GroshLink

Another recent quote from cultureisnotoptional's * the daily asterisk is from N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope -- I commend it to you, maybe I'll write a brief review in the coming months.  But I digress as my purpose in posting is that I'm very much looking forward to N.T. Wright's opening of the Word as we explore Human Flourishing at Following Christ 2008.

Pray for Wright as he prepares to call academics to embody the Gospel in their vocation, family, neighborhood. ... Pray for those participating in the conference to come with their hearts prepared to return to campus encouraged and equipped as culture makers who are ambassadors of a bold, just Creator God seeking to enable Human Flourishing through the gift of his Word, Spirit, people, creation.

The classic Christian doctrine, therefore, is actually far more powerful and revolutionary than the Platonic one [of a disembodied heaven].  It was people who believed robustly in the resurrection, not people who compromised and went in for a mere spiritualized survival, who stood up against Caesar in the first centuries of the Christian era.  A piety that sees death as the moment of "going home at last," the time when we are "called to God's eternal peace," has no quarrel with power-mongers who want to carve up the world to suit their own ends.  Resurrection, by contrast, has always gone with a strong view of God's justice and of God as the good creator.  Those twin beliefs give rise not to a meek acquiescence to injustice in the world but to a robust determination to oppose it. -- N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope