NT Wright on The Gospel of Judas and the Da Vinci Code

The reason for the astonishing popularity of The Da Vinci Code on the one hand, and for the huge current media hype about the so-called ‘Gospel of Judas’ on the other, is that so many in our day are eager for enlightenment, hungry for spirituality, and yet desperate to avoid the way of the cross, the genuinely revolutionary kingdom of Jesus. And, tragically, there are many who put it about that second-century fragments like the Judas piece, like the so-called ‘Gospel of Thomas’, represent the true strain which boring, conformist old orthodoxy hushed up, and which offer today a more exciting pathway than regular mainline Christianity. My brothers and sisters, I have to tell you that it’s a lie. I was studying this newly discovered little tract, the ‘Gospel of Judas’, yesterday morning, and reading what some of its editors had written about it; and there crept over me the horrible sense of a lie cheerfully told, a lie which people are eager to believe, a lie which could sap the vital energy of the church and individual Christians unless we name it for what it is, see the danger, and know why we reject it.

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ht: ochuk's blog which also comments

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