Professor N.T. Wright of St Andrews University delivers the first of the 2018 Gifford Lectures at the Unversity of Aberdeen's King's College Conference Centre
this lecture opened my eyes about the nature of the Enlightenment, providing information and context that I never encountered in college history courses
This lecture clearly shows to me that real education and understanding is rare. Most information seems partisan today. If it is good it is “my ideology” if it is evil it is “their ideology”. The moral smugness described is perfected in what many calls the most atheistic nation in the world. The country where I was born and raised: Sweden.
In approaching the truth, can there be any progress without independence? We are born dependent creatures who eventually must find a means of survival. We come to conform to the given order, we are rewarded with a fellowship that might sicken us. Things seem dire, but '28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light'. --- 'For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul'? Alan Dugan's poem 'This Morning Here' notes that '... those who never have seen blood awake/can drink it browned/and call the past an unrepeatable mistake/because this circus of their present is all gravy'.
Really appreciate these lectures being uploaded! I had tickets booked but unfortunately could not attend on the day. Great continuation of the Gifford Lectures.
“Postmodernism itself directly challenges the narrative of progress.“ Yep. “Wisdom does not progress chronologically.” If anything, just the opposite. Our ancient ancestors, naturally engaged in rapid maturing and adulthood, endless unplugged solitude, exercise, kinship, fasting, hard work, suffering, exposure to death… Knew a LOT more about God and life than we do.
Great opener, Tom shining his light on so-called Christianity as churchianity, the only religion that holds the truth in a scripture available to all, has let itself be divided and complacent. Good old Tom.
PART ONE: Natural Theology in Its Historical Context Lecture 1. The Fallen Shrine: Lisbon 1755 and the Triumph of Epicureanism Lecture 2. The Questioned Book: Critical Scholarship and the Gospels PART TWO: History, Eschatology and Apocalyptic Lecture 3. The Shifting Sand: The Meanings of ‘History’ Lecture 4. The End of the World?: Eschatology and Apocalyptic in Historical Perspective PART THREE: Jesus and Easter in the Jewish World Lecture 5. The Stone the Builders Rejected: Jesus, the Temple and the Kingdom Lecture 6. The New Creation: Resurrection and Epistemology PART FOUR: The Peril and Promise of Natural Theology Lecture 7. Broken Signposts?: New Answers to the Right Questions Lecture 8. The Waiting Chalice: Natural Theology and the Missio Dei
@@JM-lv5fu that's interesting , thank you for sharing that. I like his interpretations and dedication to Paul, his book on Paul's life is very good. I don't agree with him on his particular understanding of the new creation and I've had a look at this in summary. But I think NT Wright is open minded, he's exactly not constrained by religious ideology, he understands the meaning behind the Gospel to a large degree I think.
Love listening to Professor NT Wright, but his take on American history is misleading which makes me wonder how can I trust his take on his other presentations
While I appreciate a lot of things from NT Wright, I don't agree with his critique of what he sees as "platonic" Christianity - he mentions around 47:50 theologians who ought not to speak of our souls longing to return home to heaven - however this idea of belonging to heaven and longing for that place very clearly comes from Scripture: 2 Cor 5:1-10, Phil 3:19-21, John 14:1-4, Heb 11:13-16
NT Wright has in fact written extensively on these passages and why they do not suggest that our souls want to return to heaven. You can read about them for example in his book "The Resurrection of the Son of God"
As it is more easy to show with Phil 3:20: "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ" NIV Wright has argued regarding this passage that first the citizenship-term does not tell us anything about where we ought to end up. The only citizens Paul new were those of Rome and citizens of Rome were neither defined by living in Rome nor by at the end of their life returning to Rome, in fact most of them never came to Rome. We today think of citizenship of a certain place of being connected to living in that certain place but it was not to Paul. So the citizenship-thing does not tell us anything about especially returning to heaven (as if we were there before). Also it says in the second half "we await a Savior from there" - Jesus will come to us on earth not we to him. I actually have written a longer text on the Corinthians-passage but it is in my native language german so it wouldn't help you, but check out NTWrights RotSoG
Wright often paints with a broad brush. What he is really getting at is that Christians need to remember that they look forward to resurrection, embodied existence. They shouldn’t see disembodied state apart from resurrected bodies as the ultimate and most desirable form of existence.
Amusing that he slams the door on deistic 'evolutionism', but opens it again under the misapprehension that evolution is now science. Nup, just deistic evolutionism, without the deism. Unlike the Creation, which connects God and man, Evolution is jarringly different from the world: which is replete with the marks of intention, opposed to the meaningless randomness of bumping atoms, rolling down to our own intentionality. Evolution cannot be about this world, where love can be.
I keep hearing repeating this Deists lie about most American Fathers from Bishop Wright and it disturbs me as I've taken time to research them through their writings ,actions and the motivation behind it all. Some one should inform him that he is promoting a strawman narrative.
