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CHURCH SOCIETY LEADER RIPS WRIGHT ON THE RESURRECTION
by David Phillips
Bishop of Durham and the Resurrection
The Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, appears to have stirred up controversy with comments, reported in the Australian, about the Resurrection. Whereas one of his predecessors, David Jenkins, did not believe in the physical resurrection Tom Wright does. However, in the comments as reported he appears to make this an optional feature of Christian belief.
The section published in the Australian reads as follows: "I have friends who I am quite sure are Christians who do not believe in the bodily resurrection," he says carefully, citing another eminent scholar, American theologian Marcus Borg, co-author with Wright of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions.
"But the view I take of them - and they know this - is that they are very, very muddled. They would probably return the compliment.
"Marcus Borg really does not believe Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. But I know Marcus well: he loves Jesus and believes in him passionately. The philosophical and cultural world he has lived in has made it very, very difficult for him to believe in the bodily resurrection.
"I actually think that's a major problem and it affects most of whatever else he does, and I think that it means he has all sorts of flaws as a teacher, but I don't want to say he isn't a Christian.
"I do think, however, that churches that lose their grip on the bodily resurrection are in deep trouble and that for healthy Christian life individually and corporately, belief in the bodily resurrection is foundational."
This has been picked up by others (see for example Albert Mohler) as indicating that the physical, bodily resurrection of Christ is an optional extra for the Christian faith. Clearly this is Wright's view. Yet we cited in an earlier news item the teaching of the Anglican homilies that the resurrection is the ground and foundation of our whole religion (Homily 26). This is clearly the teaching of Scripture, and it is incomprehensible that this means anything less than the physical, bodily resurrection.
We stated in the previous item: Therefore, as Anglicans we assert that those who do not accept or believe the plain teaching of the Bible on the physical, bodily resurrection of Christ, are not in fact Christians at all.
Therefore, in this as in other areas, we have to say that Tom Wright is wrong and that by stating these views publicly he is misleading people.
Wright recently wrote to Churchman about another resurrection incident. He was responding to an editorial in Churchman 119/3 by Professor Gerald Bray on Women Bishops. In his response, defending his view that the ordination of women is consistent with Scripture Wright wrote: I have yet to see anyone from Dr Bray's position engage with what seems to me the central point: that Mary Magdalene and the other women on Easter morning were commissioned to be 'apostles to the apostles', being entrusted 'entirely against the grain of the culture of the day with the very first proclamation of Jesus' bodily resurrection. This was massively significant in the first century and I believe remains so today.
There is no doubt that the testimony of the women was counter cultural and is sign of the authenticity of the gospel records - why would anyone make this up. But, to suggest that this therefore legitimises the presbyteral ministry of women, which neither the women nor the apostles seems to have seen it as doing, is so incomprehensible it is small wonder that no-one has bothered to engage with it.
David Phillips
Church Society
