Transcript of N.T. Wright interview on The Colbert Report

I sat down to watch my DVR-ed episode of The Colbert Report featuring N.T. Wright, fully prepared to take down a few select quotes, when I decided I might as well just transcribe the whole interview. Sure, you can watch the interview online, but streaming media is so Web 2.0. The transcript is below.

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Stephen Colbert (SC): Bishop, thank you so much for joining us. Now, you are a bishop of the Anglican church, correct?
Bishop N.T. Wright (NTW): Correct, yes.
SC: Okay, great. Well, welcome. Now, I’m a Roman Catholic; no hard feelings about the whole Henry thing. Okay?
NTW: Absolutely.
SC: Let’s not try to make this… let’s not try to settle any scores. Okay?
NTW: We actually have an annual golf match of Anglicans and Catholics, and I’m sorry to say that they won the first two, but we shared the one last week. So we’re getting on alright.
SC: Okay, great. Well that’s a good ecumenical step.
NTW: Absolutely. We played for a dogma a hole.
SC: A dogma a hole?
NTW: Go figure, yeah.
SC: That’s very nice. Now, you talk a little bit about dogma — really quite ancient dogma — in your book Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church. I love the name Surprised by Hope. I believe that will be the title of Hilary Clinton’s next book, also. [Laughter]
NTW: I thought it was going to be Hoping for a Surprise.
SC: Yes. Well, these days, when I feel hope, I’m kind of surprised.
NTW: Yeah, well, absolutely. I mean the whole point about this is that most Christians have this vague idea of going to heaven. It’s something that may happen to you –
SC: — No, mine’s very specific. You get a harp, and I’ll have a mint julip, and I’ll ask Ronald Reagan questions.
NTW: Right. And you’ll be sitting there like that guy on the Far Side cartoon saying, “Gee, I wish I bought a magazine, ’cause it’s so boring.” I mean that’s the image a lot of people have of it. But the point of the New Testament is that there’s this big surprise that ‘heaven’ is just phase one, and then there’s a further thing — further down the track — which is what the Bible calls ‘New Heavens’ and ‘New Earth’. So, it’s like –
SC: The New Jerusalem.
NTW: Well, the New Jerusalem, but at the end of the Bible the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven to earth so that heaven and earth get joined and made over.
SC: And we’re made over too, right? Like we have physical perfection along with our spiritual perfection.
NTW: The resurrection is what you get in order to inhabit this new world. But that’s only surprise number one. Surprise number two –
SC: — What’s behind door number two?
NTW: Behind door number two… well, it’s a good question. Behind door number two, in the last chunk of the book, is that if God is going to do that to the whole creation at the end of time, and if that began with Jesus, then we now get to share in doing bits that are going to turn into the new creation. In other words, stuff like feeding the hungry, and looking after the poor. And particularly big things like –
SC: — But come the resurrection, Jesus is gonna take care of all that. He comes on a cloud of glory, judges the living and the dead, okay, and then everything’s better. Right? I mean, he made everything in six days, he can clean up what we got here in like, uh, an afternoon.
NTW: So, I don’t know if you have kids, but –
SC: I have three kids, yeah.
NTW: Well, I have four, and two grandkids –
SC: — It’s not a contest, okay.
NTW: Oh really? I thought it was.
SC: I’m sorry, I should have said, “…that I know of.” [Applause] Go on, go on.
NTW: The whole thing about — if you say to your kids, “Well, nevermind, by the end of the weekend this will be alright,” and so they can go and play, if the stuff they need to do they need to do it now. But the point — seriously — the beginning surprise is the resurrection of Jesus. And there’s great many Christians who are befuddled –
SC: — That surprised a lot of people. Especially the Romans.
NTW: Absolutely. And the early Christians themselves; they weren’t expecting it at the time. You know, took them by surprise.
SC: He told them though.
NTW: Yeah, he told them, but they didn’t get it. It says that they didn’t get it, and they kind of, you know –
SC: What’s the surprise here? Hasn’t this long been the message of the church? Isn’t this a Medieval doctrine?
NTW: It’s not Medieval. In fact, the Middle Ages is when it started to go wrong. If you go back to the very early church, yes, resurrection was the standard doctrine. I’m not saying anything radically new that wasn’t in the New Testament in the early church. In the Middle Ages there’s a lot of stuff [that] comes from the Greek philosophers — people like Plato — which says that actually you have a soul and the soul ends up going off.. and so you don’t need a body anymore.
SC: Well, what happens then? So, like, I’m all for finding out what happens to me after I die, because I’d love to make some plans. But, what happens then? According to your reading — and is this your reading or is this Anglican theology?
NTW: The great thing about Anglicans is that we have no theology of our own; it’s only if something is true, the Anglicans believe it. That’s the theory anyway.
SC: That’s what I say.
NTW: No, you chaps have stuff that you look up in these big books all the time. But the point is this: in the New Testament –
SC: You’re talking to the wrong chap. [Laughter]
NTW: Oh I’m sorry… I didn’t know you use the word ‘chap’. In the New Testament you have this wonderful picture — which is lost off for many Christians today — of God bringing everything together in this re-creation. And the point about that re-creation is that we can do re-creation here and now, because it’s already begun with Jesus. And I talk a lot in the book –
SC: That sounds a little slippery to me. I’m sorry, you got a little slippery on me there. You’re saying everything is re-created, okay, the earth is recreated, everyone who’s ever lived on it is re-created. Won’t it be crowded?
NTW: Well, it could be.
SC: Will the new earth be bigger than the last one, or will we all be slimmer?
NTW: Okay, two little facts. Well, I could do with being a bit slimmer — and I’m sure that it doesn’t apply to you — but actually every human being who’s ever lived on the face of the earth could just about stand together on the Isle of Man, which is a little offshore island off the English coast.
SC: And that’s what heaven will be?
NTW: No, fortunately no. And you’re still doing what most people do, which is to use the word ‘heaven’ for the final stage. What I say is, think about life after life after death. Heaven, okay, where people go after death. But then there is a further stage. We’re talking about a two-stage postmortem reality.
SC: I’ll tell you what. This is the sort of thing that really can’t be argued out in this lifetime. I’ll see you in the afterlife and we’ll settle it there.
NTW: Well that would be nice, yes.
SC: Bishop Wright, thank you so much for joining us.

