From the printed article:

In a radical departure from traditional belief, Wright says that Christians are not ultimately destined for a spiritual place called heaven. He says that at the end of time as we know it, God will literally remake our physical bodies and return us to a newly restored planet.

"Heaven is important but it's not our final destination," he explained. "If you want to say that when someone dies they go to heaven, fine. But that's only a temporary holding pattern that is life after death. And what I'm much more interested in, or the New Testament is much more interested in, is what I've called life after life after death."

"I've often put it like this, if somebody you know has been very ill, you say, 'Poor old so and so, he's just a shadow of his former self.' And the extraordinary truth in the New Testament is that if you are in Christ and dwell by the spirit you are just a shadow of your future self," Wright said. "There is a real you to which the present you corresponds as a photocopy corresponds to the glorious original. You know, there is a real you, which God is going to make and it will be more physical -- more real, not less."

Wright hopes that his new book will revive belief in the prospect of a new, physical heaven and earth, which he says will somehow materialize when God decides to rebuild and restore the universe -- "Heaven and earth joined together in a new reality."

But this interpretation is the exact opposite of what many American Christians believe. The hugely successful Left Behind series of movies and books is an acopalyptic vision of the end of the world -- a view shared by many evangelicals. According to those who believe it, the end of the world will start with the so-called "rapture," when all christians will be taken up to heaven in one momentous swoop. The earth then enters a period of cataclysmic wars until it eventually disintegrates, in a final chapter of fire. Wright says that is more mythical than Biblical.

"It's a myth," Wright said. "It is an attempt to make sense of some bits of the New Testament. It was always the literature of the dispossessed ... it's now become the literature of the rich masses in parts of America."

Man, did the reporter get it wrong. Even dispensationalists like LaHaye and Hagee believe in a New Heavens and a New Earth eventually, right?

What Wright is saying isn't radical. Maybe it's just the first time this reporter has heard it because all he knows of Christian myth about the afterlife comes from movies?

Kasbah is a like a castle or fortress, and some of them become what locals refer to as the "old city" when a town grows large. I've been to a few kasbahs in Morocco, and I kept singing that crazy song out loud every time someone said the word.

Shrode, I'm hurt that you don't read my blog. I've covered all this, including the Colbert interview, months ago. (sniff, sniff)

Or maybe you do read it but your memory is going.
Dude, better go get your brain checked out.

(But, yeah, this is good stuff. ;-)

As time goes by, I've become less and less fond of Wright.

I think his emphasis on understanding Jesus in the context of a first century Jew, as well as his reminders of the bodily resurrection and the new heaven and earth, are important teachings that many Christians have either misunderstood or de-emphasized, myself included.

However, Wright seems to focus on these topics almost exclusively and seems to me to largely ignore or downplay a lot of other important aspects and teachings of Christianity.

Here is a link to an article in which he critiques C.S. Lewis' 'Mere Christianity'.

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=20-02-028-f

It's statements like "He [Lewis] simply does not know that Jesus wasn't born in A.D.1" that illustrate this. First off, I have no idea how he 'knows' this about Lewis, but even if true, I don't see why it is that important. Lewis obviously did not cover everything about Christianity in his book, but apparently since he didn't emphasize the few points that Wright has repeatedly emphasized and finds most important, the work is flawed.

Of course, I'm sure Lewis didn't get everything 'right', but I still love the broad depth of Lewis' writing and the way it still makes me think, much more so than the narrow repetition of Wright.

The classic cultural reference to the Kasbah comes from the movie Algiers, starring Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamar. In the movie, Boyer plays a Parisian criminal hiding out in the "Casbah" (that's how it's spelled here) in Algiers. When a character in an old Warner Brothers cartoon puts on a French accent and says, "Come to the Casbah with me," he's making a reference to this movie (though Boyer never actually says it). I rediscovered the movie recently, and found it remarkably compelling.

What Wright is saying isn't radical. Maybe it's just the first time this reporter has heard it because all he knows of Christian myth about the afterlife comes from movies?

The unfortunate thing is that all most Christians know of the afterlife/eschatology comes from movies. The reason why what Wright is saying is radical is not that its new. I had a professor mention this very thing my freshman year in college, five years ago.

The reason why its radical is that no other popular teacher/author in recent years has mentioned this sort of thing. Some of the reformed guys have been saying that the "Left Behind" scenario is unbiblical for a long time, but honestly, Wright has a much broader audience than them.

And in Typical Baptist Church, USA, its normal to believe that we are going to shed these bodies, never to see them again. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard people actually justify littering by saying, "God's gonna burn it all up, anyway." What Wright is saying is so important because it reminds us that this world is going to be made right, not tossed away, which is the assumption of most Christians.