Surprised By Hope by N.T. Wright

I recently (and finally!) finished N.T. Wright's Surprised By Hope. The book's subtitle is Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. With this book, Wright is now my favorite theologian.

Those familiar with McLaren's writings on the kingdom of God/heaven will be familiar with the first section of Wright's book. Both writers are "on the same page" with their interpretations of the kingdom of God and the reality of heaven being present and overlapping with creation, not something off in the distance within our space/time continuum. But Wright takes it further....

Wright then ties that with the resurrection of Christ that points to the future of creation, when heaven and earth become one as God intended his creation to be redeemed. I had not thought too much about the bodily resurrection when Jesus returns, so what Wright says about the resurrection of Christ being a "the future brought into the present" really blew me away. Wright has little patience for "left behind" theology and deftly takes it apart using solid Biblical interpretation.

Finally, Wright concludes with how the church should respond knowing the future hope revealed in the gospel of Christ. Our kingdom work today will be redeemed and come to fruition in the redemption of all creation when Christ returns. What we practice today prepares us for the reality of God's promised future.

Wright also tackles the "where do we go when we die" question, and the media attention given to his book seems to focus on that, but the book is about so much more and puts forth an important vision and mission for today's church. I don't want to try to state Wright's complete position on life after death here because I don't want to misstate it. I will say that he talks about a "life after life after death" (the resurrection of the dead) as being much more important than where our spirit may happen to dwell right after we die. Wright says that the Bible doesn't talk too much about the latter, and says a whole lot more about the former. Wright admits that he just can't fathom how a redeemed creation where God dwells with his people can exist with a "concentration camp" in the middle where people are being tortured for their sins. You really must read the book if you're interested in more about this and don't take what I've just written as a complete summation.

Reading N.T. Wright is not easy. He's challenging to read, even for this book which is supposed to be more accessible than his other books. But this is worth it, along with Simply Christian which came out a few years ago. If you like reading McLaren, I think you will like reading this, but Wright goes much deeper into Scripture than McLaren.