• Set your DVRs (I just did): Bishop N.T. Wright will be appearing on the Colbert Report tomorrow night (Thursday 6/19, 11:30 p.m. EST / 10:30 p.m. CST). Previously on JakeBouma.com: N.T. Wright, Worship and Spirit in the New Testament and N.T. Wright interview. [HT: Emergent Village via Mike Morrell] 06/18/2008

What?

Yeah, that about sums it up.

I am Jack Shephard

I laughed when I read the last line about tattoos (I have two). Also, apparently only 3% of people who take this test are Jack Shephard. So, which Lost character are you?

A “Lost” sprint

It’s no secret that I’m on the Heroes bandwagon, or that I used to be on the 24 bandwagon (Let’s be honest; the show’s just no good anymore). But only recently did I jump on the Lost bandwagon, and it’s incredible. How I avoided this show for four years, I’ll never know.

My mom got me the season one DVDs for my birthday (two months early, mind you), and I’ve watched 16 episodes thus far. My goal is to be totally caught up before the WGA-strike-shortened fourth season begins on January 31. Let’s do some math.

There are 8 episodes left to watch in season one, 23 episodes in season two, and 22 episodes in season three, for a total of 53 episodes left to watch to be totally caught up. Starting today, there are 26 days until the 31st. That means I need to watch an average of 2.04 episodes per day until the season four premier¹. I initially titled this post “A ‘Lost’ marathon”, but methinks “sprint” is a bit more appropriate.

Any other Lost fanatics out there (No spoilers, please)?

Best of 2007

I am pleased to present the second annual JakeBouma.com “Best of” list. Feel free to argue with my choices in the comments. Here’s the list for 2006.

