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Archive: Nicholas T. Wright
God calls nations to special roles
Being called to a special role is a given. But discernment of what that role is is not so easy.
By Nicholas T. Wright | November 30, 2010; 09:45 AM ET | Comments (15)
Failed church and state
Asking about the social etiquette of administering the death penalty is like inquiring after the etiquette surrounding rape or robbery with violence. What has happened to the conscience of a great nation with (some) deep Christian roots?
By Nicholas T. Wright | June 22, 2010; 11:39 AM ET | Comments (6)
Secular fundamentalism
Banning burqas doesn't do anything to foster a more open society. It just inflicts a secularist ideology (which is just as much closed-minded as any other fundamentalism) on unwilling citizens.
By Nicholas T. Wright | May 4, 2010; 01:18 PM ET | Comments (2)
Separation of church and paganism
Interesting that the Church gets criticized, when we stand out against what a particular government wants to do, for not 'moving with the times' or 'being out of step with the people' -- which implies that folk are trying to corral us into being a department either of state or of the opinion pollsters. Much more like paganism; much less like the church of Jesus Christ.
By Nicholas T. Wright | March 9, 2010; 02:42 PM ET | Comments (9)
Even Jesus was accused of blasphemy
Beware of defending Jesus, lest you make him an idol in the image of your own dreams of power and control.
By Nicholas T. Wright | January 5, 2010; 09:24 AM ET | Comments (3)
Preparing for a 'good death
Many of us believe that proper terminal care is the best answer rather than encouraging people to kill themselves, which for all sorts of good reasons strikes many of us as deeply wrong.
By Nicholas T. Wright | November 3, 2009; 03:27 PM ET | Comments (3)
Common Cup or Common Liability?
In the UK we had a great panic a few months ago, and a decree went out from the highest authorities in the Church of England at least that it was better for the moment for everyone simply to receive Communion in one kind only.
By Nicholas T. Wright | October 13, 2009; 12:54 PM ET | Comments (2)
Exhibit A: Jesus
Beauty, Justice and above all Jesus.
By Nicholas T. Wright | October 8, 2009; 04:25 PM ET | Comments (8)
Disarm, but Carefully
There is a great deal of moral re-learning to do. But most of the world want nuclear weapons because they're afraid, and the country most of them are afraid of is the U.S.
By Nicholas T. Wright | September 28, 2009; 04:40 PM ET | Comments (3)
A View from Scotland's Next-Door Neighbor
I haven't fully made up my mind about the release of the man convicted but I sense that the reaction in America may not fully understand how many people here see things.
By Nicholas T. Wright | August 25, 2009; 11:04 AM ET | Comments (4)
Episcopal Church Chooses to "Walk Apart" from Anglican Communion
The bishops of the Episcopal Church have voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion.
By Nicholas T. Wright | July 15, 2009; 08:37 AM ET | Comments (105)
The Desire for God and One Another
Desire for one another and desire for God, as all spiritual directors know, are intimately linked.
By Nicholas T. Wright | June 30, 2009; 10:12 AM ET | Comments (1)
Secularism's Attempt to Veil Religion
Sarkozy's position on the burqa is the classic secularist French one; not much to do with evaluation of the burqa, mostly to do with secularism's desire to push religion off the map.
By Nicholas T. Wright | June 25, 2009; 10:41 AM ET | Comments (5)
A Temporary Solution at Best
Roll on the day when the church leads the way in modeling respectful and reasoned argument! But I expect my beard to be considerably grayer before that happens.
By Nicholas T. Wright | June 10, 2009; 08:21 AM ET | Comments (1)
"Forgive Us Our Debts..."
The financial crisis reminds us that the point of forgiveness is, yes, that you may have got it wrong but it's time for a clean start.
By Nicholas T. Wright | March 3, 2009; 05:53 AM ET | Comments (6)
Don't Wait
The longer President-elect Obama waits to go back to church, the harder it'll be for himself and for the congregation. Get back on the horse and everyone will quickly get used to your riding it.
By Nicholas T. Wright | November 25, 2008; 12:21 AM ET | Comments (0)
Which Candidate Will Honor God's Love
Which of the candidates is more likely to be open to the challenge to enable this quasi-empire to order its affairs in a way which honors God the creator and is aware that power itself is redefined by the loving and generous nature of this God as redefined in and around Jesus of Nazareth?
By Nicholas T. Wright | October 27, 2008; 04:29 PM ET | Comments (9)
How to Exercise Power Humbly, Responsibly
How can we regain a sense of human power exercised responsibly and humbly under God?
By Nicholas T. Wright | September 30, 2008; 02:35 PM ET | Comments (0)
Economy Built on Wishes and Wants
Two generations ago wry commentators like T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis noted that in the Bible and the Koran it is forbidden to use money to make money, i.e. to take interest -- and that our entire modern western economy, and now more or less the global economy, is built on that system and nothing else.
