As promised in the preceding post, here is a review of N.T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope. Though I would rather be chiming in to the chorus of voices on Grand Rapids pastor Rob Bell and his new book, I will probably have to wait until the semester is over and I have time to do some luxury reading to give it the attention it deserves (but do watch this video of Bell getting grilled by an MSNBC reporter). I could do as some have done and review a book without having read the whole thing, but Jonathan Swift has some harsh words for critics who act in this manner. After I extricate myself from Marxism in the seventeenth century, the vanity of youth in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and certainty in the works of John Foxe compared to doubting and uncertainty in John Donne (my term papers for this semester) I look forward to taking a close look at Bell’s work.
What makes the mention of Bell relevant in the context of an N.T. Wright post is that in many ways Bell seems to see himself as an American proponent of Wrightian theology. Bell, though, seems to circumvent the traditionalist stance taken by Wright in his works and has not even come close to the level of scholarship Wright has under his belt, but Bell seems consciously aware of the influence of Wright and has back-cover endorsements on at least two of Wright’s popular level books. Anyways, this sounds like it is turning into a review of Bell, which I already promised I wouldn’t do. On to Wright.
The biggest theme of Surprised is rethinking the popular concept of heaven, the afterlife, and the power of the resurrection of Christ as well as the resurrection of Christian believers and how a reexamination of these truths will lead to a more theologically coherent and missiologically sound church. Perhaps Wright’s biggest target relating to this guiding theme is the popular conception of a disembodied, ulterior realm called heaven as the final dwelling place of the saints of God. This is a position that has never sat well with me, reading passages such as: Romans 8 where Paul tells us that creation is groaning in anticipation for the day when it will be redeemed--if God is just going to destroy it someday, will that really be redemption?; 1 Corinthians 15, the most famous passage (and famously confusing) in Scripture on resurrection where we are told that death no longer has dominion and has lost its sting--if we simply go in spirit form to an alternate, disembodied realm can death really be said to have been defeated? It seems rather that though still dead we continue some sort of spirit existence; nearly the entire book of Revelation, where we are told about the new heavens and the new earth descending and our glorified Lord tells us that he is making all things new does not make any sense whatever if the earth is fully bad and irredeemable and must be destroyed some day. Building off of these, and other, passages, Wright builds a case that when we die we will join Christ immediately (as was Paul’s clear hope: Philippians 1), but that there is a day also when the dead in Christ will rise and be joined together with him and his reign on this earth will begin. To a theological geek like me this was thrilling reading and I wish I had time to get in to all of the sub points Wright examines along the way, but the big question arising from all of the book is why does this matter? Heaven/new earth, spirit/resurrected body--who cares?
Wright here argues that our views of eschatology (death and/or the end of the world) have practical effects on the way we live out life on this earth. If we believe that this planet is cursed and God is going to zap it some day there is no point in cultivating it in love as his creation, bearing the divine imprint. In this view of the world, only things done for the “gospel” will be seen by the church to have an substantive value and everything done in the world--working hard at a job, writing a great Master’s thesis, being a really great plumber--will seem valueless because it is fleeting. But if we believe that God is coming back to this place and will restore it and that at this moment we are caught somewhere between creation and new creation, our work in this world will take on immense value, everything done in this world that is done in faith and in pursuit of God’s glory will be eternal, whether it is doing missions work in the Middle East or changing an old couple’s tire or studying for a Physics exam when you would rather watch a movie. What is done on this earth matters and will last.
For me this is glorious, liberating theology. My life at school--reading Marxist historians on the English civil war, helping college freshman write composition papers, working diligently so as to be able to participate in class lectures--would all seem like a waste of time if the above paragraph were not true. As Christians, in a world starkly divided between the things of God and the things of this world only the things of God seem to matter. When we refuse to see the world in this dichotomous relationship, though, and see creation and new creation intertwined what we do has value.
