked at the entire article, so maybe my questions here are addressed by Wright) This post reminds me of our discussion at the Claddagh the other day. We understand that we must change the way we communicate and represent the Kingdom, but how do we put these "new" attitudes into action? What real steps do we within our communities do we take to bring these ideas and ideals forward so that others may experience them and see the fruit of redemptive works? How do we gauge our communities to determine where the needs are?

[Steve McCoy]

I do recommend reading the article, which is still incomplete because it's a news story about a lecture, not the lecture itself. I just didn't want to quote the whole thing.

His basic answer on the practicals is...

"He challenged Christians to work to bring freedom and justice to all peoples of the world. He also called for a renewed commitment to the sacredness of marriage."

"Marriage is a sign of God's future world, as Revelation 21 insists, and it is a sign that must be honored in every way," Wright said."

"And he urged Christians to have a healthy respect and concern for the environment. This, at the least, would demonstrate an understanding that the new creation and new life offered in Christ includes the present world."

[Steve McCoy]

By the way, Chris, I failed to say that your questions are great ones. Thanks for pushing the conversation forward.