Tom Wright abolishes heaven and the soul

. . . so The Times says today. So it hasn't taken long for the new bishop of Durham to make the news! Here's the article by Ruth Gledhill (Times religion correspondent):

Durham's new Bishop abolishes Heaven and the soul

The article is about a new book (how does he write so much?) of Wright's called For All the Saints?, apparently to come out later this month. Gledhill characterises Wright as "the country’s leading evangelical theologian" and quotes him fairly extensively,

Dr Wright argues that, in the modern age, a loss of confidence in biblical promises along with the development of liberal theologies have led to a belief in a sort of universal salvation for all, with everyone ending up at a final destination, although few seem to be clear what this destination is.

There has at the same time been a steady erosion of any belief in Hell. He writes: “We have been fooled, not for the first time, by a view of death, and life beyond, in which the really important thing is the ‘soul’ — something which, to many people’s surprise, hardly features at all in the New Testament.

“We have allowed our view of the saving of souls to loom so large that we have failed to realise that the Bible is much more concerned about bodies."