This is not to say I didn’t have reservations reading Wright’s work. One of the more frustrating elements of Wright’s work is the shortness of the book. Since he has written in-depth, 700+ page defenses of the resurrection in other places, this book functioned as a sort of Reader's Digest version of these earlier texts. This left Wright’s exegesis of certain Biblical texts foundational to his argument short on depth--his numerous references back to his earlier scholarship has convinced me to purchase a couple of earlier books but did not provide the Biblical meat behind Wright’s claims that one would hope for a popular level book. In a sense, writing for a popular audience instead of a more narrow scholarly world I would contend that one has to be even more careful with Biblical explication since the readers will not share an intuitive understanding of the original languages and could become convinced on the basis of the author’s authority rather than Scriptures. In no way do I think this was Wright’s intent, but it is an unfortunate consequence of boiling such an important topic down into such a relatively small book.
Twice he makes a statement along the lines of, “If you remove the birth of Christ from Scripture you lose two chapters in Matthew and two in Luke, but if you remove the resurrection you lose the entire New Testament” (rough quote). While I understand the larger point he is trying to make--that our faith hinges on the resurrection, which is true--it is a bit foolishly controversial to seem (twice) to downplay the virgin birth of Christ as somehow unimportant because it didn’t receive the page space devoted to the resurrection. Indeed, without the virgin birth there is no atoning death or resurrection to speak of and we are still in our sins. Yes, its that important.
Also, Wright shares the typical mainstream aversion to speaking in concrete language on hell. He doesn’t deny its reality, but tries to twist away from it, arguing that hell is a condition where an individual has so denied and defaced the image of God within him/her that the image flickers out and this individual no longer bears God’s image. This is certainly a way of saying what hell might be, but in a book that is mostly concrete and direct in language, this sort of dance around hell struck me as Wright’s acknowledgment that he had no desire to speak on the subject--a feeling I happen to share, but one which, unfortunately, our Savior chose to repeat time and again.
Ultimately, though, I found Wright’s book extremely valuable and illuminating. It has quite literally changed the way I think about my life and my mission and how I can glorify God (this book worked brilliantly in concert with another book I recently read, James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World). While Wright’s statements have an air of radicalism, this is only because our culture has imbibed the thoughts on the afterlife from a nineteenth and early twentieth century evangelical tradition. Martin Luther understood where Wright was going. Talking about how we may give glory to God, he said the following: “A dairy maid can milk cows to the glory of God.” What we do matters. And, Luther again, speaking what he would do if he knew Christ were coming back the next day: “I would plant a tree.” What we do matters, because this place will last.
What makes the mention of Bell relevant in the context of an N.T. Wright post is that in many ways Bell seems to see himself as an American proponent of Wrightian theology. Bell, though, seems to circumvent the traditionalist stance taken by Wright in his works and has not even come close to the level of scholarship Wright has under his belt, but Bell seems consciously aware of the influence of Wright and has back-cover endorsements on at least two of Wright’s popular level books. Anyways, this sounds like it is turning into a review of Bell, which I already promised I wouldn’t do. On to Wright.
The biggest theme of Surprised is rethinking the popular concept of heaven, the afterlife, and the power of the resurrection of Christ as well as the resurrection of Christian believers and how a reexamination of these truths will lead to a more theologically coherent and missiologically sound church. Perhaps Wright’s biggest target relating to this guiding theme is the popular conception of a disembodied, ulterior realm called heaven as the final dwelling place of the saints of God. This is a position that has never sat well with me, reading passages such as: Romans 8 where Paul tells us that creation is groaning in anticipation for the day when it will be redeemed--if God is just going to destroy it someday, will that really be redemption?; 1 Corinthians 15, the most famous passage (and famously confusing) in Scripture on resurrection where we are told that death no longer has dominion and has lost its sting--if we simply go in spirit form to an alternate, disembodied realm can death really be said to have been defeated? It seems rather that though still dead we continue some sort of spirit existence; nearly the entire book of Revelation, where we are told about the new heavens and the new earth descending and our glorified Lord tells us that he is making all things new does not make any sense whatever if the earth is fully bad and irredeemable and must be destroyed some day. Building off of these, and other, passages, Wright builds a case that when we die we will join Christ immediately (as was Paul’s clear hope: Philippians 1), but that there is a day also when the dead in Christ will rise and be joined together with him and his reign on this earth will begin. To a theological geek like me this was thrilling reading and I wish I had time to get in to all of the sub points Wright examines along the way, but the big question arising from all of the book is why does this matter? Heaven/new earth, spirit/resurrected body--who cares?
