N. T. Wright - Broken Signposts: How Christianity Makes Sense of the World

S OME YEARS AGO I WROTE A PRIMER ON THE CHRISTIAN faith called Simply Christian (HarperOne, SPCK, 2005), in which I used four great themesjustice, spirituality, relationships, and beautyas the starting point. These four themes had crystallized in my mind, slowly and over some years, as I tried to think through the Christian message in relation to wider issues in human life and society.

I was at the time working in various jobs that required me to live at the tricky intersection of church and state as well as with the perennial pastors and preachers challenge of relating the real gospel to the real world. In that book I described these four as echoes of a voice: when we ponder them, its as though we are hearing someone calling to us from just around the corner, out of sight. I suggested that, though these four do not themselves necessarily point to the truth of God or of Christian faith (many people appreciate their importance without finding themselves drawn into worshipping the God revealed in Jesus), when we think through the Christian story and its meaning with these questions in mind, there is a natural fit that is more than rough coincidence.

I have reflected on these four themes a good deal since then, and as my thinking has developed, I have added three more items that we also experience as echoes of this voice: freedom, truth, and power. It now seems to me, though this would need to be argued more fully, that we need all seven to be in play if we want to work toward a wise, mature human life and society. And I have come to see these seven not simply as themes or questions, but as signposts. Signposts name a reality and point us in a direction. Likewise, these seven signposts name realities that all human cultures value as well as pointing beyond themselves to the meaning of life, to the meaning of the world. They indicate, in fact, how we ought to make sense of the worldhow we ought to understand the way the world is and the challenge of being human within it. The fact that we care about them and are puzzled by them is itself telling us something about the deep sense of the world.

But by themselves they may not tell us all we would like to know. That is why, in another more recent book, History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology (Baylor University Press and SPCK, 2019), I describe them as broken signposts. The point there is that the seven themes do indeed appear to function as signposts that would enable us to make sense of the worldtheir constant appearance in different guises in everything from grand opera to newspaper editorials makes that clear enoughbut that they all let us down. That brokenness, however, turns out to be crucial in discerning what they really mean.

For that to make sense, though, we need to bring a different voice into the conversation. In my earlier treatment I discussed the seven broken signposts in relation to the Christian message in general. Here I want to do something quite different and invite the Gospel According to John to come on stage and address us on the topic. No doubt there are other parts of the Bible we could call on in the same way, but I have a hunch, which this book will explore, that John will provide fresh and often unexpected insight and show us the ways in which the seven themes really do function as signposts, albeit broken ones, while finally enabling us to make sense of the larger world within which they are such vital but difficult issues.

I am, as in many times past, grateful for the encouragement and editorial help I have received from Mickey Maudlin at HarperOne, and on this occasion also from Jana Reiss.

This book is dedicated to my old friend and colleague Carey C. Newman. For nearly thirty years now our paths have intertwined at both scholarly and personal levels. His friendship, encouragement, and taste in highland irrigation have been a consolation in difficult times and a delight in good ones. He would probably have wanted to edit the present book somewhat differently, but as in some other areas I presume we will continue to enjoy our disagreements as much as our many, and deep, agreements.

TOM WRIGHT

Wycliffe Hall, Oxford

Epiphany 2020