SPIRITUAL AND RELIGIOUS PB

How a better understanding the New Testament in its original pagan context can help you live and communicate the Christian gospel more effectively amidst the plethora of spiritual pathways on offer today.

'I'm spiritual but not religious.' It's a phrase that's often used to explain why, although they don't go to church, people still feel that life must have some kind of transcendent meaning.

But what does this 'spirituality' consist of? In 'Spiritual and Religious' Tom Wright argues that, whether people realize it or not, they are often simply reverting to forms of ancient paganism that are very similar to those that confronted the earliest Christians.

With his characteristic verve and incisiveness, Wright traces the parallels between the worldviews of the first and twenty-first centuries, and shows how a better understanding of God as Trinity can breathe fresh life into our understanding and preaching of the gospel today.

He concludes this prophetic book with a call to contemporary Christians to make a clear choice:
‘Are we to compromise with paganism, to assimilate, to water down the distinctives of Christian faith in order to make it more palatable? Are we to retreat into dualism, into a private ‘spiritual’ religion which will assure us of an other-worldly salvation but which will leave the powers of the present world unchallenged. . . ? Or are we to worship the God who is Father, Son and Spirit, and to find in that worship a renewed courage, a renewed sense of direction, and a renewed hope for the future?’

Tom Wright is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews. He was formerly Bishop of Durham. He is the author of over seventy books, including the 'For Everyone' guides to the New Testament and the bestselling 'Simply Christian', 'Surprised by Hope', 'Simply Jesus', 'How God Became King', 'Creation, Power and Truth', 'Finding God in the Psalms', 'The Meal Jesus Gave Us', 'Surprised by Scripture' and 'Simply Good News'.

Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: SPCK Publishing (18 May 2017)
ISBN-13: 978-0281072842