http://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/and-all-gods-people-said-wut.html
"So now you know — for Wright, Marcus Borg was a Christian passionately
devoted to Jesus, despite his denial of the resurrection, and someone
who believes in an historic Adam made from the dust of the ground is a
literalistic and gnostic goon show. So note again that this is not a fundamentalist attempt to draw hard heresy lines — this is N.T. Wright doing it."
Planet of the Apes
ReplyDeleteWright's patronizing rhetoric is a polemical tactic. An attempt to put Bible-believing Christians on the defense: "Surely you don't believe anything that preposterous, do you?"
ReplyDeleteBut, of course, a former bishop and theologian is in no position to assume that posture, for he can't dismiss the Bible outright and still maintain any semblance of Christian profession. He has to keep up appearances.
The condescension is more consistent for Richard Dawkins or Jerry Coyne, who feel no need to salvage a residual element of truth from Gen 1-3. They discount it en bloc.
Wright, by contrast, is laboring to have it both ways. Act intellectually superior to Bible-believing Christians by siding with the Darwinians on human evolution, but maintain that in some attenuated sense, Gen 1-3 should still inform our overall position–even though his reinterpretation is an artificial and anachronistic stopgap harmonization.
Along a similar vein is an article (as if it were the only one) by Enns I recently saw recommended by a friend whom I consider to be a brother in Christ:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2015/05/11-recurring-mistakes-in-the-debate-over-the-historical-adam/
Think of Paul at the Areopagus:
Paul: This Jesus was raised to life by the one God of Israel.
Platonist: Whoa! We of the intelligentsia know that that's just Jewish nonsense. God is far too high to become human, to die, and come back to life! Preposterous! It's just not possible.
Paul: Yeah, but, that's what happened...
Gnostic: Hmmm...I like this Jesus-god thing...but I don't like this resurrection thing...how about he was just raised in spiritual enlightenment?
Paul: Heh...No...
Platonist: All this Jewish nonsense...
Paul: But...
Gnostic: Hey I like this Jesus I said, I just think he needs to be tweaked. People aren't stupid like they used to be when Daniel prophesied, we just know too much about the world to believe that stuff. Why can't we take what we like from both and leave off everything else?
Wolves in sheep's clothing are in positions to rend Christ's flock in ways apostates and anti-theists on the outside aren't. It's good to mark them out when their teeth show.
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