Today, for the average Christian, the ultimate reward of having faith is going to Heaven at death. According to N.T. Wright, this view has been popularized, and thus ingrained in the average imagination, by authors such as Dante and artists such as Michelangelo. The problem is, for first century Jews (of the Pharisaic opinion) and mainstream Christians, the true hope was bodily resurrection to immortality on a renewed (or new) Earth. The problem is, the popular view of going to Heaven at death has overlapped the first century hope and threatens, and for many succeeds, to blot out the original hope.
What do you think Christians can do to heighten the awareness of resurrection? Should the intermediate state be at least marginalized as it once was, and perhaps even better, blotted out in favor of resurrection? Perhaps even non-academic Christians can have a role!
Plato and the Gnostics must not win. What do you think we can do to make the original hope the majority hope again?
2007-10-29
05:52:07
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7 answers
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asked by
enarchay
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in
Religion & Spirituality