1. Army of Me – Citizen
2. Matt Nathanson – Some Mad Hope
3. Andy Davis – Let the Woman
4. Anberlin – Cities
5. Kanye West – Graduation
Honorable Mention: Ryan Adams – Easy Tiger, The Alternate Routes – Good and Reckless and True, Eric Hutchinson – Sounds Like This, William Fitzsimmons – Goodnight

1. Once
2. Atonement
3. Bourne Ultimatum
4. 3:10 to Yuma
5. Sweeny Todd
Honorable Mention: Ratatouille, American Gangster, I Am Legend, Oceans 13, No Country for Old Men

1. Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From A Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation by Andrew Root (Review forthcoming)
2. Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church by James K. A. Smith
3. Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren
4. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
5. The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr (Review forthcoming)
Honorable Mention: The Courtier and the Heretic by Matthew Stewart, The Primal Teen by Barbara Strauch

1. Chicago Cubs games
2. Heroes
3. Man Vs. Wild
4. The Colbert Report
5. Project Runway

1. Google Reader (seriously, I live a different life because of it)
2. Twitter
3. Bleed Cubbie Blue
4. IAmJoshBrown
5. Rethinking Youth Ministry

Are you suffering from Heroes hysteria?

Sometime least fall, I came down with a horrible case of Heroes hysteria. Not much is known about the disease, so I just let the thing run its course, and although it took about eight months, I eventually conquered it. Well, Heroes hysteria has returned to my system. At least, I’m feeling the symptoms, anyway. I have a feeling that it will worsen tonight at about 9/8 central.

Since last year’s iteration of the disease, Heroes hysteria has mutated itself to become stronger and more contagious. Not convinced? Here are seven reasons why (warning: spoilers).

Please pray for me while I battle this wonderful, wonderful disease.

• In light of the recent accusations against my hero, Bear Grylls (including being called “the adventure equivalent of a cheese souffle“), the new episodes of Man vs. Wild will be “two hours long, instead of one – partly because so many of the locations are so remote, but also so we can go into greater detail, and show the behind the scenes work, including the crew’s role.“ 09/05/2007

Bear Grylls is my hero

Lately I’ve been watching lots of Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel. The premise of the show is that a man named Bear Grylls is dropped in some remote wilderness (usually he sky dives) with only a water bottle, a knife, and a flint, and he has to find his way back to civilization.

Some of the places he’s been dropped in season two include Ecuador, the Australian Outback, Iceland, and the Everglades. In the shows that I have seen, Bear has done some pretty insane things, including: successfully hand-catching a salmon and biting into it while it was still alive; drinking his own pee for the sake of hydration; eating spiders and grubs; and peeing on his shirt and using it as a headdress to keep cool in the desert.

But Bear Grylls is not just some John Doe that the Discovery Channel hired for this television series. He served in the British Special Air Service (SAS) for several years, in which he recalls that he was “highly trained in unarmed combat, desert and winter warfare, combat survival, medics, parachuting, signals, evasive driving, climbing and explosives.” At the age of 23, he became the youngest Briton to summit Mt. Everest, which he did only two years after he broke his back in three places in a parachuting accident. He has also broken several other world records, some of which he has done for charity. He’s a straight up badass.

In response to a fan question about what he always takes with him on his expeditions, Bear replies:

Flint and striker, so I can light a fire however tough it gets — lifts my spirit always and has often saved my bacon! My Christian faith: high mountains and my time in the military taught me that it takes a proud man to say he needs nothing, and I need my faith. And, finally, a laminated picture of my family tucked inside my shoe.

In addition, he’s written several books, has his own “Bear Grylls” knife, and is an international motivational speaker.

I officially have a man crush.

• What I’ve Learned: Jack Bauer. “If you don’t have a Taser gun, the wires from a lamp will deliver the current needed to shock your subject just enough to get him to give up the information you need without doing any permanent damage.” (thx, John) 01/28/2007

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