Ira Brent Diggers reviews the New Testament scholar N.T. Wright's latest book, How God Became King. Diggers praises its critique of both unthinking religious activism and forms of spiritual escapism:
As a seminary professor, I encounter these reductions in my own teaching, especially with first-year students. And I know my situation is not unique. There are students who rely on oversimplified theological formulas or vague notions of outreach and justice but who have very little knowledge of the Gospel narratives. There are also students who view salvation in strictly private and spiritual terms, often with the lone anticipation of leaving this world and going to heaven. And in all of this, there is very little appreciation for, much less understanding of, the relationship between the story of Jesus and the story of Israel and Israel’s God.
The reintegration of these stories—reading them as a unified narrative—is the key to Wright’s project. It is what allows him to avoid the formulaic reductions and false dichotomies that too often plague popular Christianity on the one hand and modern historical scholarship on the other hand. One senses that Wright is trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. For if we are at all interested in hearing the Gospels as they were meant to be heard, then theology and politics must be seen as inextricably related and mutually informing. God does not decree from on high our engagement with the world. Nor does God enter the fray only to deliver us from the world. Rather, God enters the fray precisely to engage the world, restore creation, and draw human creatures into that healing, restorative enterprise. For Wright, this is what it means to say that God has become king.
The Dish 