More Than Stone

Here are some more links for the talks by N. T. Wright

St. John’s

Church Of The Holy Spirit

Have fun!

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For those of you interested in N. T. Wright, Roanoke College has made the talk available for download.

There may be more downloads coming….

Enjoy!

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Wright maintains that many Christians start off with personal salvation, and there it begins and there it ends. New Creation is often simply an appendage. Did God create the world and say “It is Good”, only to then say “Well never mind, on second thought, it’s not that good, but I WILL save you from it (creation or the world)”

Romans 8
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

What is our inheritance, Wright asks. Is it heaven? No, it is New Creation.

“Heaven is important, but it’s not the end of the world. The Holy Land has not been abandoned, but broadened. “

Range of metaphors for new creation;

Harvest: God is sowing new creation

Marriage: New Jerusalem is the bride. Heaven and earth will be one

Military victory: Final battle whereas sin and death will be defeated.

Birth: Groaning in travail, the new creation from the old.

Court setting: The God of justice. God will sort it all out.

In Judaism, the temple was viewed as a place where heaven and earth overlapped. Torah study was also a place that this overlap took place. Jesus isn’t “coming back”. He’s already here. He will appear. The curtain will be torn apart. As new creations, we, by the Spirit, can sometimes see through the curtain as a thin veil and glimpse the new creation.

Wright maintains that many Christians today have forgotten about new creation and bodily resurrection. This can be seen by the change in tombstone engraving. Up until the mid-18th century, many tombs were engraved with things such as “I shall arise”. Now, we see “Gone Home” on many tombs, as though heaven is the final destination. He tells a joke about an Anglican and a Baptist:

Baptist: What is your position on eschatology?
Anglican: He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. There will be bodily resurrection, and his kingdom will have no end.
Baptist: That’s all?
Anglican: That’s enough.
Baptist: That’s refreshing.

What God did for Israel and Jesus, He will do for you and I, but also for the whole of creation.

Technorati Tags: N.T. Wright, Tom Wright, New Creation, Baptist, Anglican

Here’s the first lesson I learned after attending a lecture by N. T. Wright.

Good luck taking notes.

The man is a geyser of information. The best you can do is hold on and enjoy the ride. With that said, I will give you my best recollection and a few quotes from the talk, “Apocalyptic and The Beauty of God.”

Using Revelation 21-21 as his backdrop, Wright spoke about the the role of apocalyptic in the arts. He wondered if we could rescue apocalyptic from the “Left Behind” hermeneutic. He juxtaposed the 2 current leanings in the arts; sentimentalism versus brutalism. Brutalism recognizes only the evil and shame of this world, sentimentalism, only the beauty. Wright contends that it is the job of the artists in the Church to bring a creative tension that speaks of the evil and pain of this world without ignoring the beauty.

The whole earth is filled with God’s Glory (Is 6), and the arts acknowledge the tension of the already/not yet. The arts can approximate how things are and how they shall be. The arts tell the story of New Creation so that we might glimpse and taste of it in the midst of this world.

Celebration without sentimentalism
Sorrow without cynicism

“Heaven and earth are not that far apart, and with the arts, they are brought even closer”

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