Chapter 4: For the Beauty of the Earth

The fourth and final echo NT Wright explores draws us to beauty. The experience of beauty is fleeting. Beauty intrigues us and then eludes us. The sunset captivates our attention and then is gone. In the attempt to capture the wonder of beauty in a photograph disappoints. “…all we get is the memory of the moment, not the moment itself.” (p. 41) Beauty is exquisite, suggests Wright, but at the same time unsatisfying. Like the other “echoes of a voice,” beauty points to a fuller reality beyond itself.

NT Wright does an excellent job of maneuvering through the subjectivist trap of the postmodern worldview. He refuses to affirm that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” (CS Lewis handles this issue masterfully in The Abolition of Man.) Beauty connects profoundly with the perceiver, but it does not originate in the perceiver. He also deals well with the notion that beauty in itself somehow provides access to God, as if in the contemplation of beauty we can bee lifted to Absolute Truth. Beauty points us beyond itself but is unable to carry us to its promised destination.

After dealing with these and other related issues, Wright brings us to the heart of postmodernism’s cynicism. “If the earth is full of God’s glory, why is it also so full of pain and anguish and screaming and despair?” (p. 46) He nails it. So much of our current day invites either an abdication of responsibility for or an escape from the way things are. We can’t handle the internal tension created by our expectation that life ought to deliver more. The beauty we see is fleeting. The relationships we need are too hard. Spirituality seems a game and justice something only the rich can afford. If God exists, he is a joke or simply cruel. Therefore, God must not exist or must not matter.

NT Wright takes on the postmodern mindset with the simple suggestion that maybe the world is broken and needs to be fixed. He draws out the metaphor of the incomplete symphony with which he began the chapter:

The point of the story is that the masterpiece already exists—in the mind of the composer. At the moment, neither the instruments nor the players are ready to perform it. But when they are, the manuscript we already have—the present world with all its beauty and puzzlement—will turn out to be truly part of it. The deficiencies in the one part we possess will be made good. The things that don’t make sense at the moment will display a harmony and perfection we hadn’t dreamed of. The points at which today the music seems almost perfect, lacking just one small thing will be completed….God is the creator par excellence, he will create when the present world is rescued, healed, restored, and completed. (p. 47)

That is a high order. Will the postmodern reader receive it?

NT Wright keeps drawing us forward. “Maybe we need a different kind of knowing.” (p. 48) He is setting up his transition to the second part of the book, to the revelation of God. He makes the transition wonderfully: “We must begin to talk about God. Which is like saying that we must learn to stare at the sun.” (p. 51)

This is what I like about this book and NT Wright. He takes the orientation of the thoughtful secularist seriously. He recognizes that the postmodern reader (if he is still engaged) is dazzled. He doesn’t understand because he cannot see. It is like staring into the sun. The brilliance of it is beyond the capacity of the simple perceiver, but stare we must because there is no other good resolution to the issues that have been raised.

Nobody is going to simply think his way to God; nobody is going to see the sun by looking at it. However, we can trust that the Holy Spirit is at work. Revelation comes as we look at and ponder the glory of God and his revelation.

It is good to be reminded from time to time how amazing the treasury of truth is that has been entrusted to us in the church. The secularist is so far removed from the glory. The gospel is a wonder filled message. We can’t expect the amazing nature of grace to be easily grasped and applied as if it is one more self-help resource. Every conversion is, after all, a bona fide miracle. A new life has risen from the dead. NT Wright has taken the distance that the secularist needs to travel seriously. He’s laying out signposts and urging the postmodern reader onward. I appreciate what he’s trying to do. It’s tough to reach a crowd that has come to presume upon the blessings of Christendom while experiencing the distortions that inevitably come out of flawed believers.

I have members of my extended family who have tried church only to be disappointed or hurt. They draw the conclusion that church is just like every other social group and decide that nothing more is there. I watch their departure with great sadness and redouble my prayer for them. I realize that the only work that will reach them is the Lord’s work of revelation.

The secular way of perceiving has taken deep root. I’ve been told by missionaries and church leaders serving in Africa, India, and the Middle East how hard the spiritual climate is in America. One missionary from Baghdad told me it is easier for him to strike up a spiritual conversation with a stranger on the street there than it is in the US. The divide is wide and growing wider between the church and the lost in the West. NT Wright is working hard to communicate to a crowd that really can’t see the glory all around them.

We would do well to listen carefully to how NT Wright is attempting to engage the secular mind. How can we better help people to “stare into the sun” that they might not merely be dazzled, but see the glory that is there?

