Neither is the Final Destination

I am going through my AOL favorites and importing them to firefox...one at a time...slowly, meticulously because upon a cursory google check, there is no way to do that all at once...especially when your bookmarks are a compilation of favorites all the way back to AOL 3.0 or something. Anyway, I came upon a web page with the gleanings of N. Thomas Wright, the Anglican Bishop of Durham, England.

I am not sure why I saved it...but it is amidst the peacekeeping, nonviolent atonement links I've been saving of late so I am assuming he is related to that vein of thought. I borrowed the title of one of his short writings, Neither is the Final Destination. It is a short article followed by comments....50 some odd comments.....from readers. I thought what he had to say succinctly illuminated the view that our final destination is neither heaven nor hell (although I think he might believe that one of these is a temporary destination) and that the real final destination is "THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH." which to Wright means "an ultimate new creation in which heaven and earth are brought together in a great act of renewal" Oh wow...that sounds a lot better to me than the view espoused by the unbelievably successful mega series, Left Behind..or for that matter the view of most Christians who believe in the rapture. The Rapture is the ultimate "Calgon take me away!" (anybody but me remember those commercials?) Perhaps it will mean that in this great act of renewal, I might be able to right some of the wrongs I have done to the earth...like the ton of disposable diapers I sent to the landfills, the hurt I caused by careless words or selfishness, or the disparaging light I sometimes cast on the name of Christ by calling myself a Christian while behaving in a manner that was anything but.

I think perhaps Wright might believe in annihilation (although I do not know this for sure but just get that vibe from this short writing) On hell, he says "God's new world will not have in it 'a concentration camp in the midst of a beautiful landscape', as some earlier visions of 'hell' have supposed." On the second coming he says that it, "is NOT Jesus 'coming back to take us home', but Jesus coming -- or 'reappearing', as 1 John 3 and Colossians 3 put it -- to heal, judge and rescue this present creation and us with it." He doesn't think that God is interested in saving Christians FROM the world but that we "are to be his agents in bringing that salvation to the wider world." It is an interesting short read...along with the comments. The website is the Newsweek/Washington Post religious section called, "On Faith." Other short topics by N. Wright are God or god? , "A Caste System For Christians", "Pray, Study and Keep Working", "Love More, Pray More", "Golf More" and "Falwell From Afar" Check these all out HERE.