Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N. T. Wright Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
Book Review: The Title's True! This is a Surprising Book about the Core Hopes -- and the Crucial Work -- of Christianity
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: Surprised by Hope
Summary: 5 Stars
The title is thought catching, especially in view of the inferences aroused by the similarity with other titles of other good books.
This book is a great summary exposition of Early Christian understanding of Heaven. Sometimes it requires careful attention to follow the thought process. We read it aloud and it was a glorious experience. It is thought transforming and a wonderful antidote to the sentimental, airy-fairy way in which heaven has been thought of or discussed for a very long time.
The summary thought that I understood goes something like this: Wright reaffirms that God made a good world. It is not a disposable world. Heaven will gather up all the good that people have contributed through the ages (recognized or unrecognized) and add that material to another transforming and creative act that will enable Jesus to rule and for this world to become the good world God originally created. THe destiny of those who believe God is to be able to participate in that forever.
Book Review: Hope-Inspiring, mostly
Summary: 4 Stars
I am hesitant to recommend Wright's work, especially to those not firmly grounded in the gospel, but this is a great book. I always find him insightful, but have some significant disagreements with him, especially concerning his views on Paul.
Wright states in the preface, "Most people, in my experience-including many Christan's-don't know what the ultimate Christian hope really is. Most people-again, sadly, including many Christians-don't expect Christians to have much to say about hope within the present world" (xi). Wright's aim in this book is to do his part to straighten this out.
Chapter 1 sets the scene by describing the broader world's confusion about hope, then describes three popular views about the afterlife in the world: annihilation, reincarnation, and ghosts and the possibility of spiritualistic contact with the dead (new age stuff).
Chapter 2 describes the reigning confusion about hope in the church, which has oscillated between seeing death as a vile enemy or a welcome friend. Wright blames Platonism's influence on the Christian faith for much of the confusion and reason why so many value the soul over the body. He is concerned that not many Christians understand biblical hope, and rarely think about it, much less live in light of it. The biblical vision of "heaven" is not souls flying off to a spiritual domain but resurrected bodies reigning with Christ on the new heavens and new earth. He then lays out the effects of the confusion in our hymns (the ultimate vision is not us going home up there but Christ coming here), our celebration of the Christian year (Easter should be celebrated more than Christmas), and funerals. The wider implications of our confusion about the future have to do with how we live here and now, and the way we look at earth and our actions here. If one thinks God is going to destroy this universe, why care about it now? Wright rightly argues that there will be both continuity and discontinuity between this earth and the transformed earth, so that what we do here matters enormously.
Chapter 3 was very helpful, laying out the Jewish and pagan historical setting and their beliefs about resurrection around the time of Jesus. This whet my appetite for his big book on resurrection. The early Christians modified the Jewish belief in at least 7 ways. Jews were looking for one big end-time resurrection event, not one man in the middle of history before all others. Here we have NT inaugurated eschatology. Christ's resurrection was the first fruits (the first of the harvest guaranteeing the rest) securing the resurrection of all who are incorporated into him by faith (although Wright might say baptism).
Chapter 4 covers the Easter accounts in the gospels. Here Wright makes the case for the resurrection historically and apologetically. Ultimately, there is a clash of worldviews but all the evidence points to the fact that Christ has been raised. How will you respond? Chapter 5 covers God's future world and describes two worldly alternatives to hope: evolutionary optimism (the myth of progress that cannot deal with the rampant evil in the world) and souls in transit (with a negative view of all things material - Platonic & Gnostic - the "just passin' through' mindset). The next chapter lays out the Christian view of the future world, which is opposed to both. The fundamental structures of hope are the goodness of creation, the nature of evil, and the plan of redemption. God has raised Christ and has promised to not only raise us, but redeem the whole cosmos (Rom 8.18-25).
In chapter 7, Wright lays out the biblical teaching on the ascension, cosmology, and concludes with a brief comment on the second coming and the unfortunate effects of the "highly distorted" interpretations of dispensationalism (119). In chapter 8, he tackles the second coming, focusing on the son of man sayings, parousia (coming), and attention to 1 Thess 4.16-17, 1 Cor 15, & Phil. 3. Wright sees the son of man coming sayings as being fulfilled in A.D. 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem. The next chapter focuses on the coming of Jesus as judge. God in Christ will set the world to rights. Chapter 10 is on the future resurrection in Scripture. In order to distinguish his view from the popular view, he calls the resurrection "life after life after death" (148). Here he rightly focuses on 1 Cor 15. Our future bodies will be physical, and entirely animated by the Spirit. He closes the chapter by answering the practical questions of who, where, what, why, when, and how of the resurrection.
Chapter 11 answers the question of "Where are the dead now?" Wright knocks down the belief in purgatory, and also explains paradise, or the intermediate state. If we die before the Lord returns, we go to paradise, to be with the Lord until he returns to the earth to raise our bodies and renew the cosmos. Wright then argues against universalism, against annihilationism, and for a novel view of hell, where basically the person who was once human, become "ex-human." Chapter 12 deals with the practical implications of hope. He writes of the significance of our work here and now. He also says we should rethink what we mean by salvation by making it broader: "Salvation, then, is not 'going to heaven' but 'being raised to life in God's new heaven and new earth" (198). He closes the chapter with a theological and practical exposition of the kingdom of God.