By Nicholas T. Wright | September 16, 2008; 06:46 AM ET | Comments (19)
Concerns About Her Judgment, Not Her Views
Too bad that though the decision will hugely affect the rest of the world, only the elite (i.e. U.S. citizens) vote... that's actually the biggest issue in the election: U.S. relations to the rest of the world.
By Nicholas T. Wright | September 15, 2008; 12:49 AM ET | Comments (21)
Let Women Lead and Let Church be Church
I happen to believe that women can and should exercise leadership at all levels in the church, but I would argue the point, not on the grounds that 'that's what happens in society', but on the grounds that from the resurrection onwards women were involved at the very heart of the apostolic ministry.
By Nicholas T. Wright | September 3, 2008; 02:18 AM ET | Comments (6)
Trust God, Act Responsibly
Which gods are we worshiping that are extracting their usual price -- of sacrifice of weak victims? What would it mean for a society to worship Jesus Christ instead of Mammon?
By Nicholas T. Wright | August 6, 2008; 12:51 AM ET | Comments (59)
An Ancient Controversy
Many Roman Catholics, including many priests, very much regret this restriction of the eucharistic hospitality they would like to be able to offer. And many Roman Catholics, including many priests, are not only happy but quite eager to receive Communion sometimes from Anglican clergy.
By Nicholas T. Wright | July 8, 2008; 09:13 AM ET | Comments (5)
Pray the Lord My Body and Soul to Keep
The brain and the body have all sorts of odd interconnections which develop in multiple and complex ways, and the disciplines of prayer, scripture, sacrament, care of the poor generally make for health.
By Nicholas T. Wright | June 17, 2008; 01:03 PM ET | Comments (2)
Satisfying Our Needs, Gratifying Our Wants
The definition of greed is the pursuit of gratification for its own sake irrespective of appropriateness.
By Nicholas T. Wright | June 2, 2008; 07:22 AM ET | Comments (44)
Ignoring the Creator's Original Intent
For the vast majority of human history across cultures and geography, and for all the great religious traditions, 'marriage' and its equivalent words in different languages has referred to the union of a man and a woman. To argue against that is to change the meaning of the word marriage.
By Nicholas T. Wright | May 27, 2008; 06:38 AM ET | Comments (49)
A Follower of Jesus by Any Other Name
Better questions: What tasks is God calling the church to undertake today and tomorrow? What resources are there in the Evangelical traditions which will enable us to carry out those tasks? What resources will we need for those tasks which are NOT normally found in the Evangelical traditions?
By Nicholas T. Wright | May 16, 2008; 12:30 PM ET | Comments (24)
Can Politics Serve Democracy?
In the election for London Mayor the electorate was faced with a tricky, certainly dishonest radical left-winger who'd been in power for 8 years and done all sorts of crazy things, and a solidly right-wing super-rich playboy, very smart and totally untrustworthy. Does that sort of choice add up to 'democracy'?
By Nicholas T. Wright | May 9, 2008; 05:47 AM ET | Comments (9)
God in Public -- The New Challenge of Our Times
Clearly we are facing quite a new moment. Whereas in the 1990s people were buzzing about Who Was Jesus, today the key question seems to be, how do we 'do God' in public?
By Nicholas T. Wright | April 23, 2008; 08:58 AM ET | Comments (75)
Questions, Answers Still Blowing in the Wind
Forty years on, I'm still left asking the question -- with a great sense of sadness because I love America and admire it hugely and am awed and saddened at some of the things some American policies are leading to.
By Nicholas T. Wright | April 4, 2008; 05:56 AM ET | Comments (5)
Beware Labelism
'Religion' should address 'labelism' -- especially in the run-up to an election.
By Nicholas T. Wright | March 26, 2008; 05:10 AM ET | Comments (16)
The Resurrection Revolution
For Christians, resurrection is a highly revolutionary doctrine. Death is the last weapon of the tyrant. The news that the living God is sovereign over death itself is therefore very bad news for tyrants
By Nicholas T. Wright | March 22, 2008; 10:29 AM ET | Comments (31)
Spitzer Case About Public and Private Trust
If someone deceives their spouse, chances are they won't have much compunction about deceiving the public.
By Nicholas T. Wright | March 13, 2008; 11:13 AM ET | Comments (11)
New Tech, Old Issue
I bet people have asked this question about everything since they discovered pigeons could carry messages.
By Nicholas T. Wright | March 13, 2008; 06:18 AM ET | Comments (11)
He Would Challenge Power, Not Run for It
The real question is, what sort of a cross would today's system be intent on using to kill him?
