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N.T. Wright Proclaims the Gospel at Harvard University
By Rick Richardson
It was a chilly fall night at the Graduate School of Education just off Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Students streamed in to fill the 300 seat auditorium. N.T. Wright approached the lectern and shared the good news of the kingdom story, beginning in Genesis and reaching a climax in the life, preaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. He challenged Harvard students to “reconstruct hope” by joining in God’s dream and becoming the kind of good they want to see happen in the world, through Jesus.
Then he answered questions for 45 minutes from students lined up at two microphones placed in the aisles. The questions were thoughtful and challenging: “Christian faith has been around for 2000 years. Why hasn’t it made the world a better place?” “Aren’t many non-Christians better than many Christians?” “How can you believe in the God of the Old Testament, a God who orders the Israelites to kill and destroy their enemies?” “How can you commit to a faith that has produced a Church that has been so intolerant and acted so unjustly in the world?”
Wright handled the questions with grace and truth, effectively combining academic content and compelling metaphor. “But Christian faith has made the world a better place. Look at the first five hundred years of history after Jesus, and you will see a stunning record of a community that changed the world through its message and compassion. And more recently, people like William Wilberforce, Desmond Tutu, and Mother Theresa show forth the true meaning and intent of faith in Jesus. Yet there is still evil in the world. Sometimes that evil has overwhelmed the Church. The only adequate answer to evil in the world is the death of Jesus on the cross.” Wright’s thoughtful responses challenged and encouraged all the students, whether Christian or not.
The lessons from Wright’s three nights of gospel proclamation at Harvard University, November 18th to 20th, 2008, sponsored by the three undergraduate and five graduate Harvard InterVarsity groups, are many. Here are a few:
- Students, including skeptical Harvard students, are genuinely hungry for the gospel when it is preached with depth and narrative power, and when it is preached in a style that communicates respect for others. Sometimes we think we have to simplify the gospel so much that it becomes a reduced shell of itself instead of the powerful and transforming and profound story that it is.
- N. T. Wright did not “dumb down” the gospel, but proclaimed it in a way that was equally challenging and disturbing for Christians and non-Christians. In some cases, the non-Christians were more positive about Wright’s message than the Christians, not unlike the way Jesus disturbed the religious and wooed the outsider in his day.
- He proclaimed a big gospel that is truly good news because it is the overarching narrative about the transformation of the whole world, and not just the micro-narrative about the private spiritual enrichment of the few individuals who respond.
- Though Wright mourned over the way the Church has often fallen short of the ideals and intentions of Jesus, he did not let past failure force present silence, as so many do who find themselves in elite secular humanist contexts like Harvard. He spoke boldly and optimistically about the power of the gospel to rescue individuals and to change the world.
Wright gave Harvard Christian students increased confidence that they can communicate the gospel in convincing and compelling ways and can bear more fruit. Even at Harvard, among skeptical and cynical students and faculty, Wright showed us that people are far more open and hungry than we realized for the genuine message of Jesus. May God so encourage us all. | |
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