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

 

Book Review: Surprised by Hope Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N. T. Wright
Course Title: History of Christian Mission
Professor: Dr. Lee Eun Joo
November 12, 2021

This book grew out of lectures that were originally given in Westminster Abbey during the course of 2001. It attempts to discuss the biblical theological perspective about death and about what can be said from a Christian perspective about what lies beyond it. It also attempts to establish the groundwork of practical and even political theology of Christian reflection on the nature of the task we face as we seek to bring God’s kingdom to bear on the real and painful world in which we live.

At the outset Wright posted a disclaimer of his authority about death. He has had a good life with least bereavement. His vocation was more on the academe rather than pastoral giving him fewer experience on funeral and memorial services. 

Part 1 - Setting The Scene

There are two questions that the book attempts to answer:

1.     What is the ultimate Christian hope?

2.     What hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present?

The author also identifies three varieties of belief when talking about life after death: complete annihilation, absorption into the wider world, and immortality of the soul.

Many Christians grow up assuming that whenever the New Testament speaks of heaven, it refers to the place to which the saved will go after death.  This assumption has led to confusion. The language of heaven in the New Testament doesn’t work that way. Wright asserts, “God’s kingdom” in the preaching of Jesus refers not to postmortem destiny, not to our escape from this world into another one, but to God’s sovereign rule coming “on earth as it is in heaven.”. 

Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other hidden dimension of our ordinary life—God’s dimension. It is important to have the correct perspective about death and resurrection because these two provide shape and color to everything else. If we are not careful, we will offer merely a “hope” that is no longer a surprise, no longer able to transform lives and communities in the present, no longer generated by the resurrection of Jesus himself and looking forward to the promised new heavens and new earth.  

Part 2 - God’s Future Plan

This section generally asks the question: What is God’s purpose for the world as a whole?  Wright offers two groups who try to answer this question.

First the evolutionary optimists which believe in the myth of progress “that the human project, and indeed the cosmic project, could and would continue to grow and develop, producing unlimited human improvement and marching toward a utopia.” This utopian dream is in fact a parody of the Christian vision. It moves us away from dependence on God’s grace towards science and technology, education and hard work. We can become what we want to be by sheer hard work. The problem with this myth is that it cannot deal with evil and build strategies to address the severe problems of evil in the world. Many have tried to have this optimism but has failed in eradicating war, drugs, apartheid, pornography, trafficking, and others evils. This myth cannot deal with evil because it cannot stop it, it cannot address the moral issues of the world, and because it does not in fact work to solve evil retrospectively.

In this section Wright notices that in many parts of the world an appeal to a Christian view of the future is taken to mean an appeal to the eventual demise of the created order and to a destiny that is purely “spiritual” in the sense of being completely nonmaterial.

The second group trying to understand God’s purpose of the world is highly influenced by Plato who believes that the present world is a world of illusion. That the true reality is beyond space, time and matter. In the Christian sphere, the most famous of his followers are the Gnostics.

The Gnostics believed, like Plato, that the material world was an inferior and dark place, evil in its very existence, but that within this world could be found certain people who were meant for something else.  

Wright accuses that most Western Christians softly adhere to Plato’s position. They may not be Gnostic but they unconsciously follow Plato’s view of the universe. Wright’s proof is found in Christian hymns and poems that tend to wander off in the direction of Gnosticism. The thought that we are “just passing through” encourages precisely a Gnostic attitude: the created world is at best irrelevant, at worst a dark, evil, gloomy place, and we immortal souls, who existed originally in a different sphere, are looking forward to returning to it as soon as we’re allowed to. A massive assumption has been made in Western Christianity that the purpose of being a Christian is simply, or at least mainly, to “go to heaven when you die,” and texts that don’t say that but mention heaven are read as if they did say it, and texts that say the opposite, like Romans 8:18–25 and Revelation 21–22, are simply screened out as if they didn’t exist. 

Part 3 - Hope In Practice: Resurrection And The Mission Of The Church

So how are all these points relevant to our present time? Are these just to help us tidy up our beliefs about life and death? Or of getting our preaching and teaching, right? So, what if Jesus did rise from the dead? If God can do that, why don’t he intervene in the disasters of our time? These are the questions Wright asks in this part of the book.

In the earlier part of the book the author argues that Christian have a very distorted view of Easter. Easter is the launching of the new creation. If we are not celebrating it perhaps it's because we are not grasping it. He again reiterates this distortion as shown in the hymns where the people of God will reign and heaven is seen as a place of being with Jesus as our eternal abode. While the promise of being with Jesus is true, the reign starts on earth. Wright goes on to say:

Yes, that resurrection does indeed give us a sure and certain hope. If that’s not the case, we are of all people, as Paul says, most to be pitied. But when the New Testament strikes the great Easter bell, the main resonances it sets up are not simply about ourselves and about whatever future world God is ultimately going to make, when heaven and earth are joined together and renewed at last from top to bottom. Precisely because the resurrection has happened as an event within our own world, its implications and effects are to be felt within our own world, here and now.  

To Wright, the basis of Christian mission is the correct understanding of the future hope that Jesus Christ gave us. This future hope leads to a vision of present hope which is not a distraction of our future hope but is in fact vital and the life-giving of it all.

Jesus was demonstrating to his disciples what he was promising in the future. He was not saving souls for a future hope with no bodies. He was “rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God’s ultimate purpose—and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that larger project.”

In 1 Corinthians 15:58, Paul says “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” He admonishes us to get busy with the work of the Lord. He does not tell us to just sit back and relax while waiting for the glorious hope. Afterall, the promise of resurrection, according to Paul, does not make our present bodily life valueless just because it will die. God will raise it to a new life. What we do in this present life will last for eternity. Good works done for the Lord will have eternal impact and rewards. These are all part of the building of God’s Kingdom.

Wright discourages the dichotomy of what evangelism and mission mean as to saving souls while others work for justice and peace and hope for the present world.  He goes on to say:

“That great divide has nothing to do with Jesus and the New Testament. and everything to do with the silent enslavement of many Chris tians (both conservative and radical) to the Platonic ideology of the Enlightenment. Once we get the resurrection straight, we can and must get mission straight. If we want a mission-shaped church, what we need is a hope-shaped mission. And if that is surprising, we ought to be getting used to it by now.” 

Conclusion

            Surprised by Hope is not an easy read but I believe is a very helpful book. The author’s writing style is very conversational and includes many illustrations. However, I find the book too scholarly and hard to understand at first reading. Topics can be abstract. With all the pure intentions of the author to shed light to wrong assumptions of death and resurrection, I think this book is most useful to the clergy and lay ministers who in turn will explain it in more simpler terms to their congregants.