Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church | N. T. Wright | Surprised by Hope

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Surprised by Hope:...

	Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church N. T. Wright HarperOne, 2008 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 43 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Title's True! This is a Surprising Book about the Core Hopes -- and the Crucial Work -- of Christianity

Friends call him "Tom" -- and, at this point, Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright has friends around the world, eagerly looking for his next visit and his next book. There's an air of C.S. Lewis about the bishop of Durham.

Nearly a decade ago, he became a sensation among American journalists for touring the country with Marcus Borg, the two of them cast as a pair of dueling Bible scholars and co-authors of a still very popular book, "The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions." What drew headlines coast to coast was that, in each city along their tour, the crowds were larger than anyone envisioned. I recall reporting on this myself, double checking to make sure the claims were true -- that thousands of people, rather than hundreds, were hungry to hear truly gifted scholars debate details of Jesus' life and ministry.

That year, Borg played the provocateur, skeptical about many traditional claims concerning Jesus. However, since that time, Borg's own path has veered right into what he calls "The Heart of Christianity" and his recent books are read by thousands of regular churchgoers across the U.S.

That year, Tom Wright played what I can best describe as the C.S. Lewis role. In many of Tom's books, he even writes in Lewis' nuts-and-bolts voice and measured cadence. Many Americans may have forgotten the role Lewis played as a Christian titan in the popular media of his era. In his heyday, before "The Chronicles of Narnia" eclipsed everything else he wrote, Lewis was famous as "a Christian apologist," meaning that he'd go anywhere and stand toe to toe with anyone to defend his orthodox view of the faith.

The truth about this more recent pairing is that Wright and Borg both studied at Oxford and both share a passion for grappling with both the latest historical research into the biblical record -- and a passion for stirring up the church into a vigorous force for change in the world. The two "foes" still disagree on many points, but they're getting closer and closer to an all-out, rabble-rousing appeal to the Christian church to rise up, take a daring step away from its all-too-individualistic focus on saving "my" soul. They both want to see Christians creatively dive into the work of healing this broken world.

What's Tom saying now that's so daring and urgent?
There's no way to fully capture a book so full of fascinating insights as "Surprised by Hope" in just a couple of lines. But, hey, I'm a trained journalist, so I'm going to try. Before we turn to our Q and A with Tom himself, here are a few lines from his new book that I think suggest the daring voice that speaks from this volume.

By the time these lines appear in Tom's book (around page 200), he already has argued that Christians have a sadly muddled view of what the Bible and classical Christianity teach about resurrection, heaven and the mission of the church. One core stone in that foundation is that we are called, not to focus on escaping from evil bodies and an evil Earth into a heavenly realm -- but, instead, we are called to work with God to heal and renew his Creation in a glorious new way.

Tom writes: "As long as we see salvation in terms of going to heaven when we die, the main work of the church is bound to be seen in terms of saving souls for that future. But when we see salvation, as the New Testament sees it, in terms of God's promised new heavens and new earth and of our promised resurrection to share in that new and gloriously embodied reality ... then the main work of the church here and now demands to be rethought in consequence."

Then, a little more than a page later, Tom links this argument with the New Testament in this way: "For the first Christians, the ultimate salvation was all about God's new world, and the point of what Jesus and the apostles were doing when they were healing people or being rescued from shipwreck or whatever was that this was a proper anticipation of that ultimate salvation, that healing transformation of space, time and matter. The future rescue that God had planned and promised was starting to come true in the present.
"We are saved not as souls but as wholes."

For many readers, it's time to rethink our assumptions about what Tom Wright is saying. I actually finished reading Tom's new book with a grin.

I'm thinking: I'll bet there are a bunch of people out there for whom this is the first Tom Wright book they'll own. And, I'll bet there are some pulpits out there from which this is the first Tom Wright book that'll be quoted in a sermon.

