What is Wright isn't Wrong

I've read a few books by Bishop N. T.
Wright. I'll have to admit that I
haven't had the ability to grasp
his arguments in any depth. And, I
admit to wondering if he isn't a closet
liberal. After all, I was trained
by the best at liberal picking. Over
the years, however, I've come to question
my judgements. The below letter goes
a long way in quelling my fears, but
I'll bet most of his detractors will
still mine this letter for hidden quibbles.

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Dear —–

—– has passed on your message to
me. I am distressed that you have been
so misled about my views. I believe
firmly and passionately in scripture,
and even more firmly and passionately
in Jesus himself. I have no idea where
you get the notion that I don’t believe
in the virginal conception, which I
have never doubted and which I have
defended in public, in person and in
print several times. I have no idea
why you think I deny the credibility
of John’s gospel, or for that matter
Ephesians and Colossians. Indeed, I
have defended all of them. And where
do you get the idea that I think that
‘men are being saved by baptism’
(unless, of course, it might be
1 Peter 3.21, of course)? All this
is simply wicked and unpleasant
libel. Who has made these accusations?
Have they read anything I have ever
written?

When it comes to Paul, I have
spent my life trying to understand
his letters in great detail. If you
want to disagree with my interpre-
tations, please disagree with what
I say, and show where I am getting
it wrong, rather than listening to
people who tell you that I am saying
(for instance) that my belief is
some kind of new revelation. Of
course it isn’t! I am teaching what
Paul is teaching, and I am happily
and gladly open to anyone showing
me that my understanding of the text
is wrong. But please read what I
have said, and the reasons I have
given for it, before you say things
like ‘we don’t need God’s righteous-
ness to stand before righteous God’.
Read what I say about the meaning of
‘God’s righteousness’ in Paul. Weigh
it with what the whole scripture says
— the Psalms and Isaiah and so on as
well as Paul himself. Do what the
Beroeans did in Acts 17: search the
scriptures to see whether these things
are so, rather than assume, like the
Jews in Thessalonica, that any inter-
pretation of scripture which you haven’t
met before must be angrily rejected.

This brings me to ‘heaven’. Yes,
in the New Testament of course there
is the hope for being ‘with Christ,
which is far better’ (Philippians 1.26).
But have you not noticed that the New
Testament hardly ever talks about
‘going to heaven’, and certainly never
as the ultimate destiny of God’s
people. The ultimate destiny, as
Revelation 21 makes abundantly clear,
is the ‘new heavens and new earth’,
for which we will need resurrection
bodies. Please, please, study what
the Bible actually says. When Jesus
talks in John 14 of going to prepare
a place for us, the word he uses is
the Greek word mone, which isn’t a
final dwelling place but a temporary
place where you stay and are refreshed
before continuing on your journey.
The point about Jesus being our hope
is that he will come again from heaven
to change this world, and our bodies,
so that the prayer he taught us to
pray will come true at last: thy
kingdom come, thy will be done, on
earth as in heaven. That is God’s will;
that is why Jesus came; that is our
final hope. Of course, Christians who
die before that time go to be with
him in heaven until the time when
the whole creation is redeemed
(Romans 8.18-27 — have you studied
that recently?). That isn’t a ‘symbolic
meaning’, and I confess I don’t know
why you should think it does.

The problem is, I think, that
there are some Christians who have
not been taught what the Bible actually
teaches about the redemption of the
whole creation. The Bible doesn’t say
that the creation — including earth —
is wicked and that we have to be rescued
from it. What is wicked, and what we
need rescuing from, is sin, which brings
death, which is the denial of the
-good creation. When we say the creation
is wicked we are colluding with death.
Sadly, some Christians seem to think
hey have to say that.

I am particularly disturbed when
you say that I am not much different
from the gnostics I am attacking,
and that I have no hope for the lost
world. Hope for the lost world is
precisely what I have in abundance,
precisely because of the death and
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who died for us not so that we could
let death have our bodies for ever
while our souls go off into a disembodied
eternity — that was Plato’s mistake! —
but so that we could be redeemed, rescued
from sin and from the death it produces.

Dear —–, you have been deceived by
what you have found on the internet. Of
course I believe in Jesus. He is the
centre of my life and, though I am a
very imperfect disciple, I adore him and
will preach him to my dying day. Of
course I believe in his gospel. It is
the good news that God so loved the world
(not that God so hated the world). Yes,
there is always a danger that all of us
may distort the gospel, that we can be
deceived, that we may need to inspect
our hearts. But when you suggest I
don’t believe in the whole scripture —
well, I’m sorry, but exactly that
belief is the rock on which the work
of my whole life has been based.

I do hope that you will think again,
continue to translate the book, and
publish it in due course. But perhaps
before you do that you might like to
read one or two of my other books on
the major subjects you have raised.
Particularly The Resurrection of the
Son of God, which has already been
translated into various languages.

With greetings and good wishes
in our Lord Jesus Christ

Tom Wright

N. T. Wright
Bishop of Durham