Kyle Phillips

Chapter Three: Made For Each Other

We are made for each other. One of C.S. Lewis' students told him, "My father says we read to know we're not alone."
Yet, we're afraid of each other, and for good reason. There are manipulators, users, cheaters, and just plain ugly people
who are ready to take full advantage of you simply to advance themselves. At the same time there are those precious people who are selfless and lavish on us one blessing after another through their nobility, integrity, generosity, and internal beauty.

God shows Himself through the latter and the former have not yet surrendered to God. The precious people give us a foretaste of glory divine and the mean give us a taste of...well, you know. So we halt in pursuing relationships while we cry out for them. The church is the body of Christ (community if you will) that God has designed for us to taste of the precious people. Yet, even there, the precious people can, at times, descend below their better nature and hurt us. What are we to do about this? Some church-hop to avoid the pain. Some give up on church entirely thinking that the devil's kids will be more kind. They won't.

It's only in the context of suffering through the pain of relationships that we come to really experience the power of the One Relationship for which we were made. It's only when I've hurt you (or you've hurt me), you confront me (or cover me), I ask for forgiveness, you grant it, and we move on past the hurt to comforting, encouraging, admonishing, serving, and loving one another that we come to experience the fullness of God's character. He was betrayed, sinned against, and yet He sought reconciliation. There will be more pain in our relationships, and more forgiveness, and more pain, and more forgiveness. This is community. This is relationship. We want it...badly. But we're afraid. We have to trust God for damage control in our relationships with others. He will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. The alternative to relationships is unacceptable. It's safe, but also vacuous.

There is only One relationship that is without risk. Of course, that does not mean that knowing God is safe. As Lucy was told (The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe), "Aslan is not safe, but He's good." There are dangers in our relationship with God, but the dangers are worth the risk because He is good. Following Christ may cost you your physical life, but it will yield eternal life, where there are no more dangers and thus no risks. In the meantime we long to have vignettes of that relationship; and we do, imperfect yes, but delightful.

God has enjoyed relationship for eternity. The Trinity has love among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Love has always existed and been shared. Being made in God’s image we long for relationship and love. God gives us clear instructions for how to experience a sample of perfect relationships before we arrive at our home in heaven. The closest we come on earth is our relationships with our parents, brothers and sisters, our children, and our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Interestingly, atheists and secularists long for all these things too. Yet, their answer is that all of this longing is caused by material interaction of neurons animated by chemistry and electricity. Meaningless biochemical determinism is the genesis of this passion to know one another. What a silly and hopeless explanation for what we regard as most dear to us. My love for my parents, wife, and kids is nothing more than the purposeless physical forces of physics and biology. No thanks, that’s neither emotionally or intellectually satisfying. God still remains the most credible answer.

Chapter Two: Hidden Springs

Wright begins this chapter with a penetrating parable. The parable clearly can be adapted to any era of humanity. I see it, however, as a critique of Modernism and its inadequacies: "The water that people needed would be brought to them by a complex system of pipes" (p.17). It eventually failed us. And now we are dealing with the angry mood of Postmodernism, as evidenced by deconstructionism and liberationist theology.

The springs that so freely expressed themselves, even making life uncomfortable at times, were paved over with concrete so thick, they were "silenced" (Ibid.). This was to mark a better life for the inhabitants, for "the water people needed would be brought to them by a complex system of pipes" (Ibid.).

Then he interprets this parable: We in the Western world are the citizens of that country, the dictator is the philosophy that has shaped our world for the last two or three centuries, and the water is our spirituality, the hidden spring that bubbles with our heart (p.18).

There has always been that hidden spring. Man has always tried to satisfy that groping for spirituality. And every system he has designed has failed.

Life in the premodern world created dissatisfaction. The modern world endeavored to meet the needs of the premodern, but it too faltered even though we have benefited greatly. Then along came the postmodern mindset, attempting to satisfy that groping for spirituality by its relativism.

So spirituality seeks to find escape and comfort from the concrete-thick world of modernism in postmodernism. Wright goes on to point out that globally, man everywhere has had to deal with the stifling of the hidden spring of spirituality by some form of concrete pavement.

But what makes us so thirsty is that voice that we hear. A voice that keeps beckoning us to a life of justice and love. Wright observes, "People who have been starved of water for a long time will drink anything, even if it is polluted" (p.25).

And because we have somehow been starved of water by the modern world, we plunge head first into the upset ocean of postmodernism, attempting to quench our thirst. But I think what we have discovered is not so pleasant. What we have discovered is now the bitter taste of skepticism in one form or the other (pp. 26, 27). By the way, I think the Emergent Community is a fitting example of this skepticism.
TC

Chapter One: Putting the World to Rights

Welcome to this conversation between four friends over N. T. Wright’s latest book, Simply Christian. Each of us is a pastor in four different churches in Tehachapi, California. We four come from different traditions but share a common love of Christ, reverence for the Word, concern for the lost, and regard for the church which is bigger than any of our individual fellowships or denominational connections.

