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Books - Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
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Rating:  -
I bought this book as a companion in my observance of Advent this year as it
revisits the issue of Christian hope. It has been Wright's passionate call for
the church to recover a biblical eschatology which the Western Church has
generally reduced to either an escapist view of heaven or an evolutionary
paradigm of human progress. This book is a distillation of his brilliant and
massive research of the resurrection of Jesus and how that is connected to
God's work in renewing the cosmos. Ironically I first came across this idea
from the Jehovah's witnesses who pointed to me the beatitude 'Blessed are the
meek for they shall inherit the earth' - that God was not in the business of
destroying the world but renewing it. However, Wright is the leading
evangelical scholar that reaffirms this idea without the heretical accretions
and has connected the dots with his thorough examination of the Resurrection of
Jesus from all angles historical and theological and how the resurrection, much
more than simply proving that there's life after death (for which the early
Jews needed no such evidence), was in fact the inaugural act of God's new
creation. And far from redescribing death as a mere transition to the
after-life, it is God's defeat of death, which has been the chief weapon of
evil that mars God's good earth. This is the overarching thesis of the book,
which sets out to examine what early Christians really meant when they said
'Jesus was raised from the dead' and draw the implications for the theology,
worship and mission of the church. Wright names justice, beauty and evangelism
as three expressions of the church's tasks that arise out of her Easter hope.
It serves as a great starting point for further reflections and shaping of
the church's witness and outreach to the world with a creation-affirming
gospel.
However, where Wrights takes on the corollary subjects in chapter 11 such as the
Catholic doctrine of Purgatory and the concept of hell, I find his treatments
less satisfying. For example, his understanding that hell consists of
the destiny of those who 'refuse all whisperings of the good news, all glimmers
of the true light, all signposts to the love of God' and will continue to exist
as ex-humans. This in reality pretty much still leaves unanswered the real
question of hell for a vast majority of ordinary decent folks who may not have
answered the call of the gospel of Jesus but are neither great saints nor
crooks. Of course, this is an area that the bible gives less information than
we wish to know but Wright's explanation of hell being the resultant state of
people who persist in being less than human does not quite advance the
traditional answer very much.
Also, as a matter of style, I tend to get a little impatient with Wright's habit
of interrupting his sentences with too many parenthetical phrases, disclaimers,
and qualifiers which disrupt the flow of his writing and lengthens the book
unnecessarily. It could be the side effects of transcribing lectures into a
book. I wish at times, he could pack in more substantive sentences instead,
especially in developing more fully his arguments for the more obscure bits
such as how 'initial justification by faith' is squared with 'final
justification by the whole life lived' which continues to baffle even many of
his sympathetic readers.
On the whole, however it is a great book - a book I believe that will birth many
more books as other gifted writers get to build on the paradigmatic
shift/recovery in Christian eschatology so elegantly proposed by this brilliant
bible scholar.
Rating:  -
Why do you ask for a review when I am still waiting for the shipment? This is the 2nd time I have ordered this book, so I hope this one actually arrives. The first one never came.
Rating:  -
This book has quickly jumped to the top of my list of life-shaping, world-view defining books. N.T. Wright is noted as a very well-respected scholar and cited as the foremost expert in 1st Century Jewish Christianity and it shows. This book reveals how influenced Western Christianity is by Greek philosophy that stands in stark contrast to the Jewish belief systems that shaped the early Christians. Wright uses the scriptures to support everything that he postulates, but he offers as well the original context that only a first century scholar can bring. I found over and over that the original first century context radically changed the intended meaning of New Testament texts. In addition, he points out some very clear, direct scripture regarding the belief in bodily resurrection that has totally escaped me with the personal Platonic grid that I have been culturally trained to accept as absolute truth.
Finally, my favorite part of the book is that Wright shows that we, as believers in Christ, have purpose in our current life on this earth and it is tied directly to fact that His kingdom has already come AND the hope that we have in the coming kingdom when all of creation will be restored to God's original design.
Rating: -
This is a fantastic book that will completely (and Biblically) reshape the way you think about Heaven and life after death (or as Wright calls it, "Life after life after death"). This is a great read for those searching to better understand the Hope Christians are supposed to have, but have somehow forgotten over the last centuries. It turns out we have something to be even MORE excited about beyond a lofty cloud in the sky. Wright points to Scripture and Church History in order to make a convincing argument that what we often think of as Heaven and the meaning of "resurrection" actually needs to be revised. This book should be read and considered by EVERYONE who has ever read or bought-into the theology encapsulated in some well intended (albeit theologically questionable) Christian books such as the Left Behind series. This is by far the best book I have read in the past few years.
Rating: -
I have a new favorite author/theologian in N.T. Wright, author of Surprised by Hope. He knows how to communicate lofty, theological concepts in a way that both makes sense and engages the reader to think. So much of what we think about theology is tainted by our church and political.
The mistake that many are making these days is they are re-INVENTING and re-DEFINING theology. Some people are taking the party's theological line without thinking about it at all. Re-THINKING is absolutely healthy and necessary.
Wright doesn't get too complicated. He looks at one topic: "thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on heaven as on earth." He looks at that phrase in the Lord's Prayer in light of Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.
By the time you get done reading the book, you actually feel hopeful - like God wants to do great things with your life and that He wants to develop your gifts for eternal kingdom work and application. How cool is that?
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