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Surprised by Hope

I remember reading through N. T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God last spring and thinking about how critical it is to the Church today to have a revitalization of her understanding of resurrection, heaven, and eschatology as a whole. As I read this book I lamented all the errors of eschatological thought and teaching in the Church. I loved the book and I wanted all of the Church to read it. But at its daunting 800+ pages, I knew that its impact on the Church would be limited. I wanted the book to be smaller and more accessible. I longed for the book to reappear in another, shorter form. This spring, when Wright's Surprised by Hope came out, I got my wish.
This book is simply marvelous. Wright begins by noting the confusion throughout the world right now regarding questions about life after death. He talks about how this confusion has seeped into the Church. We in the Church have, for long time now, forgotten what the Bible actually teaches about heaven, hell, and the resurrection. We have settled for an escapist eschatology that sees the ultimate purpose for humanity as being sucked into the sky for some disembodied eternal bliss.
This eschatology, or lack of, has been horribly detrimental to the Church. It has taught us to either flee from the realms of ecology and social justice because God is concerned about the "spiritual" and not the physical (Conservative Protestantism) or to care about them without much good theological reason (mainline Protestantism). If we want to actually appreciate, care and love creation and each other, then a reworking of our eschatology is in order.
This is not simply a question about millennial views, it is a question about how we view the world, it is about the cornerstone of our faith, the resurrection of Jesus. We must first ask the question, `Did Jesus rise from the dead?' and, if he did what does it mean? Wright answers the first with a resounding yes. This does not mean that he proves the resurrection beyond a shadow of a doubt. He knows that this appeals to history, but is appeals to so much more:

"What I am suggesting is that faith in Jesus risen from the dead transcends but includes what we call history and what we call science. Faith of this sort is not blind belief, which rejects all history and science. Nor is it simply - which would be much safer! - a belief that inhabits a totally different sphere, discontinuous from either, in a separate watertight compartment. Rather, this kind of faith, which like all modes of knowledge is defined by the nature of its object, is faith in the creator God, the God who promised to put all things to rights at the last, the God who (as a sharp point where those two come together) raised Jesus from the dead within history, leaving evidence that demands an explanation from the scientist as well as anybody else." (p.71-72)

I appreciate both his commitment to orthodox Christianity and his denial of the rationalism of the Enlightenment project. He proposes a new (or very old) way to approach the epistemological question of the resurrection and parallels each to an encounter with the risen Christ: faith (Thomas), hope (Paul), and love (Peter). (p. 72-73)
"Love is the deepest mode of knowing because it is love that, while completely engaging with reality other than itself, affirms and celebrates that other-than-self reality." (p. 73)
So what does the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth mean? Everything in the world and outside it, according to Wright. Our exclimation when we hear that Jesus is risen from the dead should not be, "We can now go to heaven"! But should be, "New Creation has begun!"

"Hope is what you get when you suddenly realize that a different worldview is possible, a worldview in which the rich, the powerful, and the unscrupulous do not after all have the last word." (p. 75)
"In a world of systematic injustice, bullying, violence, arrogance, and oppression, the thought that there might come a day when the wicked are firmly put in their place and the poor and weak are given their due is the best news there can be." (p. 137)
The good news of Easter is that this has already happened. And the good news of the second coming is that it will happen. This is inaugurated eschatology at its finest. Jesus has already conquered the powers of the world and the power of death, and he will conquer them when he comes again. Until then, Jesus himself remains both present and strangely absent from the world.

The bridge between the resurrection of Jesus and the second coming is the Church. Our job is to proclaim in our words and actions that the enemy, death, has been defeated, and a day will come when all will be renewed.
"[T]he task of the Church between ascension and parousia is therefore set free both from the self-driven energy that imagines it has to build God's kingdom all by itself and from the despair that supposes it can't do anything until Jesus comes again. We do not `build the kingdom' all by ourselves, but we do build for the kingdom. All that we do in faith, hope, and love in the present, in obedience to our ascended Lord in the power of his Spirit, will be enhanced and transformed at his appearing." (p. 143)

It really does change everything. Wright writes (no pun intended, I promise) at the end of the book about practicing resurrection. He says it should change our view of worship, scripture, prayer, justice, mission, beauty, and everything else. When we came out of the grave of baptism, we entered a whole new world that was started by the resurrection of Jesus and will be completed when he returns. Our job is to live in that world.
I would highly recommend this book to all. Whether you have read a lot of Wright, Moltmann, Pannenberg, and the like or whether you have never touched a theology book. I would recommend this to an amillennialist and I would require it for a premillennialist.

"The universal early Christian belief was that Jesus had already been demonstrated publicly to be Israel's Messiah and the world's true Lord through his resurrection. That, as we have seen, is the whole point of the Christian story. And if we believe it and pray, as he taught us, for God's kingdom to come on earth as in heaven, there is no way we can rest content with major injustice in the world." (p. 216)

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Clearly written, refreshingly real

In three sections of equal importance (and, roughly, of length), this book gives the historical context, biblical basis and and contemporary significance of the Christian hope. When compared to much folk religion - Christian, demi-Christian and otherwise - Wright's book does indeed yield surprising, yet hopeful insights.

