Christianity is not about Sin and going to heaven!!!
Posted by Don Bryant on July 8, 2009
Or so says a blogger affirming NT Wright’s views, as the blogger understands them. (And the phrase “as the blogger understands them” is an important one). This is the kind of language that I think John Piper is concerned about when he states that NT Wright’s views of justification by faith are not so much wrong as confusing. There is no clear Gospel in it. I don’t think it finds a place to land in the sinner’s heart who feels his alienation from God and feels the torment of the lake of fire licking at his heels. I think Christianity is about sin and going to heaven to be with the Lord when we die.
My concern is that the sinner’s conscience and the yearning for eternal life gets short shrif in the reworking of the Gospel that gets global warming, cow flatulence, economic theory, et al., thrown in with the crucified lamb of God. Yes, I know that a case can be made for an over-individualizing of the Gospel so that the communal aspects of redemption are diminished. But the personal dimensions of the Gospel are the driving force that cries out for a forceful answer to the question, how can I be saved? If the answer is “heaven is important but it’s not the end of the world” as NT Wright is so fond of repeating, I fear that the arrow of the Gospel has veered off its mark. I don’t think the new earth answers directly to the personal angst of the soul alienated from God, as necessary as that teaching is for the development of the Christian vision.
NY Wright’s contribution is important, but it is made less important because of where he places it in the Christian imagination. It cannot bear the weight of the sinner’s conscience nor the joy of personal redemption. In arguing for a fuller and more biblical worldview, Wright has so rearranged the furniture that the Gospel does not look like home.
Clinton said
Hi & thanks for the link. I actually have a very high view of the nature of depravity and sin-the entire reason we are baptized is for the forgiveness of sins and the newness of life (Mk. 1:4). However, if we always start our story of the gospel out with sin, then we leave Gen 1 & 2 out of the Xtian story (and this is what I think Wright is trying to say). God’s intention for creating was no to save us from sin but to create a kingdom community (among other things-don’t want to reduce the God’s intention to this alone!). That is the context in which the doctrine of sin should be viewed. One can hold to both a very pervasive view of sin/depravity as well as a high kingdom theology/narrative. They are not mutually exclusive, rather they are complementary and necessary for correctly explicating the Xtian story. And from all of my reading Wright( I have read nearly all of Wright’s stuff) holds unequivocally to a pervasive view of sin. So, again, the wedge here seems to be posited by people such as yourself-Wright certainly doesn’t separate them or elevate one over the other.
What I meant about Heaven is that (in agreement with Wright here) the bible does not end with “saved people” or Judgment Day, but a new heavens and new earth united in a “holy city” (a.k.a. the “New Jeruslame”).
-Clint