Spiritual and Religious: The gospel in an age of paganism
Ebook
I'm spiritual but not religious.' It's a phrase that's often used to explain why, although they don't go to church, people still feel that life must have some kind of transcendent meaning,
But what does this 'spirituality' consist of? In Spiritual and Religious Tom Wright argues that, whether people realize it or not, they are often simply reverting to forms of ancient paganism that are very similar to those that confronted the earliest Christians.
With his characteristic verve and incisiveness, Wright traces the parallels between the worldviews of the first and twenty-first centuries, and shows how a better understanding of God as Trinity can breathe fresh life into our understanding and preaching of the gospel today.
He concludes this prophetic book with a call to contemporary Christians to make a clear choice:
'Are we to compromise with paganism, to assimilate, to water down the distinctives of Christian faith in order to make it more palatable? Are we to retreat into dualism, into a private 'spiritual' religion which will assure us of an other-worldly salvation but which will leave the powers of the present world unchallenged. . . ? Or are we to worship the God who is Father, Son and Spirit, and to find in that worship a renewed courage, a renewed sense of direction, and a renewed hope for the future?'
Contents:
Introduction
Part One: The Modern World and the Christian Message
1. The Kingdom and the Church
2. Jesus' World in Crisis
3. The Road to Paganism
4. The Light of the World
5. The Burning Bush
6. The Other Gods were Strong
7. Jesus' Vindication and the Task of the Church
Part Two: On Being the Church for the World
8. Confronting the Powers
9. Equipment for the Task (1)
10. Equipment for the Task (2)
11. New Shrines for the True God (1)
12. New Shrines for the True God (2)
13. New Shrines for the True God (3)
14. The Two-Edged Sword
15. The God we Confess
Epilogue: The Prayer of the Trinity
- Title: Spiritual and Religious: The gospel in an age of paganism
- Author: N. T. Wright
- Publisher: SPCK Publishing
- Print Publication Date: 2017
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9780281072859, 9780281072842, 0281072841, 028107285X
- Resource ID: LLS:9780281072859
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-05-18T17:29:44Z
Nicholas Thomas “Tom” Wright (1948–) is a New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian, and Anglican bishop and currently Research Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Early Christianity at St. Mary's College in the University of St Andrews and Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. Christianity Today named him one of today's top theologians.
Wright was born in Morpeth, Northumberland, and recounts an awareness of God's presence from a young age—and that relationship with God ever since is reflected in his life and work. He's a prolific author; one of his most popular books, Surprised by Hope, frames the resurrection of the dead as the appropriate hope for all believers rather than an overemphasis on just "going to heaven when you die." He's among the leading theologians in the New Perspective on Paul debate. Wright has several honorary doctoral degrees, and in 2014, the British Academy awarded him the Burkitt Medal "in recognition of special service to biblical studies." In 2015, he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Wright served as chaplain at Cambridge from 1978 to 1981, then as assistant professor of New Testament language and literature at McGill University in Montreal. Before becoming a chaplain, tutor, lecturer, and fellow at Oxford in 1986, Wright served as dean of Lichfield Cathedral, canon theologian of Westminster Abbey, and the bishop of Durham from 2003–10. In addition to the entire New Testament for Everyone Series, some of N. T. Wright's books include The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians, Who Was Jesus, The New Testament and the People of God, God and the Pandemic, Evil and the Justice of God, Surprised by Hope, and Simply Christian. He coauthored Jesus the Final Days with Craig A. Evans.