The Conundrum at the Heart of Christianity (1 of 8)

The Conundrum at the Heart of Christianity (Part 1 of 8)

I’ve been reading N T Wright’s latest book, What Happens After We Believe and I find it fascinating. Over the next few weeks I intend to share some of the insights in the initial chapter and perhaps it will interest you enough to buy the book and read the rest. It would be money well spent.
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The premise of the book is that there is a conundrum at the heart of Christianity. For most Christians (definitely for Protestant Christians) the central idea of Christianity is that God has acted decisively in and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to provide all who believe with eternal life. (John 3:16; Mark 8:31; 10:26-27; John 10:10; Luke 4:18-19; Matthew 28:18-20 - just to provide a smattering of familiar verses from the Gospels which point to this.)

But if that’s true, if eternal life is based solely on God’s initiative, if there is nothing we can do to earn it, “if” as N T Wright ponders, “moral effort doesn’t count for anything, what is the point of being a Christian—other than to go to heaven one day, and perhaps to persuade a few others to go with you? Is there any reason for doing anything much after you believe?”

Tune in next week for the answer.