Stephen Kuhrt - Tom Wright for Everyone: Putting The Theology Of N.T. Wright Into Practice In The Local Church

What we believe has a huge impact on the way that we behave. Our theology determines our strategy. Thats what makes this book such great value. Not only does it provide an extraordinarily accessible and succinct overview of the challenge presented by Tom Wrights ground-breaking work around the life and message of Jesus and the early church its also a thought-provoking account of its practical outworking through a local church and in a local community.

Steve Chalke MBE

Founder of Oasis Global and Leader of Church.co.uk, London UN Special Advisor on Community Action Against Human Trafficking

In this book Stephen Kuhrt offers us two very important things: not only has he pulled together the many different strands of Tom Wrights thinking into a thoughtful and readable whole, he also makes available to us the quite considerable reflections of someone who has, over the years, sought to put this theology into practice in his own ministry. Tom Wright For Everyone is thought-provoking, reflective, challenging and well worth reading.

Paula Gooder, Writer and Lecturer in New Testament Studies

Stephen Kuhrts book makes a warm and convincing case that Tom Wrights theology has the potential to transform the local church, the academy and contemporary evangelicalism. This is a timely and accessible introduction to the significance of a formidable thinker and brave servant of God.

John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford

The best theology has to be able to go beyond the academy into the everyday life of Christians. It has to be transformative for what we think and what we do. Stephen Kuhrt shows in this excellent book that Tom Wrights theology is all of that. And through his insights and practical wisdom Stephen offers his own challenge to the church today.

Elaine Storkey, Director of Education and Training Church Army, President of Tearfund

Making good theology accessible and demonstrating its relevance for Christian life is an urgent need today. Stephen Kuhrts book will be a very valuable contribution in narrowing the gap between the academy and the church, a gap which has often yawned far too wide.

Graham Tomlin, Dean, St Mellitus College

Stephen Kuhrt became curate of Christ Church, New Malden in 2003 and its vicar in 2007. Before training for ordination he taught History and Religious Studies at Archbishop Tenisons School in Croydon. He trained for ordination at Wycliffe Hall where he gained a First in Theology at Oxford University. He is Chair of Fulcrum, a group seeking to renew the evangelical centre of the Church of England. He has previously published Church Growth Through the Full Welcome of Children: The Sssh Free Church (Grove, 2009).

For Katie

and in memory of Philip King

(19352006)

May he rest in peace and rise in glory

First published in Great Britain in 2011

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

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Copyright Stephen Kuhrt 2011

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, a member of the Hachette UK Group. All rights reserved. NIV is a registered trademark of International Bible Society. UK trademark number 1448790.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780281063932

eBook ISBN 9780281066568

Typeset and eBook by Graphicraft Ltd, Hong Kong

First printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press
Subsequently digitally printed in Great Britain

Produced on paper from sustainable forests

Contents

It is sometimes said that the sign of someone called to be a teacher is when they possess the desire to pass on the things from which they have benefited. Having been a schoolteacher for seven years and a clergyman for a further seven, I know very well that extra motivation that comes with the opportunity to share those thoughts, ideas and experiences that I have found inspiring. Often the process towards such a goal is difficult, causing the teacher to use every tool they can find to achieve this objective. These can include simplifying and breaking down the material and using stories and illustrations, frequently drawn from ones own personal experience. Throughout this process, the vision continuing to motivate the teacher and the search for whatever model of learning will work is their earnest desire to pass on to others something that they have found to be immensely valuable and life-changing.

In the case of this book, that something is the theology and biblical scholarship of Tom Wright. I know that I am just one of many Christians, particularly in the UK and the USA, for whom over the last ten or so years the encounter with Tom Wrights work has been truly life-changing. In my particular case, it is engagement with Wrights work, more than that of any other writer, which has transformed the way in which I now read the New Testament and therefore understand my own personal Christian life and vocation. Beyond this and very much flowing from it, Wrights theology has then gone on to have immense influence upon how I seek to lead the worship and mission of the church of which I am Vicar, Christ Church, New Malden in Surrey, England.

However, for all the Christians I encounter who speak in very similar terms of the influence of Wrights work, I meet a much greater number for whom his theology remains, at least partially, a closed book. The reasons for this, I believe, are various and in the following chapters a number of suggestions for why this is the case will be made, including some that are controversial. But in the first instance this book has been written with the positive aim of helping to make Tom Wrights theology more accessible to those growing number of clergy, ordinands and lay people deeply attracted to what they have grasped about his thought and who are keen to understand more. Reflecting what has already been said, one of the key approaches I have used here, particularly in , is to seek to break down Wrights scholarship into bite-sized chunks to make it more digestible. Running the risk, as all summaries do, of simplification becoming distortion, this approach has been taken in the hope of providing a framework in which readers can locate and understand more of its distinctive aspects.

The other major approach that I have used is that of recounting story. For instance, in The hope and prayer behind these sections of the book, therefore, is that they will demonstrate, in a vivid and practical manner, the exciting difference that Tom Wrights theology can make to life, worship and mission of the local church. While the context of these stories is that of just one particular parish church within the Church of England, plenty of what is reported here will, I hope, be translatable into other contexts. The final chapter is more general, seeking to outline something of the broader challenge that Wrights theology is presenting to the Church today.