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October 24, 2006
some notes from N.T. Wright
Laura and I and a bunch of other CTK people went to see N.T. Wright speak at Harvard's Memorial Church last night. His topic was "God the Creator: The Gospel in a Gnostic World." He explained ancient Gnosticism and how it is coming to the surface in today's culture, then proceeded to systematically refute it through John's gospel, Paul, Revelation, and church history. Here are some points that I drew out of his lucid, informative lecture:
1) Contemporary Gnosticism reveals itself in today's culture by our thirst to have the "inside track" on hidden knowledge (i.e., the Da Vinci Code)
2) This idea has spilled over into religion, where finding out who you are is assumed to be essential to the religious quest
3) Creationism/Intelligent Design argument is inadequate because it does not take into account God's commitment to renew creation
4) God's people are not an elite group who will escape the world and its problems, but instead are to be Spirit-filled and suffering agents of creation renewal
5) Paul argues that real "gnosis" is not our knowledge of God, but God's knowledge of us
6) Revelation rejects Gnosticism in that it shows heaven coming down to earth, not earth going up to heaven
7) It is not good enough to say how the gospel refutes Gnosticism in our culture, but we must live it out in community
Good stuff. It seems that many trends in today's culture point to Gnostic ideas about dualism of body and spirit, including in today's church. I'll have to think more about this.
| By heiders | 08:19 AM
Comments
I like #4 the best. Also, since you mentioned John's gospel, tonight we read from John 5 and in it Jesus talks about both a spiritual resurrection and a physical, "from-the-grave" resurrection, without really distinguishing between the two. It's a confusing passage but Jesus embraces both body and spirit into one being, forever and ever amen. :)
Posted by: Anna at October 24, 2006 05:20 PM
Thanks so much, Heidi (and Anna, too). Good stuff.
Posted by: funke at October 25, 2006 12:20 PM