By Nicholas T. Wright | March 4, 2008; 03:22 PM ET | Comments (17)
A Serious Issue that Requires Sensitivity
The question of how we live together as a civil and wise society while cherishing different faiths is a deep and serious one and can’t be pushed away just because people take fright at certain misunderstandings.
By Nicholas T. Wright | February 13, 2008; 06:36 AM ET | Comments (227)
What Will Replace Secularism?
Both fundamentalism and secularism are of course high modernist features, and both are well capable of being deconstructed within postmodernity (thank goodness). The question is, what will replace them?
By Nicholas T. Wright | February 7, 2008; 12:01 PM ET | Comments (87)
Two Options: Delusion or Hoax
Vissarion sounds very much like a low-grade version of the sort of self-help religion you get in popular bookshops: bits and pieces of this and that.
By Nicholas T. Wright | February 6, 2008; 08:48 AM ET | Comments (15)
Time for Serious Debate on God in Public
Huckabee's raising of the question, and the way in which these things are now debated in the U.S. and UK, is an indication that the Enlightenment 'settlement' whereby secular governments run the country and religion is a private affair, is rapidly being seen as threadbare.
By Nicholas T. Wright | January 25, 2008; 02:56 PM ET | Comments (79)
The Sinful Pride of the Post-Modern World
Our pride in being western post-enlightenment humans (or indeed our pride in having attained the degree of sophistication to call ourselves post-modernists!) gives us the further license to make up our own rules.
By Nicholas T. Wright | January 17, 2008; 02:32 PM ET | Comments (813)
The Jewish Advantage
The Jewish people have a great, though challenging, advantage over many western Christians, in that they know in their bones that they are called to be different.
By Nicholas T. Wright | January 7, 2008; 08:45 AM ET | Comments (71)
Secularists Will Have to Deal With It
The reality is that it isn't the Muslims or the Hindus who are 'offended' at Christians doing Christian celebrations. It is the old-fashioned secularists.
By Nicholas T. Wright | December 17, 2007; 08:22 AM ET | Comments (43)
Whispers of Hope from the Dead
All cultures, ancient as well as modern, have been more or less familiar with the fact that people we love who have died can and do appear to us.
By Nicholas T. Wright | October 10, 2007; 06:47 AM ET | Comments (68)
Human Behavior, By Any Other Name...
We could substitute the word 'atheism' for 'religion' in Hitchens' quote and it would still work.
By Nicholas T. Wright | September 28, 2007; 10:25 PM ET | Comments (53)
Fine Line Between Belief, Behavior
In the name of whichever god you invoke, would it not be a better thing for us all to talk together about our respective faiths than to try to achieve dominance by violence?
By Nicholas T. Wright | September 11, 2007; 01:15 AM ET | Comments (208)
Big Question, Bigger Assumptions
We are never, repeat never, in a position where we can size up God and decide what such a being ought really to do.
By Nicholas T. Wright | September 5, 2007; 07:42 AM ET | Comments (57)
God or god?
A genuine conversation about what 'god' means, between a well thought out Christian and a well thought out Hindu, would be a great start.
By Nicholas T. Wright | August 1, 2007; 07:20 AM ET | Comments (69)
No Easy Answers
I have looked at the sites and find myself unable to do more than observe. I have taken part in some Christian-Mulsim dialogues, with great enjoyment and profit, but find myself still very much in the learning stage. It is...
By Nicholas T. Wright | July 30, 2007; 07:31 AM ET | Comments (49)
A Caste System for Christians
Happily, there are thousands, perhaps millions, of Roman Catholics who cheerfully ignore all this and establish excellent relationships.
By Nicholas T. Wright | July 19, 2007; 06:07 AM ET | Comments (86)
Neither is The Final Destination
Heaven is important but it's not the end of the world.
By Nicholas T. Wright | June 27, 2007; 09:53 AM ET | Comments (90)
Pray for Wisdom, Change
For the Christian the main obligation must be to pray.
By Nicholas T. Wright | June 21, 2007; 07:50 AM ET | Comments (18)
Start by Understanding Salvation
We aren't saved BY good works but we are saved FOR good works.
By Nicholas T. Wright | June 8, 2007; 09:49 AM ET | Comments (97)
Pray, Study and Keep Working
War sharpens some of the horrible things about the way the world currently is but doesn't change the basic structure of a good world in rebellion and longing for redemption.
By Nicholas T. Wright | May 30, 2007; 07:15 AM ET | Comments (32)
Religion is God-Given
For the Christian, of course (as for the Jew), humans are made to reflect the Creator.
By Nicholas T. Wright | May 23, 2007; 06:53 AM ET | Comments (45)
Love More, Pray More, Golf More
In human terms I have obviously 'peaked', since I'm in what is clearly my last job.