Wright here argues that our views of eschatology (death and/or the end of the world) have practical effects on the way we live out life on this earth. If we believe that this planet is cursed and God is going to zap it some day there is no point in cultivating it in love as his creation, bearing the divine imprint. In this view of the world, only things done for the “gospel” will be seen by the church to have an substantive value and everything done in the world--working hard at a job, writing a great Master’s thesis, being a really great plumber--will seem valueless because it is fleeting. But if we believe that God is coming back to this place and will restore it and that at this moment we are caught somewhere between creation and new creation, our work in this world will take on immense value, everything done in this world that is done in faith and in pursuit of God’s glory will be eternal, whether it is doing missions work in the Middle East or changing an old couple’s tire or studying for a Physics exam when you would rather watch a movie. What is done on this earth matters and will last.
For me this is glorious, liberating theology. My life at school--reading Marxist historians on the English civil war, helping college freshman write composition papers, working diligently so as to be able to participate in class lectures--would all seem like a waste of time if the above paragraph were not true. As Christians, in a world starkly divided between the things of God and the things of this world only the things of God seem to matter. When we refuse to see the world in this dichotomous relationship, though, and see creation and new creation intertwined what we do has value.
This is not to say I didn’t have reservations reading Wright’s work. One of the more frustrating elements of Wright’s work is the shortness of the book. Since he has written in-depth, 700+ page defenses of the resurrection in other places, this book functioned as a sort of Reader's Digest version of these earlier texts. This left Wright’s exegesis of certain Biblical texts foundational to his argument short on depth--his numerous references back to his earlier scholarship has convinced me to purchase a couple of earlier books but did not provide the Biblical meat behind Wright’s claims that one would hope for a popular level book. In a sense, writing for a popular audience instead of a more narrow scholarly world I would contend that one has to be even more careful with Biblical explication since the readers will not share an intuitive understanding of the original languages and could become convinced on the basis of the author’s authority rather than Scriptures. In no way do I think this was Wright’s intent, but it is an unfortunate consequence of boiling such an important topic down into such a relatively small book.
Twice he makes a statement along the lines of, “If you remove the birth of Christ from Scripture you lose two chapters in Matthew and two in Luke, but if you remove the resurrection you lose the entire New Testament” (rough quote). While I understand the larger point he is trying to make--that our faith hinges on the resurrection, which is true--it is a bit foolishly controversial to seem (twice) to downplay the virgin birth of Christ as somehow unimportant because it didn’t receive the page space devoted to the resurrection. Indeed, without the virgin birth there is no atoning death or resurrection to speak of and we are still in our sins. Yes, its that important.
Also, Wright shares the typical mainstream aversion to speaking in concrete language on hell. He doesn’t deny its reality, but tries to twist away from it, arguing that hell is a condition where an individual has so denied and defaced the image of God within him/her that the image flickers out and this individual no longer bears God’s image. This is certainly a way of saying what hell might be, but in a book that is mostly concrete and direct in language, this sort of dance around hell struck me as Wright’s acknowledgment that he had no desire to speak on the subject--a feeling I happen to share, but one which, unfortunately, our Savior chose to repeat time and again.
Ultimately, though, I found Wright’s book extremely valuable and illuminating. It has quite literally changed the way I think about my life and my mission and how I can glorify God (this book worked brilliantly in concert with another book I recently read, James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World). While Wright’s statements have an air of radicalism, this is only because our culture has imbibed the thoughts on the afterlife from a nineteenth and early twentieth century evangelical tradition. Martin Luther understood where Wright was going. Talking about how we may give glory to God, he said the following: “A dairy maid can milk cows to the glory of God.” What we do matters. And, Luther again, speaking what he would do if he knew Christ were coming back the next day: “I would plant a tree.” What we do matters, because this place will last.
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