A while back I did a series on Peter Enns's Inspiration and Incarnation (a series now available in my new book at mark-down prices), which looked at issues like the historicity of Genesis, the nature of myth etc and so on. If you want to hear N.T. Wright sum up the thrust of my own series better than I ever could, hop over to this post at the Science & the Sacred blog.
This idea of understaning and giving heed to our cultural myths as a means of better understanding ourselves and creating empathy with others is explored creatively in "Darmok" an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. At the conclusion, after an encounter with an alien culture, Picard familiarises himself with the Homeric Hymns, which he regards as a root metaphor of our culture. He concludes that greater understanding of our own myths leads to greater understanding of ourselves (implied) which in turn leads to greater understaning of broader life.
ReplyDeletePerhaps N.T.W is a secret disciple of Gene Roddenberry. Live long and prosper.
Given Gene Roddenberry's heritage as a Southern Baptist and subsequent conversion to Secular Humanism, my question is did NT Wright actually have more in common with him when he was a secular humanist than when he was a southern baptist?
ReplyDeletePerhaps I'm reading Wright wrongly, but I think he might just have parted ways with Roddenberry when he envisioned a peaceful humanity finally prised from the harmful clutches of deity and religion.
Freed from the harmful clutches of deity indeed. Roddenberry's purpose here is most explicitly portrayed in the STNG episode "Who Watches the Watchers?" The primitive Mintakians encounter the Enterprise's crew, observe their technology deployed and proceed to worship The Picard as the supreme being. Only after much gentle handling and the patient employment of reason does Picard succeed in disabusing the deluded Mintakians of their misapprehension
ReplyDeleteAs for Wright's greater affinity with the humanist Roddenberry over and above that of the Southern Baptist Roddenberry, this may say more about your opinion of the SBs than it does about Wrights congruity with Roddenberry.
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