NT's Wright

I read this in NT Wright's book "The New Testament and the People of God", and can be found on page 10. This is exactly what I have been thinking for about 3 or 4 years now but haven't been able to put across anywhere near as eloquently as this brilliant man has. Have a read, it's very interesting...

"Here is the paradox that lies at the heart of this whole project. Although the Enlightenment began as, among other things, a critique of orthodox Christianity, it can function, and in many ways has functioned, as a means of recalling Christianity to a genuine history, to its necessary roots. Much Christianity is afraid of history, frightened that if we really find out what happened in the first century our faith will collapse. But without historical enquiry there is no check on Christianity's propensity to remake Jesus, never mind the Christian god, in its own image. Equally, much Christianity is afraid of scholarly learning, and in so far as the Enlightenment programme was an intellectual venture, Christianity has responded with the simplicities of faith. But, granted that learning without love is sterile and dry, enthusiasm without learning can easily become blind arrogance. Again, much Christianity has been afraid of reducing a supernatural faith to a rationalist categories. But the sharp distinction between the 'supernatural' and the 'rational' is itself a product of Enlightenment thinking, and to emphasize the 'supernatural' at the expense of the 'rational' or 'natural' is itself to capitulate to the Enlightenment worldview at a deeper level than if we were merely to endorse, rather than marginalize, a post-Enlightenment rationalist programme.

"It is, therefore, impossible of Christianity to ignore or relativize the 'modernist' challenge of the eighteenth and subsequent centuries. This does not mean, of course, that we must simply endorse the Enlightenment critique; merely that its questions must remain on the table. And, as I shall argue later, the postmodern critique of the Enlightenment itself, while placing very necessary restraints on Enlightenment ambitions, does not (as some would like to think) invalidate the 'modern' project lock, stock and barrel. While the dispute between the tenants continues, it would be a bold person who presumes to speak for the Owner.

"All this may sound very negative. Reading the New Testament seriously, at the present moment in Western culture, sounds so problematic that some may feel like giving it up. The vineyard is overcrowded and apparently unfruitful. But this response, too, would be inappropriate. Whatever one's viewpoint, this text matters. If the Christian clams for the New Testament are anywhere near the truth, we cannot see it as a safe garden into which Christians can retreat from their contemporary world. It must function as part of the challenge and address of the creator god to the contemporary world. If, however, the Christian claims about the New Testament are false, then (as critics since the eighteenth century have been saying) the sooner its deficiencies are pointed out, the better. Whether, therefore, one has a Christian or non-Christian point of view, a thorough examination of this text is a necessary responsibility."