Chris Sugden Issue: Vol.1 No.6 April 2024 Article 1 pp.76-77

The apostle Paul had an agenda and so does Professor Wright. Dr Wright brings a Pauline corrective to some Western misrepresentations of Christian faith. Western Christians have often, perhaps unwittingly, absorbed a Platonic view of the world, divided between the real “unseen, spiritual” world and the present seen material world. Add in a bit of modernity (an eschatology of progress and enlightenment without God), followed by the reaction of post-modernity (a harsh doctrine of original sin), with a hermeneutic of suspicion without any prospect of redemption or forgiveness. The result has been a Christian message of “of course the world’s a mess, because it does not know Jesus; but we’re alright, heading for salvation somewhere else; we don’t really belong here, we’re just passing through on our way to heaven”. Heaven, he notes, is a word that never appears in Paul’s writings.