The scholar, NT Wright, has kicked off something of a debate among evangelicals. Do we really need to believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus in order to be saved? The issue has resurfaced because Wright once said he had friends, who he is quite sure are Christians, that do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. He was asked on a recent podcast whether he still held to this view. In his answer, Wright referenced his friend, Marcus Borg, who was a liberal scholar who argued that Jesus was not, in fact, bodily resurrected. Borg has even debated apologists – including William Lane Craig – on this specific point, denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

It is important to be clear on what Wright is not arguing here. First, Wright himself does not deny the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus. He is very clear in the podcast and in his writings that he affirms the resurrection of Jesus as a real, material, historical event. Wright even says his big book – The Resurrection of the Son of God – was written to counter the position of Borg and to reaffirm a bodily resurrection. Second, Wright is not arguing that the resurrection doesn’t matter at all. Though perhaps a bit wet (we will get into that in a minute), he considers Borg to be “muddled” on this issue. He would affirm that the muddle does have at least some implications. Third, Wright is at pains to point out that Borg would also affirm the resurrection is real. The point in question is that he rejects a material, bodily resurrection. If I hear him rightly, Wright would object to denial of any resurrection taking place; he is apparently less troubled by somebody denying a bodily resurrection.

So, what specifically is NT Wright claiming here? The particular issue relates directly to his friend Marcus Borg with a broader implication to be drawn from what he says. Borg denies the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus but, because of some mystical practice of prayer that centres on the person of Jesus (you will have to watch the podcast to hear exactly what that is), Wright is not prepared to say Borg is not a Christian. The implication to be drawn is that denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus, according to NT Wright, does not write one out of the Christian faith. Though he disagrees with the position itself, NT Wright is arguing that you can count yourself a genuine believer who is safe in Christ even if you reject the material, bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

By some happenstance, this past Sunday I was preaching from 1 Corinthians 15. Whatever else you can take from that passage, the key point could not be clearer: if you deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus, you do not belong to the faith. In fact, Paul insists if you deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus, there is no faith! He says your faith is pointless, your Christian activity and experience make no sense and any future hope you have is void. Unless Jesus is raised, nobody else is raised and he goes on and on in 1 Corinthians 15 (read it all the way through) labouring the point: your faith is futile, pointless, non-existent and pitiable if Jesus did not rise bodily. He insists in the first half of 1 Corinthians 15 the resurrection must have occurred for faith to be of value and in the second half that it must be bodily for it to have value. Whilst there are all manner of other scriptural references to which we can appeal to the same end, 1 Corinthians 15 absolutely settles the matter: you cannot be a Christian in any meaningful sense without belief in a physical, bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

NT Wright’s defence of Marcus Borg rests on him being “muddled” about this issue. Now it bears saying, I do accept there is a category of believer – someone who really belongs to the Lord Jesus – who is confused about certain key theological concepts. I fully accept, for example, many in our pews may have a tenuous grasp on the doctrine of the trinity. Similarly, I have written in recent days about the difference between recognising a believer who has true and genuine faith in the Lord Jesus, understanding the essence of the gospel, whilst simultaneously being confused about some significant theological aspects of the gospel itself. So, it is worth affirming, there is indeed a category that exists of genuine, but muddled or confused, Christians whose theology may not be watertight but who do belong to the Lord Jesus. Nevertheless, there are two key reasons why this defence does not and cannot apply to the likes of Marcus Borg.

First, there is clearly a difference between a new believer being confused and a long-time professing Christian, with numerous theological qualifications who has been set up as a teacher, being considered “muddled”. The bible itself gives a category of person judged based on the light that they had. Think of Jesus’ own woes to Bethsaida and Chorazin for example. By the same token, we can recognise a confusion in an untaught or relatively new believer with no Christian background whatsoever far more readily than we ought to settle for that as a legitimate explanation in one with a longstanding Christian background, multiple qualification, has been reading the Bible for many years and is even setup as a bible teacher. These are not equal and they ought not to be judged equally. NT Wright appears to be treating Borg – against all credibility – like a brand new, untaught believer.

Confusion and muddle doesn’t tend to set itself up as an authority. Confusion and muddle doesn’t tend to take on the mantle of teaching. Confusion and muddle is often recognised in an unsure posture; a willingness to admit things are confusing and here is my best guess. Confusion and muddle that is genuine is open to correction because it recognises it is confused. Confusion and muddle is not evidenced by being setup as an authority and engaging in active debates against those defending orthodoxy, insisting that your “muddle” is actually the correct view and everybody else is wrong.

Second, there is a major difference between being “muddled” about core doctrine and actively denying it. The confused believers in our pews may well be muddled about the trinity, for example. But there is a difference between somebody misunderstanding and a person actively denying. Even the muddled people who begin their best explanation of the trinity with ‘think of an egg…’ will still, if you ask them explicitly whether they believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit with each person being fully God and each person distinct from the others, they will say ‘yes’. They may be muddled, their explanations may be lacking, but they nevertheless affirm in essence the doctrine of the trinity when put to them in an orthodox way. There is a difference between lack of understanding and not necessarily having formal orthodox formulations and denying core theological truth.