Each one, in succession, will take the lead in writing a reflection on a chapter in Wright’s book.
The other three will then “reflect upon the reflection,” adding insights, questions, or concerns that surface in the conversation. In sharing together we hope to gain from the wisdom and experience of one another. We invite you to read along and share your thoughts as well.

To begin:
In his introduction, N. T. Wright lets us know that he divides Simply Christian into three parts. Part One is an inductive exploration of common human experiences which Wright suggests points the human heart beyond itself to One Who Is There. Part Two discusses what believers believe about “the one true and living God” revealed in Jesus. Part Three explores what it means to follow Jesus.

It is evident in his style and tone that Wright seeks a conversation with thoughtful readers. He wants to include the honest, “postmodern,” secularist in an exploration of common life experiences. He is unapologetic in his Christian perspective and trusts the reader to grant him a little bit of time to draw him into an appreciation of the Christian witness to Truth.

Part One of the conversation engages us in a reflection upon common incongruities of life. He calls this section, “Echoes of a Voice,” as if the Creator has shouted an invitation into the fallen world that continues to reverberate through successive generations.

The first chapter encourages the reader to listen to that voice in the strains of the human longing for justice. He connects the broad tragedy of the 2004 tsunami with its vast carnage and devastation with the common moral problem of knowing the good, and yet lacking the power to do the good we know.

The ancient philosophers, not least Aristotle, saw this as a wrinkle in the
system, a puzzle at several levels. We all know what we ought to do (give or
take a few details); but we all manage, at least some of the time, not to
do it. (p. 6)

He uses a bit of understatement to good effect: “Isn’t this odd?” (p. 6) And then gets crystal clear, “…there is something badly wrong.” (p. 8)

This first chapter brings to light our common moral plight. I certainly track with him and easily bring Paul’s letter to the Romans into Wright’s reflection. Romans 1:22 points out how God is revealed in what He has made, even as an “echo” in the midst of human experience. Romans 3:23 is clear that all share in the moral problem the Bible calls sin. Romans 8:22 identifies the reality of a creation in turmoil. Truly, “there is something badly wrong.”

While Wright engages the thoughtful reader with this first echo, I can’t help but think that the deeper crisis of our time is the vast number of lost souls who never seem to reflect about their condition. The incongruities wrapped up in our longing for things to be set right I fear are beyond the grasp of most folks. People just don’t sit around thinking about those kinds of things.
Of course, the deeper problem is that many people just don’t sit around and think at all. Our culture has done a thorough job of focusing attention away from what might be true to an excessive concern for satiating endless desire. Like the botanical monster The Little Shop of Horrors we cry, “Feed me!” Like the voracious plant, the more we consume the more we demand. In my experience most people are simply scurrying. Too many try to grab life in stuff, the material commodities that our consumer society constantly presses into our consciousness. In light of the disparities all around us, I fear most don’t say, “It isn’t fair!”, but rather, “I want some, too!”

Wright suggests three options when faced with the question of justice delayed or denied: “that’s just the way it is” (the nihilist), “I’m out of here,” (the escapist), or “God is up to something” (the theist). These seem to be the options available for those in touch with the issue, but what about the clueless? I think a lot more people say, “There’s a problem?” Or worse, “Don’t bother me with reality; I’m too busy trying to fill my bottomless pit”

The question that gets stirred up in me is, “How do we get contemporary, driven consumers to slow down and see the craziness. The incongruities Wright touches upon with this first “echo” of a longing for justice is, I fear, lost on most people. I hope the thoughtful, reflective secularist gets hooked with this echo of justice. If only the pedal-to-the-metal consumer would pause long enough to hear anything other than the clamoring of his own need for more.

I resonate with the suggestion Wright makes that Christianity really is about living out justice, seeking real righteousness in the world as we pray the Lord’s prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Maybe this commitment to live justly in the Kingdom and to seek the King’s justice in the world (linked with the kind of prayer that makes such living possible) is a way to awaken those who slumber in our land of ease and abundance. There is a right way to live. Those endlessly scrambling for more need to see it in real life.
N. T. Wright strikes close to home when he writes,

When Christians use their belief in Jesus as a way of escaping from that
demand and challenge, they are abandoning a central element in their own
faith. That way danger lies. (p. 13)

How can we as believers live more purely the righteous way, the way that affirms the cry for justice even as we extend the Lord’s mercy? In my experience moral courage continues to be the brightest beacon to the truth of Christ. How in Tehachapi can we live to bear witness to the rightness, the justice, implicit in the life of Christian discipleship?
Kyle Phillips