Mar

29

Simply Christian by N. T. Wright

Filed Under Books, Philosophy, Theology 

Many fellow Christians of my generation have found C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity a very helpful and thoughtful expression of their faith. In a way, this phenomenon is a testimony to the quality of Lewis’s thought and writing. The book was edited from radio talks he gave in the 1940s. Since then, arguably no one has made as good a case for Christianity.

In 2006, N. T. Wright published Simply Christian. Critics have lauded it as a worthy successor to Mere Christianity. It is. Wright reintroduces many of Lewis’s arguments, but comes at the issues from a different perspective, providing helpful clarifications and some novel thoughts as well.

In fact, the perspective of the book is one of its greatest virtues. Wright, like Lewis, comes at the topic of Christianity in a fairly non-Christian way. The book’s subtitle is “Why Christianity Makes Sense.” It reads like a grand (if brief) tour of biblical theology intended for those who have little knowledge of Christian ideas. Wright tries to demonstrate that Christianity is more than a run-of-the-mill religion, and that it makes a compelling case for belief. However, as Christian readers of Mere Christianity have seen, sometimes a thoughtful examination of Christianity from the outside (or what seems like the outside) can be immensely helpful.1 By the end of the book, it is sometimes hard to decide who Wright’s intended audience actually is. He still targets unbelievers, but an honest believer will find plenty of food for thought. In fact, if a Christian reader has never considered Wright’s ideas, he might think that Wright is trying to convince him.

Wright begins by addressing four areas that modern ideas of life and the world fail to adequately address. First, we seek justice. We are pained and angered by the success of evil in the world, especially when humans seem to have played no part it (Wright uses the example of the Asian tsunami). We discover that bad things happen all the time and sometimes without explanation. We want someone or something to come and set the world to rights. In fact, we would generally agree on what that might look like, and we all desire it. Why?

The second curiosity is our quest for spirituality. Despite all our advances in science, our desire for something outside the natural world has never been fully suppressed. Even those who have no knowledge of God seem to desire something “out there.” People take up Eastern religions or participate in strange activities to get in touch with a transcendental reality, even if it is only a mirror of their own souls. We want more than this world can give. Why?

Our third desire is for meaningful relationships. We seem to want good relationships, but we are so bad at them. In this chapter, Wright begins to introduce his thesis in earnest. We desire relationships because we were designed to. Why?

Finally, Wright suggests that our love of beauty points beyond this world. We have all experienced something beautiful but found that the experience was hard to express. Our love of beauty cannot be fully explained by any of the various psychological notions that have been current in the last century. Ultimately, we find it hard to explain it at all. Wright says, “Heaven and earth are full of glory, a glory which stubbornly refuses to be reduced to terms of the sense of the humans who perceive it.” Again, we earnestly seek something that seems beyond our capacity to obtain. Why?

Wright proposes to answer the “why” by demonstrating that Christianity makes sense of all these things, and everything else too. In philosophical terms, he proposes a Christian cosmology, a view of the world that explains everything. This project seems like a daunting, but he is up to it. He proposes that we need to rethink many of our ideas about Christianity. Christianity tells the story of a world made very good, just, truly spiritual, favorable to good relationships, and glorious in beauty. But something went terribly wrong2 . God is working to fix these wrongs, and He calls us to participate in His work that will one day end in a new creation in which all these things will be restored.

For the Christian (or at least for me), this way of looking at things is hard. It’s too big. It’s like trying to look at a 360 degree landscape all at once. I suspect that we fail to see things this way because it is hard. But we need to try. Many of our petty squabbles over various interpretations and applications might disappear if we could see how they all fit into the big picture.