Wright establishes just what resurrection meant in the ancient Near East for both pagans and Jews who rejected it and for Jews who taught it; showing the disparity between this and the dominant contemporary understanding. He shows how early Christians drew from the singular resurrection-affirming position, and how their distinctive Christian intensifications and developments remain consistent with the original thinking. Similarly this clarity stands in contrast to the confused 'muddle' (this quaintly British term gets a lot of use) in contemporary pop culture, especially pop religion. Finally, he demonstrates how a truly Christian hope competes with the other secular and religious hopes, and makes exclusive demands.

Mostly down-to-earth, but occasionally budding with artistry, his style is - as usual - conversational: easy to read if difficult to quote. This book is almost certain to draw predictable criticism from neo-fundamentalists.
In the face of secular and religious stances that fluctuate between fear-inducing and facile, here is, a well-crafted case for a hope that is neither ineffectual nor irresponsible, a sustaining and surprising hope.

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Resurrection Fuels Mission

This book can be summarized in three words: "Resurrection fuels mission." The resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of God's new creation, God's renewal of all things. Believers draw hope from this for their mission of establishing justice, nourishing beauty and declaring Jesus as Lord of all.

Wright's arguments will challenge people on the left and the right:

For the religious liberal who says the resurrection is an inspiring tale, Wright responds that without a bodily resurrection the event was useless because it had no connection to our world of space, time and matter.

For the religious conservative who tends toward a private pietism, Wright says God's program of new creation, anticipated in the resurrection of Jesus, prods believers to tireless effort in mending the present creation from the damage of injustice and sin.

My only critique is that toward the end the book felt like a movie that's a half an hour too long. But that's probably inevitable in tackling large topics--resurrection, mission, eschatology--in one volume.

More than any other I've read recently, this book is causing me to reflect on what the salvation Christians believe in is all about.

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A Good Book on Scriptural Analysis of Some of the "Last Things"

"Surprised by Hope" is a good book when N. T. Wright expounds on biblical sources of revelation as to what happens to believing Christians after death. Our mainstream view of heaven as a place of eternal incorporeal bliss, he says, is mistaken. What we call "heaven" is only a short intermediate stage, before the Second Coming, and the resurrection of all who have believed, who will then be fully new creations, and live in the earthly Kingdom of God. His long discussion of this issue is revelatory, and extremely important. This book is well written and (I think) orthodox in its statements on the bodily resurrection of Jesus; the Ascension; the new creation;the first fruits; the resurrection of the dead and the Kingdom of God. His views on Final Judgment, hell, purgatory and the importance of the writings of most of the Church Fathers and theology developed during the long history of Christianity are confusing; sometimes garbled; often summary; overly speculative and in a few places incorrect. For one thing, Karl Rahner, S.J. was not a conservative theologian! The fact that Wright seems not to countenance even the possibility of any revelation of the Holy Spirit in the Church after, maybe, Origen or Tertullian seems a bit short sighted, and is probably intentional. The fact that his briefest of references to Thomas Aquinas are essentially dismissive is one of the problems with the later half of this book. On theological matters Wright is no Aquinas. On a number of major theological questions, Wright allows his own speculative mind to run free, leading to a number of dubious conclusions based on modernist sentiments, while at the same time he seems to criticize Aquinas and others for the same thing (engaging in speculation, while being men of their own time). The orthodox Christian will feel the need to part company with Wright on a number of topics including his belief that for most people, there are no real consequences of their sin, once death occurs. The only issue is whether the person who dies in sin has in his life consistently and contumaciously chosen the fundamental option (not his phrase, but that's what he means) to reject God and do evil, such a person's got a real problem Wright believes, but Wright is sure it's not the fires of hell. All other unrepentant sinners not brazen enough to full reject God, whose lives were not holy or good, but not all that bad either, go directly to the heavenly hotel as full-fledged saints, equal in glory and majesty to the Virgin Mary and all the martyrs. So in a sense there is no Divine Justice that must be appeased, and hope of Wright's type flows without a thought for guilt or recourse to the unrepentant of many stripes. A final judgment: Wright is excellent when he stays within his element: scriptural scholarship; but theology in the lager sense is not his strong suit. This is a good book on the issue of life-after-life-after-death, which he writes about very convincingly.

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