By Nicholas T. Wright | May 19, 2007; 07:40 AM ET | Comments (10)
Notes on Falwell From Afar
We are each called to be true to what we find in scripture and I have no reason to suppose he was not as obedient to that imperative as I struggle to be.
By Nicholas T. Wright | May 16, 2007; 12:37 PM ET | Comments (61)
Don't Limit Jesus to This World
Jesus was a social revolutionary in the same way that Mozart was brilliant at counterpoint.
By Nicholas T. Wright | May 9, 2007; 07:52 AM ET | Comments (49)
Brits Sketchy on Mormonism
Well, sorry, as a Brit I simply can't answer this one. But perhaps American readers would like to know that Mormonism certainly hasn't entered the mainstream of British religion and most Brits pretty certainly would only have the sketchiest idea...
By Nicholas T. Wright | April 30, 2007; 10:00 AM ET | Comments (5)
Forgiveness Means You Were Wrong
Forgiveness means that it did matter, that it was wrong, and that it won't be held against you.
By Nicholas T. Wright | April 25, 2007; 05:50 AM ET | Comments (16)
Answer More Complicated than Question
There are varieties of Islam which have embraced violence, and there are varieties that have forsworn it.
By Nicholas T. Wright | April 19, 2007; 08:59 AM ET | Comments (17)
God With Us, Grieving
The creator God is with us in the middle of the horror, sharing and bearing the pain and the burden.
By Nicholas T. Wright | April 17, 2007; 11:01 AM ET | Comments (28)
Know Your Mind, Body and Spirit
A lot of modern medicine was conceived in a relentlessly secularist mindset, but I don't think I'm selling out to secularism by taking an Aspirin or having an injection.
By Nicholas T. Wright | April 11, 2007; 09:30 AM ET | Comments (19)
Jesus Lives or Christianity Dies
Take Easter away, and we are at best like the first-century Jews, still hoping for redemption to happen but with no sign that it has just yet.
By Nicholas T. Wright | April 4, 2007; 09:22 AM ET | Comments (94)
In UK, Fuddy-Duddies, Happy-Clappies, or Worse
There are really only two or three 'religion' stories they want to tell, and two cancel each other out.
By Nicholas T. Wright | March 28, 2007; 07:47 AM ET | Comments (27)
Read the Book; You'll Know How it Ends
The idea that to get salvation you need to go to heaven -- rather than that salvation is a gift which comes from heaven to embrace earth -- results in misreadings of key texts.
By Nicholas T. Wright | March 21, 2007; 07:39 AM ET | Comments (59)
Discrimination Built Into UK System
The UK has a law prohibiting the sovereign from becoming, or marrying, a Roman Catholic. This is regarded by many as discriminatory.
By Nicholas T. Wright | March 14, 2007; 07:36 AM ET | Comments (25)
Teach the Classics in All Fields
I don't see how teaching religion can be mandatory in universities. By then people specialize and many would be unlikely to sign on for a course which included a compulsory element in religion....
By Nicholas T. Wright | March 8, 2007; 07:39 AM ET | Comments (221)
Base Criticism on Facts, Not Prejudice
To say that some people are prejudiced, so nobody can say a country or its leaders are going the wrong way, is to collapse all moral discourse into a stinking postmodern heap.
By Nicholas T. Wright | February 22, 2007; 10:00 AM ET | Comments (18)
Sex Both Powerful and Potentially Dangerous
The Judaeo-Christian tradition places sex within marriage so that it is like the fire in a home's hearth.
By Nicholas T. Wright | February 15, 2007; 07:04 AM ET | Comments (24)
God's Power Does Not Excuse Human Despoiling
To say ‘Well, God will do whatever with this world eventually, so for now I can pump carbon emissions and other harmful gases into its atmosphere,’ is simply illogical.
By Nicholas T. Wright | February 13, 2007; 08:25 AM ET | Comments (38)
Different Kinds of Prayer
The Psalms are prayers that unite awe at God's transcendence and a sense that God wants to be intimately in touch with his human creatures.
By Nicholas T. Wright | February 2, 2007; 08:15 AM ET | Comments (27)
World Needs A Strong United Nations
Having made a huge mess, we maybe do have a responsibility to stay and clear it up.
By Nicholas T. Wright | January 15, 2007; 06:05 PM ET | Comments (35)
Atheists Must Deal With the 'Problem of Good'
Fervent Christian belief has been associated with neo-conservative political beliefs, making atheism increasingly an attractive option.
By Nicholas T. Wright | December 28, 2006; 11:10 AM ET | Comments (71)
Jesus Is Image of An Invisible God
Jesus went to his death in the belief that this was what Israel's God had promised to do, by himself, to take cosmic evil and human sin on himself and so deal with it once and for all.
By Nicholas T. Wright | December 26, 2006; 04:21 PM ET | Comments (856)