Chapter 13 is about building for the kingdom. As mentioned, there will be continuity but we aren't told what this will look like. He seeks a middle way between the social gospel advocates and fundamentalists. He mentions the work of justice, beauty, and evangelism. The following chapter goes to the biblical roots for reshaping the church's mission looking primarily at the Gospels, Acts, and Paul. His exposition of Luke 24 is great. Wright concludes with a chapter on living for the future with the redeeming of space, time, and matter. "The mission of the church is nothing more or less than the outworking, in the power of the Spirit, of Jesus's bodily resurrection and thus the anticipation of the time when God will fill the earth with his glory, transform the old heavens and earth into the new, and raise his children from the dead to populate and rule over the redeemed world he has made" (265). He ends the book with 6 aspects of resurrection and spirituality (new birth and baptism, Eucharist, prayer, Scripture, holiness, love) and an appendix consisting of 2 Easter sermons.
80% of this book is excellent. Wright has immersed himself in the story of Israel and the sources of the 1st century. His writing style is excellent. The truth and glory of the resurrection needs to be emphasized more and more in our churches. Our people need to be a people characterized by hope, which motivates mission. God's people also ought to be holistic. Wright is right that the Christian mission consists of more than 'saving souls.' It is at this point however that I take issue with the book. The section on hell is far from the biblical text. It seems strange to me that with his knowledge of the text he can say that "Jesus simply didn't say very much about the future life" (177). Christ spoke more of hell than anyone else in the NT. Wright lacks categories for sin, and wrath. Dehumanization does not do justice to Scripture's teaching on final judgment. I agree that some verses speak metaphorically, but one cannot escape the conclusion that hell will consist of physical and psychological torment, an element that Wright's doctrine of hell certainly misses. He caricatures the traditional view, and waxes eloquent on his own view. This may also feed his de-emphasis on evangelism and 'saving souls.' But if all sinners will face is sub-humanity, the urgency of sharing the gospel decreases significantly. He seems more excited about political engagement than pointing sinners to Christ, who saves from the coming wrath (1 Thess 1.10). Wright is certainly on a program to move away from the individualism of modernity, but we ought not go further than the text. God is concerned with individuals as well as corporate structures.
Also, I certainly don't agree that Jesus never spoke of his second coming. Although difficult in places, the eschatological discourses of Jesus cannot be limited to the destruction of Jerusalem. The new perspective comes out in places as well. In the chapter on judgment, he writes that God's verdict will be on the basis of the "entire life led" which is another way of saying by obedience or works. I want to agree with Wright that obedience is absolutely necessary for salvation, but the basis of our salvation is Christ crucified and risen. Our obedience flows from a salvation given to faith in Christ. Finally, if one did not know better, you'd think that he was the first one who is actually teaching the biblical view of heaven as a new earth. Certainly, many Christians are confused on this issue but there have been many theologians before Wright teaching resurrection and a new earth (not least the Dutch Reformed tradition: Berkouwer, Bavinck, Hoekema, Berkhof, & Randy Alcorn and David Lawrence).
Book Review: Thought provoking
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the most thought provoking books that I have read in a while! This is actually the first N.T. Wright book I have read, and now I have made it a point to read some of his others. I appreciate his ability to tie our faith and our social responsibility in this world based to what Jesus' resurrection really should mean to us as Christians. It really makes sense when you look at Genesis and the creation mandate for mankind to have authority (resposibility)over the good creation He made and that His intentions/plan for us before the Fall are renewed with Jesus'resurrection. Book Review: A proverbial "Must Read!"
Summary: 5 Stars
Wright addresses two questions. "First, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Second, what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present?" (pg. 5).
Wright argues that "there is very little in the Bible about `going to heaven when you die'..." (pg 18), and that it is misleading to use the word "resurrection as a virtual synonym for life after death in the popular sense" (pg 36). The popular sense being an eternity spent as disembodied spirits in some heavenly realm. Wright refers to his belief as life after life after death - a physical life in resurrected bodies on a new earth. "Resurrection in the first century meant someone physically, thoroughly dead becoming physically, thoroughly alive again, not simply surviving or entering a `purely spiritual' world, whatever that may be" (pg. 66).
Wright's "proposition is that the traditional picture of people going to either heaven or hell as a one-stage postmortem journey...represents a serious distortion and diminution of Christian hope" (pg 148).
Easter is the central event for Wright and the literal and bodily resurrection of Jesus is the basis of and model for his future (and present) hope. Wright holds to the historic Christian belief that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, and that this resurrection was bodily. To be sure this resurrected body was transformed, spiritual, raised incorruptible, but it was also a "new kind of physical body, which left an empty tomb behind because it had used up the material of Jesus' original body and which possessed new properties" (pg. 63).
Of course Wright finds all sorts of ramifications, not the least of which is the Christian tendency to lean toward a Platonic Dualism. Platonic Dualism teaches that all matter is by its nature evil and only the spiritual is good. Christians fall into this trap when we so emphasize the spiritual that we overtly or covertly live and speak as if the world were something to be rescued from - as opposed to sin. "Creation was from the beginning an act of love, of affirming the goodness of the other. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good: but it was not divine" (pg. 94). In the same sense that Jesus was resurrected (cf. 1 Corinthians 15) so will all creation - "the gospel of Jesus announces that what God did for Jesus at Easter he will do not only for all those who are `in Christ' but also for the entire cosmos. It will be an act of new creation, parallel to and derived from the act of new creation when God raise Jesus from the dead" (pg. 99).
Another application is that this future hope "leads directly...to a vision of the present hope that is the basis of all Christian mission" (pg. 191). In other words the "mission of the church must...be shaped by the future hope as the New Testament presents it" (pg. 230). Wright sees this play out in justice, beauty, and evangelism. In terms of the anticipation of God's eventual setting to rights the whole world, which is the message of hope and new life that comes with the good news of Jesus' resurrection.