News Archive
Tea with a bishop
I have just had the joy of having tea, one-to-one with Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham. An hour and a half in the company of a lovely, warm, generous and incredibly intelligent and thoughtful man. This arose from the Aquila Ball when Ruth bid for "Tea with the Bishop" in a charity auction without me knowing about it.
It was a breath of fresh air, and an encouragement to meet this foremost New Testament scholar and chat about all sorts of stuff. How about, for example "Do Christians go to heaven when we die?" or "Is healing in the atonement?", "How do we show God's heart for the poor without being tokenistic?" and "What is the good news?".
He doesn't believe we go to heaven when we die, as Christ's resurrection is the beginning the renewal of all things, ushering in his kingdom and bringing heaven to earth. So we don't have disembodied spirits in heaven but a renewed physical body and renewed and satisfying work to do for ever. See here for some reporting of this and here for a wealth of sermons in text and MP3 format.
The Bishop is just another fellow human being, albeit someone who is a man of God, a NT scholar, someone who attempts to put his faith into action, and a much needed voice calling us to be disciples of Jesus. Not everyone will agree with his interpretation of the Bible, but he takes his responsibility to preach and live the good news very seriously.
And incidentally, the cakes were delicious too.....