Anyone who has read past posts will know that, though I am a Christian, I freely admit ignorance of many things Christian. More than that, of those things of which I have some knowledge, I class many as superstitious jiggery-pokery by olden times people who have now been elevated to the esteemed level of saints and whose pronouncements have become blessed doctrine.
I've just finished reading, Surprised By Hope, by N. T. Wright. Not to go overboard in telegraphing my response to the book, but, God save us!!!
The delightful portions of the book, and there are many, are those where Bishop Wright formulates cogent statements about our faith and bases those statements on specific teachings within the Bible, and on his direct experiences as a person of faith.
Unfortunately the greater part of the book is made up of diaphanous declarations about Bishop Wrights beliefs, said beliefs supported by little or no reference to the Bible or to other writers who have commented on the bible.
Large parts of this book devolve into what I can only describe as a faith based projections of what the good Bishop hopes for. Nothing wrong with that, but Wright clothes many of his hopes on very selective and non-inclusive biblical quotes while ignoring many other, differing, points of view in the gospels.
Almost as frustrating is Bishop Wright's regular use of pseudo scientific language to cloth the teachings of those who he thinks are wrong. The saddest example is a tedious argument that extends over six pages of the book and which addresses what Wright refers to as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's, evolutionary optimism. This evolutionary optimism, as written of by Bishop Wright, is at times coupled in his writing with pantheism and panentheism, I suppose in order to impress upon the reader that de Chardin's starting point is inherently un-Christian.
As with many modern and supposedly conservative Christians, Bishop Wright has a deep love for the arcana of Revelations and for the Christology of Paul.
Conservative and fundamental in the case of Bishop Wright have little or nothing to do with the life of Jesus as reported in the four gospels. I find this most curious. The life of Jesus was a call to repent and to act in a certain way. Over the greater part of the gospels Jesus is not mucking about in the details of what is to come or how it will come. Repent!!!, he calls, and live your life in this manner.
Another annoying occurrence in this book is Bishop Wright's occasional use of apologetics as rational for a given argument. Apologetic argument is what it is, but has little place in a book that seeks to follow certain strains of exposition in the New Testament and to build, 'proof,' of the positions being tendered.
All of that being said, the latter part of the book was a great pleasure to read and led me in directions of thought that were, and likely will continue to be, illuminating.
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