It’s not as if we have only recently discovered through science that dead people don’t rise again to life. They knew that in Jesus’ day.

“The reason Joseph was worried about Mary’s pregnancy was not because he didn’t know where babies come from but because he did.” – C.S. Lewis

They knew dead people don’t rise.

The resurrection is a strange gift. Like a magnificent painting that won’t go anywhere in your house. This work of art demands that you dismantle a room or the whole house and rebuild it around the work of art. The resurrection demands that we rebuild our thinking around the resurrection.

(like FPC Portland did when an organ was donated)

a new way of knowing. a new epistemology.

Video https://vimeo.com/91573067

N.T. Wright

The point is not to figure out how to get us to heaven but to bring heaven and earth together.

We’ve had all these years of liberal democracy and we still have wars and rumors of wars,

“There were two great revolutions in the late 18th century. Both of them thought that the reason for doing so was to bring about some sort of utopia. The reason the French look so miserable is they know it didn’t work. The reason Americans look so happy is you think it has.”

God is back on the agenda. A passion for justice is back on the agenda because we have something to say.

Ironically, the 18th century said, ‘now religion is by act of statute something about what you do with your private space, getting in touch with the distant, remote God in your own prayer and spirituality and then, finally, after death, going and spending eternity with him…right, thanks, we’ve got rid of that. We’ll run the downstairs bit.

The 18th Century basically dismissed the idea that there could be such a thing as Christian political theology. And the churches have gone along for the ride.

So when the newspapers say, ‘Oh, stop getting involved in politics. You lost. Just teach people to say their prayers and how to go to heaven and that’ll be fine thank you very much. That’s because actually, part of the church’s vocation is to speak the truth to power so we can speak the word of love to people without power.

that’s part of our vocation, but the newspapers have actually taken that job from us. They think it’s their job to speak the truth to power. So they don’t want the churches on their patch, thank you very much.’