The same holds in respect to the bodily, material resurrection of Jesus. There may well be muddle and confusion among some. But when you ask them straight: ‘do you believe Jesus was raised from the dead in a real body?’ chances are they will say ‘yes’. That is different to an individual who is set up as an authority, actively engaging in debate with orthodox believers on this question, utterly and categorically denying that doctrinal truth. Not even a passive denial; but an active one repudiating the orthodox doctrine directly. Again, those two things cannot both be categorised legitimately as “muddle”. One is confused; the other is actively denying.

NT Wright insists that Borg is “muddled” but remains in the camp. For the reasons above, I do not think we can legitimately claim Borg was muddled in that way. Certainly not in any such way that would credibly define him as a Christian. And that really leads on to a third concern with what NT Wright said. If it is possible to be “muddled” and yet still a Christian, how much muddle is too much muddle? How much denial is too much denial? What doctrines are necessary to understand before one can be considered genuinely Christian?

Here, I think, we get to another problem. Despite Borg’s denials of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, Wright insists that Borg was a genuine Christian because of a somewhat mystical prayer practice. I won’t rehash here it all; listen to the podcast (from about 8 minutes in) to hear for yourself. The issue I have is that the bible is very clear that a mystical practice of prayer invoking the name of Jesus is not the essence of being a Christian. This feels like old-fashioned sentimentalism. In effect, I hope the best for my friend and so I will concoct incredible definitions of saving faith and genuine belief because I want to believe (against the evidence we have) that here is a genuine believer.

Scripture is very clear on this issue. It is those who call upon the name of the Lord who will be saved. It is those who trust in his life, death and resurrection on their behalf who are in the camp. There are several other core doctrines which must minimally not be denied – the trinity and the resurrection among them – if we are worshipping the one true God and saviour who is presented in the bible. Paul in Romans 10 is adamant, for anyone to be a believer, there needs to be some level of gospel understanding that they can then respond to (cf. Rom 10:14-17). The New Testament letters are clear that certain denials of key doctrines mean we are not worshipping Jesus and we write ourselves out the camp (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2ff; 1 John 1:8-10; 1 John 2:4, 9, 15; 4:2-6; 2 John 1:7-11; etc). Denial of the bodily resurrection of Jesus is one such doctrine.

My friend, Dave Williams, has also written on this. You can read his post here. He closes by saying this:

Wright seems to dismiss those dogmatic Lutherans… blaming them for their insistence on truths that matter, seeing them as the bad guys rather than the horrendous liberal, life destroying, soul stealing nonsense that is far too often paraded around by dead churches.

Here I think we get to the nub of a much wider issue. In a desperate (and in my view, misguided) attempt to keep someone within the camp, we water down the gospel and we blame those nasty, hard line, orthodox believers for driving them away. The upholding of the truth, the maintaining of core gospel doctrine – the denial of which puts us beyond saving faith – is seen as secondary to ever-expanding approaches to unity and avoiding schism at all costs.

It bears saying that NT Wright is the former Bishop of Durham for the Church of England. He was considered one of the good evangelical guys by many. And yet this is the line we get from him. If you want to understand the issues ripping apart the Church of England, this goes some of the way to explaining it. It may also give us pause when we hear about the “good evangelical guys” fighting the good fight.

But perhaps most significantly this speaks to the vacuousness of pinning our hopes to evangelicals in elite institutions. Whilst I am all for evangelicals being evangelicals in all walks of society, being what they are and seeking to honour God in whatever he has given them to do, I am less enamoured with the entirely unbiblical project of overtaking institutions and grabbing of levers of power in order to effect some sort of top-down Christian influence-cum-revolution-cum-revival. Scripture and more recent European, specifically British, history tells me those godly princes and rulers are never quite godly enough, nominalism is about the best you can hope for – ironically making actual gospel revival considerably harder – and those we manage to get into positions of influence tend to do exactly this; namely, capitulate to the culture and become more enamoured with position and prestige, doing all they can not to endanger it, than they are with faithfulness. It has been hard to deny, for quite some time, prevalent issues in Anglicanism owe at least something to this phenomenon.

I have spoken a lot about the quiet revival recently. Some want to argue for these muscular forms of Christianity, these heavy-handed forms of Christianising the nation to capitalise on these things. Interestingly, those who are currently being attracted back to church are looking for those that preach and teach the bible. They are coming to churches that operate broadly like churches and who unashamedly open the bible, teach what it says and do not water it down because the culture at large finds some of it unpalatable. It is hard to believe – when the bible pins the entire existence of the church on the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ as a real event in history – many of those currently seeking out churches will want to stay in one that insists you can still be a believer and reckon the defining event of history to be nothing more than a conjuring trick with bones.