in light of this being holy week and the media coverage that gets (usually with programs attacking Christianity and its beliefs), in light of the recent media coverage concerning The Gospel of Judas, in light of the forthcoming media frenzy over the release of The Da Vinci Code movie, i thought i would post this transcript of a lecture recently given by controversial Anglican Bishop of Durham, N.T. Wright (link is to an unofficial site, although it is supported by Bishop Wright).

i say controversial because Bishop Wright is one of the foremost players in the debate over the New Perspective on Paul, a debate which calls into question the Reformational (and Augustinian) understanding of the definition and outworkings of the doctrine of justification. but that is a topic better discussed elsewhere. the concern here is what Wright has to say about Dan Brown’s ficticious novel (which may seem redundant, but it is breathtaking how many people take this book as credible and historical fact). despite what a lot of Reformed folk may say, Wright has been very influential in discussions and debates centering around the person of Jesus Christ. he has thoroughly responded to the Jesus Seminar and defended the canonical portrait of Jesus that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have presented for the last 2000 years. Wright has been particularly beneficial (from what i hear, i have yet to read the book although i will soon) in his defense of the historicity and necessity of the physical resurrection of the body of Jesus.

because of his work on the person of Christ, and his influence and credibility in the scholarly world, he presented a lecture at The Seattle Pacific University, responding to the cultural phenomena that has caused a good deal of doubt and harm to Christianity worldwide. the full transcript of the lecture can be found here, and it is well worth taking the time to read it, especially if you have yet to read the book, although i would definitely encourage reading the book, just to get a first hand look at its lies, historical errors, horribly transparent characterization, and maddening writing style (at one point in the lecture Wright says of that the book that so many erroneous “details abound which make the first-century historian snort and want to throw the book into the fire,” which, i can attest, was certainly the case with me). we should most certainly not embrace the fabrications that Dan Brown and his predecessors have published, but neither should we be afraid to read what they have to say and engage and refute them. for this reason, i am most grateful for the work that Bishop Wright is doing in defending our great Savior.

the transcript is rather long and i’m sure most won’t read it all the way through. so, for this reason, i have included the “conclusion” section, which i found to be the most profound and succinct way to describe the danger of this book and forthcoming movie.

Let me sum up this lecture in the following way. The Da Vinci Code is a symptom of something much bigger, a lightning rod which has throbbed with the electricity of the postmodern western world.

One of the basic fault lines in the contemporary Western world is the line between neo-Gnosticism on the one hand and the challenge of Jesus on the other. Please note that, despite strenuous attempts to make this line coincide with the current sharp left-right polarization of American culture and politics, it simply doesn’t. Nor, for that matter, does it coincide with the polarizations of British or European culture either. So what is this real, deep polarization which runs through our world?

Neo-Gnosticism is the philosophy that invites you to search deep inside yourself and discover some exciting things by which you must then live. It is the philosophy which declares that the only real moral imperative is that you should then be true to what you find when you engage in that deep inward search. But this is not a religion of redemption. It is not at all a Jewish vision of the covenant God who sets free the helpless slaves. It appeals, on the contrary, to the pride that says “I’m really quite an exciting person, deep down, whatever I may look like outwardly” — the theme of half the cheap movies and novels in today’s world. It appeals to the stimulus of that ever-deeper navel-gazing (“finding out who I really am”) which is the subject of a million self-help books, and the home-made validation of a thousand ethical confusions. It corresponds, in other words, to what a great many people in our world want to believe and want to do, rather than to the hard and bracing challenge of the very Jewish gospel of Jesus. It appears to legitimate precisely that sort of religion which a large swathe of America and a fair chunk of Europe yearns for: a free-for-all, do-it-yourself spirituality, with a strong though ineffective agenda of social protest against the powers that be, and an I’m-OK-you’re-OK attitude on all matters religious and ethical. At least, with one exception: You can have any sort of spirituality you like (Zen, labyrinths, Tai Chi) as long as it isn’t orthodox Christianity.

By contrast, the challenge of Jesus, in the 21st century as in the first, is that we should look away from ourselves and get on board with the project the one true God launched at creation and re-launched with Jesus himself. The authentic Christian gospel, which is good news about something that has happened as a result of which the world is a different place — this gospel demands that we submit to Jesus as Lord and allow all other allegiances, loves and self-discoveries to be realigned in that light. God’s project, and God’s gospel, are rooted in solid history as opposed to Gnostic fantasy and its modern equivalents. Genuine Christianity is to be expressed in self-giving love and radical holiness, not self-cosseting self-discovery. And it lives by, and looks for the completion of, the new world in which God will put all things to rights and wipe away all tears from all eyes; in which all knees will bow at the name of Jesus, not because he had a secret love-child, not because he was a teacher of recondite wisdom, not because he showed us how we could get in touch with the hidden feminine, but because he died as the fulfillment of the Scriptural story of God’s people and rose as the fulfillment of the world-redeeming purposes of the same creator God; and because, in that death and resurrection, we discover him to be the one at whose name every knee shall indeed bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, confessing Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father.