![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theamericanjesus.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/nt-wright.jpg\" "\\"nt")
<\/a><\/p>\nN.T. Wright asks: Have we gotten heaven all wrong?<\/h1>\n
John Murawski<\/p>\n
(RNS) The oft-cliched Christian notion of heaven \u2014 a blissful realm of harp-strumming angels \u2014 has remained a fixture of the faith for centuries. Even as arguments will go on as to who will or won\u2019t be \u201csaved,\u201d surveys show that a vast majority Americans believe that after death their souls will ascend to some kind of celestial resting place.<\/p>\n
But scholars on the right and left increasingly say that comforting belief in an afterlife has no basis in the Bible and would have sounded bizarre to Jesus and his early followers. Like modern curators patiently restoring an ancient fresco, scholars have plumbed the New Testament\u2019s Jewish roots to challenge the pervasive cultural belief in an otherworldly paradise.<\/p>\n
he most recent expert to add his voice to this chorus is the prolific Christian apologist N.T. Wright, a former Anglican bishop who now teaches about early Christianity and New Testament at Scotland\u2019s University of St. Andrews. Wright has explored Christian misconceptions about heaven in previous books, but now devotes an entire volume, \u201cHow God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels,\u201d to this trendy subject.<\/p>\n
Wright\u2019s insistence that Christianity has got it all wrong seems to mark a turning point for the serious rethinking of heaven. He\u2019s not just another academic iconoclast bent on debunking Christian myths. Wright takes his creeds very seriously and has even written an 800-plus-page megaton study setting out to prove the historical truth of the resurrection of Jesus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a very current issue \u2014 that what the church, or what the majority conventional view of heaven is, is very different from what we find in these biblical testimonies,\u201d said Christopher Morse of Union Theological Seminary in New York. \u201cThe end times are not the end of the world \u2014 they are the beginning of the real world \u2014 in biblical understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the appearance of a recent cover story in Time magazine suggests that putting-the-heaven-myth-to-rest movement is gaining currency beyond the academy. Wright and Morse say they have both made presentations on heaven research at local churches and have been surprised by the public interest and acceptance.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn awful lot of ordinary church-going Christians are simply millions of miles away from understanding any of this,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n
Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I love N.T. Wright. Then again, who doesn\u2019t? Hating N.T. Wright is like hating puppies, a rainbow, or cookies. If you don\u2019t like the guy, then there\u2019s probably something wrong with you, not him. Anyway, enough of the N.T. Wright lovefest.\u00a0Here\u2019s a great interview with him from Religion News Service about his view […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3437,"featured_media":6814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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