4/18/06

“This uncertainty in turn, of course, begets a new and anxious eagerness for certainty: hence the appeal of fundamentalism, which in today’s world is not so much a return to a premodern worldview but precisely to one form of modernism (reading the Bible within the grid of a quasi- or pseudoscientific quest for ‘objective truth’).”

The Last Word, N.T. Wright. This is similar to what the book on the use of tradition in church history said about one of the originators of dispensationalism. He was using an enlightenment notion of scientific accuracy in his idea that you could ferret out the real meaning of the obscure prophecies if you only applied the right method.

I bought this book when I went to Powells after my urologist appointment. I also bought a couple of other N.T. Wright books.

“Similar problems occur when people push the Bible to one side because it appears to be telling them something they do not wish to hear.  This happens secretly in the case of the so-called conservative, who may well choose to ignore the ecclesial, ecumenical, sacramental and ecological dimensions of Paul’s soteriology, in order to highlight and privilege a doctrine of justification or ‘personal salvation’ which owes its real shape to a blend of Reformation, Enlightenment, romantic and existentialist influences.”

The Last Word: Scripture and the Authority of God–Getting Beyond the Bible Wars Paperback – November 1, 2006

by N.T. Wright  (Author)