Given that the phrase "grain of the universe" served as a cipher for John Howard Yoder's doctrine of creation, I'm always interested to see how others use this phrase. Today I stumbled across N. T. Wright's wonderful summary of Jesus, the grain of the universe, and morality at the intersection of the church and world:
"The real point, which is also a signpost to many other issues when people ask 'Why should Christian morality be good for non-Christians?' is the Christian claim that in Jesus of Nazareth the creator of the world--the whole world, not a Christian subset of the world!--is being rescued and renewed. Of course, non-Christians will say they don't believe this. But Christians do, or at least should--and are therefore committed to believing that the new creation launched in Jesus is good news for all people at every level, so that even if people do not share explicit Christian faith it will still be a better, wiser, and fairer world if people live with the grain of the universe, which we see in Jesus and in the way of life he modeled and articulated." - from Scripture and the Authority of God (New York: HarperOne, 2005, p. 192-193
From my vantage point, I think Wright is using this phrase in almost exactly the way that Yoder does. It is linked directly to the person and work of Jesus, it emphasizes coherence between creation and redemption, and it accounts for why non-Christians can draw from and use facets of Christian morality.
"The real point, which is also a signpost to many other issues when people ask 'Why should Christian morality be good for non-Christians?' is the Christian claim that in Jesus of Nazareth the creator of the world--the whole world, not a Christian subset of the world!--is being rescued and renewed. Of course, non-Christians will say they don't believe this. But Christians do, or at least should--and are therefore committed to believing that the new creation launched in Jesus is good news for all people at every level, so that even if people do not share explicit Christian faith it will still be a better, wiser, and fairer world if people live with the grain of the universe, which we see in Jesus and in the way of life he modeled and articulated." - from Scripture and the Authority of God (New York: HarperOne, 2005, p. 192-193
From my vantage point, I think Wright is using this phrase in almost exactly the way that Yoder does. It is linked directly to the person and work of Jesus, it emphasizes coherence between creation and redemption, and it accounts for why non-Christians can draw from and use facets of Christian morality.
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