Thanks to Edmund at Becoming (on the One Year Bible Blogroll) for the reference to a discussion between N.T. Wright and Anne Rice (a very odd couple) from Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.
I have to confess that I have not yet read anything of N.T Wright, currently Anglican Bishop of Durham, although I have recently seen so many references that I realise there is a gap in my book list. Anne Rice I had never heard of, despite the fact that she has sold 100,000,000 copies of her books - novels with occult and erotic backgrounds. But her latest book is "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" - the first of a series which tells the life of Jesus in the first person.
I found this a fascinating discussion to listen to. With the Jesus industry booming (the Da Vinci Code etc.) the question is "what's going on"? Why the ongoing quest for the historical Jesus when there is not a comparable search for the historical Buddha?
"Christianity classically is about something that happened. The happendness is incontrovertible." N.T. Wright
"there was this Christian commitment to love in the writing, in the scholarship itself" Anne Rice on how she found Bishop Wright through his writing.
Anne Rice experienced a personal return of faith a conversion - sudden yet gradual over some years. She had a glimpse of the infinite mercy of God.
Modern scepticism is unwarranted. The historical question is a good question. When the enlightenment came the church had got lazy, so was not ready to answer the enlightenment when it came with a sceptical account of the origins of Christianity. Now modern scholarship is getting its act together and demonstrating the historical truth that of course the Christian God is true, no one could have invented him.
References:
Edmund Becoming
Grace Cathedral Forum
N.T. Wright
Anne Rice
Anne Rice 'Christ the Lord' at Random House
Technorati tags N T Wright Anne Rice
