Book Thoughts--Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright

My thoughts here are biased, I must warn you.

I  loved N.T. Wright's newest book, Surprised by Hope. He explores the meat of the Christian hope, what he calls the after-afterlife.

I'm biased because I've been frustrated by our misplaced, paltry hope. I've been frustrated by our Platonic belief in some sort of nebulous heaven up yonder where some roll is called. (Don't believe me? Check out my post on our Platonic world.) Sure, we go to heaven when we die, but this is not our eternity. This is not our ultimate hope. Our ultimate hope is when heaven comes to earth, when God re-creates, restores, and reconciles the earth and our physical bodies. He will undo the affects of the Fall, namely, the hostility between man and God, between man and man, and between man and earth.

We sometimes forget about that last one. Oh, I don't think we forget about the hostility between man and earth with tsunamis and hurricanes and tornadoes warring against us, with our war against nature in our pollution and exploitation. We forget that we will one day live in harmony with nature, caring for it as God intended us to.

I get a little preachy about this. 

Back to Wright's book. Wright addresses the misconceptions (a.k.a. bad theology) that's infiltrated not just the world (i.e. reincarnation), but also Christianity (i.e. when we all get to heaven).

The belief in Jesus' physical resurrection is on the line here, folks. If you believe in Jesus' physical resurrection, if you believe that he is the firstfruits, than you have to believe that we do will experience that physical resurrection. The whole earth (which now groans) will experience it.

Wright turns the gospel message upside-down. No, he turns how we talk about the gospel message upside-down. It begins with an overarching story--God's plan of redemption for all of creation. Within that, individual salvation fits. 

He then talks about why it's important in the here and now, in areas such as justice, art, and evangelism (are you getting a feel for why I'm passionate about this?).  He's hard on all sides. Somehow Wright is one of the few people who can point out the faults of everyone specifically (moderns, you're doing this; postmoderns, you're doing this; liberals, you're doing this; conservatives, you're doing this) and still be liked by all parties. Personally, I'm a dispensationalist (which means, in my view, that Wright and I may disagree on some middle stuff, but we absolutely agree on the end, we absolutely agree that this end is the important part, and we absolutely agree on our present course of action). Wright's hard on dispensationalist (and for good reason). I will say that he has a generalized and limited view on dispensationalist. Maybe he understands more but for simplicity's sake boils it down. Maybe he only hear's the loudest dispensationalist (with whom I probably don't agree). But that's beside the point to me.

The point is, Jesus' resurrection leads to the resurrection (redemption) of the world, and somehow our participation in God's kingdom work in the present contributes to that (although it doesn't bring it about--God brings it about).

Too often, we let our lingo speak falsely. "When we get to heaven," we say, whether we mean that or we know better and should say, "In the resurrection." Personally (a lot of personals here), I'm going to correct my false lingo. I want to paint the right pictures.

What does it mean for art? It means embodying the groaning of creation and the hope of resurrection. It means no false sentimentality, like some guy walking into clouds. It means incarnating Christ himself.

I'll stop now. If you want to read what others have to say about the book, here's a recommended book thoughts list:

Klyne Snodgrass on Prime Time Jesus 

Scot McKnight on Jesus Creed beginning goes chapter by chapter (the link is for the first chapter).

Raffi Shahanian at Parables of a Prodigal World 

Nathan Gann (and his list of reviews, which includes several I haven't read)

Side note: I'll be leaving bright tomorrow morning (at an hour I've been told exists, but I have yet to believe it exists) for the Transforming Art symposium. I couldn't be more excited! Get ready to have an earful (or eyeful, rather) when I return.