How Do I Get to Heaven?
I'm just finishing up NT Wright's latest book, The Last Word, and once again (in my humble opinion), he knocks the ball out of the park. One of the wonderful things he does in this book is to take the reader through a 'broad brush-stroke' history of how the Church has understood the authority of the Bible over the past two thousand years.When he gets to the effects of the Enlightenment on our understanding of the Bible, and specifically the "Kingdom of God," Wright sums up the source of the problem which has led to so many people viewing Christianity in the way that this silly tract portrays it. I wish I could get everyone in the modern evangelical church to read the following quote and understand it:
"Much would-be Christian thought (including much would-be 'biblical' Christian thought) in the last two hundred years has tacitly conceded these huge claims [reducing the act of God in Jesus Christ to mere moral teaching and example], turning the 'Kingdom of God' into 'the hope for heaven after death' and treating Jesus' death, at the most, as the mechanism whereby individual sinners can receive forgiveness and hope for and otherworldly future--leaving the politicians and economists of the Enlightenment to take over the running, and as it turns out the ruining, of the world" (89, italics mine).
He goes on to say that the result is that "Scripture itself, meanwhile, is muzzled equally by both sides. It is squelched into silence by the 'secularists' who dismiss it as irrelevant, historically inaccurate and so on--as you would expect, since it might otherwise challenge their imperial dreams. Equally worrying, if not more so, it is squashed out of shape by many of the devout, who ignore its global, cosmic and justice-laden message and treat it only as the instrument of personal piety and the source of true doctrine about eternal salvation" (89, italics mine).
I can't believe so many of us have totally missed the point of the resurrection (God's act of saving and restoring the cosmos), and have bought into an individualistic 'sales pitch' understanding of the gospel. Any thoughts?
posted by DrewDog at 2:26 PM
6 Comments:
If agree with you, do I get to go heaven?
As long as you pray the prayer.
So do I have to ask NT Wright into my heart?
You did say you wanted to get to heaven, didn't you?
So what are you or NT Wright suggesting we to do differently?
Get more involved in politics and economics? What is the global, cosmic and justice-laden message?
I think it starts a lot more simply than that, Vijay. It starts by understanding some of things from my earlier post on "gospel" and "justification;" and my post (a long time ago) entitled "Our Ultimate Hope."
I don't have the space here to delineate it, but you've given me a great idea for my next post!
In short though, it's not about getting to heaven, it's about serving Christ, building His Kingdom, and awaiting the ressurection of the saints, as well as the rest of the cosmos. The gospel is global, cosmic and justice-ridden for this very reason. God has brought justice, and will complete that at the parousia, and as it says in Romans, all creation groans in waiting to be restored.
We proclaim that Jesus is Lord and Caeser is not, and we teach people to pray that God's kingdom would come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven; knowing that this will actually happen some day. I think that if we Chrsitians could start understanding the true gospel as opposed to the muddled, post-enlightenment counterfeit gospel, a lot of other things would start falling into place.
Much more needs to be said, but I don't want to blogsquat on my own comment section.
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