Wright suggests that there are three ways of looking at the relationship between Heaven and Earth. In this exposition of a Christian cosmology, he adds an extra perspective to Lewis, and I think the expansion is helpful. Option One claims that everything is God in the long run. This is basic pantheism and Lewis treats it well in Miracles. Option Two says that Earth is here and Heaven is there and never the twain shall meet. This is Platonism, and no Christian would accept it on principle; but most of us accept it in practice. We speak of “going to heaven,” which isn’t wrong, but it can obscure what we mean by “heaven.” We talk and act as if there is a great divide between the “spiritual” realm and the “earthly” realm, even though the Bible doesn’t actually separate them so much (and not in the way we usually do).

Option Three suggests that heaven and earth overlap and interlock in many places. This is basically Lewis’s “supernaturalism.” Wright makes this his central idea and pursues its implications throughout the last two thirds of the book. I think he’s on to something, and he demonstrates its far-reaching applications much better than Lewis does.

In the last third of the book, Wright discusses various applications of Option Three. He includes chapters on worship, prayer, the Bible, the church, and the church’s responsibilities in the world. A conservative would probably find many of his suggestions very appealing, but end up mystified by the occasional seeming incongruity. We might need to exercise some humility and let Wright make his case. He comes from a very liturgical tradition and those who prefer less structure might not care for some of his ideas. I don’t have time or space to delve into a thorough discussion of individualism in religion, but it is worth remembering that the New Testament only strongly emphasizes the role of the church, not the individual.

The last chapter is especially interesting to me, since I enjoy studying the relationship of culture and religion. Wright makes the most convincing case I have ever seen for Christian interaction with the world. He isn’t a libertine, but neither is he a Puritan. In fact, if we accept his system of thought, the application to culture is immediate. God is working to bring all the world into subjection to Himself and will one day remake the world. Our job is to work so as to show this world what a New Creation would be like and to invite them to participate in it.

Of course, those familiar with N.T. Wright will wonder how he deals with certain theological issues. He is known for his part in the New Perspective on Paul and for various affiliations with the search for the historical Jesus. He is an Anglican (The Bishop of Durham) and has studied and taught at Oxford. He is a learned man and a prodigious writer. Nevertheless, don’t assume that you are going to disagree with him. I haven’t read enough of Wright to have my own opinions on his opinions, but these are my thoughts on what I have read (his summary in two books): Wright’s approach answers more questions than most. I don’t know that I would agree with him on every point—in fact, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t. But his scheme explains some fundamental questions that often get flimsy answers. Questions like: Why did Jesus have to die? (Because we were sinners.) Why does God care? (Because He loves us.) Why does He love us? (Because He wants to.) The answers in parentheses are not incorrect, per se, but neither are they especially satisfying.

Yes, I know, it’s more complicated than that. And I know that we should not expect to understand every detail of God’s mind. But the Bible was given to us so that we could understand some of God’s mind. It seems that we should at least be willing to see how the Bible addresses these issues—and the biblical answers are much richer than what I gave above.

If this review has done anything, I hope it will encourage you to find Simply Christian and read it—several times. It’s not expensive and it’s fairly short. Wright has a nice style so reading it should not be difficult. But if you are like me, you might find that it will take some time for everything to sink in. It’s worth your time. I fear that many of our debates and much of our effort is wasted on unimportant matters that would receive their proper weight if we would think biblically. Wright’s book can help us to think well and make us better equipped to live as citizens of an eternal kingdom.3


  1. Wright himself has reviewed Mere Christianity and his thoughts are quite helpful. back↩
  2. Wright doesn’t spend all that much time discussing exactly what went wrong. It isn’t quite in the main of his argument. Another of his books, Evil and the Justice of God, Wright argues that the Bible does not explain evil; rather, it shows what God is doing to fix it. back↩
  3. If you want a lightweight introduction to a biblical interpretation that actually appears to include all of the Bible, you might look at a recent book by Thurman Wisdom, Dean Emeritus of the School of Religion at Bob Jones University. His book is called A Royal Destiny and addresses the role of man in God’s kingdom. You can get it from BJU Press. back↩

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