Surprised by Hope

Surprised by Hope by N.T.Wright

I don’t read an awful lot of Christian books. Most of the popular ones seem to be focused on either apologetics or how one is to live properly within the Christian camp. This book by Church of England Bishop N.T. Wright is much different from the norm of what most readers are familiar.  For starters, this guy is deep. This guy is well educated. This guy reminds you of one of those stuffy Oxford-like professors that’s very high in the ‘knowledge’ department, but doesn’t always speak simplistically enough for the layman. This is not a book that one can read over a weekend. Such characteristics can be seen as a drawback, but in most cases, I found his prose to be a welcome change of pace. If you’re a fan of someone such as C.S. Lewis, I would imagine you would be able to enjoy this author’s writing style as well.

The subject of this book focuses on the misunderstanding that centers around many western churches when discussing the eternal destination of the Christian. According to Wright, the common misconception is that we will dwell in heaven forever. Instead, Wright argues, Heaven is only a temporary resting spot, and one day in the future, all Christians past and present will again live on the earth under Jesus’ reign.

The main drawback for this book is that Wright seems to want to overly convince his readers of this fact.  He states scripture after scripture, hymn after hymn, story after story, to prove his point. It’s a bit much. I think the reason that such confusion exists is because, for most people, the debate of “where” we will be is not that significant. Instead, most people when discussing eschatology are more concerned with “how”. As long as we’re in a place “like” heaven, we don’t seem to mind exactly where we’ll unpack our suitcase for eternity.

As Wright makes his arguments, he seems more driven towards left-brain thinking than right-brained thinking.  He doesn’t spend too much time talking about what this new world will be like and what everyone will experience.  He assures us that even though we will all be working and have some sort of job in God’s kingdom, all souls will, in fact, relish the experience. When it comes to such matters that are somewhat mysterious, the author doesn’t claim to offer heavy handed explanations based on what he might feel. If he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, and has no trouble at all stating this in the book.

The big challenge that he gives Christians is that if we are to one day live in this world with Jesus as our king, we must take care of the world as it is now. We must “get it ready” for the glory of God. I think this is where his real struggle is with a lot of Western thinking. Too often, many Christians today have “End Times” syndrome. They’re so convinced that Jesus will rapture the saints at any moment, that they don’t seem to care about things such as acid rain or global warming.  After all, this is only our temporary home, right?  This is what the author is trying so hard to dispel.  Being a Christian, he says, involves a lot of ‘doing’ in addition to ‘witnessing’.

It’s quite interesting (although many would find it insulting) when the author finds faults in many practices that Western (particularly U.S.) churches engage in every Sunday. He’s not a fan of “check off the box” salvation, and he clearly doesn’t believe in such widely held beliefs as the rapture of the church. I’m not one with a degree in theology, so I can’t challenge him on such sentiments, but he seems think that as a body, Christians definitely need to be doing more both within their church and community, and within the world itself.

He doesn’t spend very much time talking about “who gets to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven”. He states that he’s clearly not a Universalist (although he confesses that such a concept might not be completely foreign to God), and the main reason behind this thinking is the wickedness that some people possess. I confess I would have liked to have him expound on this a bit more. He makes references to such obvious atrocities such as Nazism and sexual slavery, but where exactly does he draw the line? Aren’t all evil without the blood of Jesus?  Then, some of his “evils” that he describes didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. He quickly mentions “Hiroshima” for example. Hiroshima?  What exactly is “evil” about this?  I’m assuming he’s referring to the atom bomb, and yes, this was truly a very evil event, but who was ultimately responsible?  Some would argue Harry Truman, but others would say it was the mayhems of Japan and their treatment of American POWs that actually caused the unfortunate event.  So his failure to go into more depth left me a bit disappointed.

I still felt this was an excellent book. If anything, it causes one to rethink and reevaluate such predispositions that many Christians have had, say, forever.  Such debate is healthy, I believe. Although he doesn’t argue that one must “work” towards salvation (at least that wasn’t the impression that I got), he does plainly say that once one is saved, the converted heart should want to work for God’s glory – both in this life and the next.