Surprised by Nuanced Literalism

There's a book out in which the author, N.T. Wright, a notable Christian scholar and thinker, posits that the traditional Christian idea of Heaven is all wrong.  Heaven should not be imagined as the ultimate reward, an everlasting paradise in which one spends eternity with God. Rather, it's a temporary stop on the way to the actual physical resurrection of the body when Christ returns. 

Or something like that.  I haven't read the book, though I rather want to.  (If my ramblings here are based on a misunderstanding of what this author really says, I apologize.  But, even though I may not have time to get around to reading this for a while, it's on my mind right now.)

What fascinates me is that this author--a very intelligent, educated man--appears to actually believe that this is literally true. 

it seems to me that the reason many such literalistic Christians are literalistic Christians is that they want to live inside a myth.  That is, they want it to be true, and not "myth" at all.  This author seems to be a grade well above the Left Behind crew, in terms of intelligence.  And yet he thinks everyone will someday be physically resurrected. 

I'm somewhat ambivalent as to how to respond to this.  On the one hand, I find myself a lot more sympathetic to this sort of culture than are most of my literary/academic peers.  I am convinced that spirituality and religion are essential parts of human life.  I mean, truly essential, as in we really cannot live without them.  On the other hand, it may be that such literalism, by projecting spiritual reality "out there" instead of realizing it within, is really not much better, spiritually, than the spiritually-denatured secular post-humanism that it supposedly opposes.

I mean, watch Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth already, people.  Seriously.  If you didn't get it the first time, watch it again.

Still, I guess I finally come down more on the pro side than on the con.  Wright's is not the brutish, desperate literalism of mere fundamentalism.  I understand the appeal of living in a myth, even if I think it's ultimately spiritually dessicating to remain inside it.  "Hope" is all living inside a myth can offer, because one is forever hoping for the myth to be proven "true."  Better to see through it, so as to realize its wisdom right here and now.  Christianity remains a powerful symbol-system which can make possible powerful insights into one's own being and that of the universe, generally, if one takes a step outside of "belief." 

But it can be lonely and cold outside of a myth, especially if one loses contact with myth and archetype entirely, which is dangerously easy once one ceases to "believe."

Then one gets a job in a university English department and rambles about the signifier and the signified, or something, I suppose. 

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