“I’ve just finished reading “Surprised by Hope” by Tom Wright. This guy is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England, and is arguably one of the most prominent New Testament theologians around. This book contains a little to offend just about everyone from the Pope to the most Reformed of Evangelical Protestants.
In essence, this book deals with the issue that books like “The Late Great Planet Earth” and its eschatology encouraged a changing of the church’s message from “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” to “the end of the world is near”. The Church’s message being changed naturally provoked a change in the Church’s mission and/or its defferent emphases within that mission - thus “going to Heaven” became the Christian’s ultimate goal.
In this book Tom Wright attempts to show that the ultimate hope for the Christian is not to die and go to Heaven, and that this planet is not just waiting to be thrown off a cliff at the last judgement. He advances an altogether more biblically grounded understanding of our future hope which is, surprising for many, not at all about “going to Heaven when you die” but rather about being a co-heir with Christ in a new Heaven and a new Earth. This concept comes as a shocker to many within Evangelical Christianity. This shocker naturally changes everything. His explanation of Heaven as another present dimension to life here and now is also extremely useful as well as certain implications of, for example, Jesus being in Heaven in a material and bodily form right now, and not in a non-material state floating somewhere in the by-and-by as most Christians believe.
Wright then moves on to cover what the implications of such a hope are, in terms of the mission of the Church - in my view these chapters are excellent and well worth buying the book for. If the “Kingdom of God” has indeed been breaking-in to Earth since the resurrection of Jesus, this truth must by necessity compell us, as His “Emissaries” to proclaim Jesus’ lordship over the Earth. Accordingly this work, or mission, falls within the following main categories:
1. Social justice
The Jewish concept of “Tikkun Olam” - the healing of a broken world - where suffering is aleviated, wrongs are put to right, and the love of God is expressed in practical and powerful ways. The Church’s mission is as much about feeding the poor and caring for widows as it is about holding Revival meetings and evangelism campaigns - Wright would argue that justice is a precurser and pre-text to true evangelism.
2. Beauty
Art that both embraces the Earth’s woundedness but at the same time points to God’s beauty in anticipation of the judgement (that will right all of the Earth’s wrongs and cover the Earth with the Glory of God as the waters cover the sea). Our hope compells us to be the most creative people on this planet - after all, we do serve the “Creator.”
3. Evangelism
Proclaiming the lordship of Jesus but only within the context of justice being done, and beauty being manifested. Evangelism for many of us has been reduced to getting people to pray a simple “sinner’s prayer” (mantra?) or tick the right boxes on a response card. We have to recover a truer concept of evangelism, proclaiming the risen Christ,especially within an increasingly secularized society. In my view, this has to be done in the power of the Holy Spirit, with signs following.
There are some points that I definitely do not agree with (Praying for the rest and repose of the dead? You’re kidding me!) so be prepared to spit out some bones when you read this. However, I trust you will find that there is much more meat than bones in this piece of work.
Any thoughts?”
