Between the Trees

Chapter 5: Cosmic Future: Hope or Despair?
Wright begins by discussing to different myths about the future of the cosmos. The first is what he terms the “myth of progress” - the modernist utopian vision of the future as continually evolving to perfection. Wright notes that politicians are still particularly fond of perpetuating this myth to [...]

Chapter 4: The Strange Story of Easter
Wright now turns his attention to the Easter narratives themselves. He first notes four strange features which provide evidence that these are very early accounts.

Silence of the Bible in these stories. It seems as if the narratives were written early because, unlike other parts of the gospels, they are [...]

Chapter 3: Early Christian Hope in its Historical Setting
Wright begins this chapter by telling of the legendary fight between the philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. He uses the conflicting accounts of it to make the point that, in all eyewitness testimony, accounts will differ and conflict somewhat, but that doesn’t mean that nothing happened. [...]

***This continues our series on Surprised By Hope by N.T. Wright***
Chapter 2: Puzzled About Paradise?
Wright now turns his attention to Christian confusion about death. He starts by contrasting a popular funeral sermon by Henry Scott Holland, an Anglican, with a poem by John Donne:
DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, [...]

Now that the summer is here, I have time to do some serious reading. This summer I’m going to try to blog through several books which I’m reading. This is in part just a tool for my own reading comprehension, but I’d love it to also be a chance for us to discuss the ideas [...]