An Unsolicited Email
When I recently received an email announcing the U.S. release of N. T. Wright’s new book Spiritual and Religious, I was intrigued. The promotional blurb was arresting — even confrontational:
“I’m spiritual but not religious.” It’s a phrase that’s often used to explain why, although they don’t go to church, people still feel that life must have some kind of transcendent meaning. But what does this “spirituality” consist of? In Spiritual and Religious, N. T. Wright argues that, whether people realize it or not, they are often simply reverting to forms of ancient paganism that are very similar to those that confronted the earliest Christians…
The final paragraph of the blurb crescendoed with a challenge that framed the whole enterprise in stark terms:
“Are we to compromise with paganism… retreat into dualism… or are we to worship the God who is Father, Son and Spirit…?”
Given today’s climate of ideological polarisation, the timing and tone felt conspicuous. I found myself wondering whether Wright — or his publisher — was subtly entering into the culture wars, defending “orthodox” Christianity against the so-called liberal democratic “woke” tide.
But then came the surprise. Checking my Kindle library, I discovered I had already purchased this very book — back in 2018. It was originally published in 1992 under the title New Tasks for a Renewed Church. And that discovery changed everything.
Recovering the Original Voice
I dipped into the final chapter and was met not by polemic, but by poetry — or at least, by the pastoral and mystical voice I’ve long admired in Wright’s writings. Consider these passages:
“When one is faced with paganism, and trying to speak the truth about the creator of the universe, one will be forced again and again to speak of oneness and threeness… God, Lord, Spirit; Father, Son, Spirit; God, Jesus, Spirit; Creator, Word, Breath. That is why, when we reach Pentecost within the church’s calendar, we have a sense that the picture is now complete.”
Or this:
“Worshipping this true God, and indeed believing in him, is not easy. It is like keeping on course on a mountain walk through thick mist and a swirling wind. We need to check the compass continually if we are to keep our bearings.”
And most movingly:
“The check on the compass is always Jesus himself… a close and continuous study of, and meditation upon, Jesus will provide the stabilizing factor we need. It is in the light of him that we go on rediscovering who the creator of the universe really is… and distinguishing his Spirit from the other spirits that present themselves to us from time to time.”
There is nothing here with which I would quarrel. On the contrary, I find it rich, resonant, and rooted in the kind of living, Christ-centred spirituality that transcends doctrinal rigidity or institutional boundary-marking.
What, Then, Are We Resisting?
My initial reaction — the instinct to write a counter-book titled Christian and NOT Religious: Setting the Truth of the Trinity Free from the Shackles of the Church — was not aimed at Wright’s theology. It was a reaction to the frame into which this theology has been newly placed.
The real issue is not Wright’s language, but the broader dynamic: how institutions, publishers, and movements repackage spiritual depth into stark cultural binaries, as though the choice were between timeless orthodoxy or moral collapse. That is a false choice. And that distortion, not Wright himself, is what needs calling out.
If the Spirit is truly the breath of the living God — relational, wild, and life-giving — then we must beware of how even well-intentioned efforts to reassert “truth” can become, unintentionally, a means of containing the wind within walls.
Beyond the Blurb: The Real Work of Renewal
Wright is right to challenge the drift toward shallow spirituality and fashionable syncretism. But the answer is not always a return to ecclesial identity or doctrinal certainty. Rather, it may lie in what he himself so beautifully points to: the compass of Jesus, the mystery of the Trinity, the daily discernment of Spirit from spirit.
Perhaps the deepest renewal the Church can offer is not an insistence on being “right” but a willingness to listen again — to Jesus, to the poor, to the Earth, and to the seekers whose very questioning may be Spirit-led.
To those of us who feel both deeply Christian and wary of religion, Wright’s words can still serve. But we must read him, not just the blurb. And we must remember that the true test is not institutional allegiance, but Spirit-filled life.
Terry Cooke-Davies with Aiden Cinnamon Tea
30th April 2025
