Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

Surprised by Hope\ Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church\ Chapter One\ All Dressed Up and No Place to Go?\ Introduction\ Five snapshots set the scene for the two questions this book addresses.\ In autumn 1997 much of the world was plunged into a week of national mourning for Princess Diana, reaching its climax in the extraordinary funeral service in Westminster Abbey. People brought flowers, teddy bears, and other objects to churches, cathedrals, and town halls and stood in line for hours to write touching if sometimes tacky messages in books of condolence. Similar if somewhat smaller occasions of public grief took place following such incidents as the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. They showed a rich confusion of belief, half belief, sentiment, and superstition about the fate of the dead. The reaction of the churches showed how far we had come from what might once have been traditional Christian teaching on the subject.\ The second scene was farce, with a serious undertone. Early in 1999 I awoke one morning to hear on the radio that a public figure had been sacked for heretical statements about the afterlife. I listened eagerly. Was this perhaps a radical bishop or theologian, exposed at last? Back came the answer, incredible but true: no, it was a soccer coach. Glen Hoddle, the manager of the England team, declared his belief in a particular version of reincarnation, according to which sins committed in one life are punished by disabilities in the next. Groups representing disabled people objected strongly, and Hoddle was dismissed. It was commented at the time, however, that reincarnation hadbecome remarkably popular in our society and that it would be very odd if Hindus (many of whom hold similar beliefs) were automatically banned from coaching a national sports team.\ The third scene is not a single moment, but the snapshot will be familiar. Twenty or thirty people arrive in slow-moving cars at a shabby building on the edge of town. A tinny electronic organ plays supermarket music. A few words, the press of a button, a solemn look from the undertaker, and they file out again, go home for a cup of tea, and wonder what it was all about. Cremation, almost unknown in the Western world a hundred years ago, is now the preference, actual or assumed, of the great majority. It both reflects and causes subtle but far-reaching shifts in attitudes to death and to whatever hope lies beyond.\ I initially wrote those opening descriptions in early 2001. By the end of that year, of course, we had witnessed a fourth moment, too well known but also too horrible to describe or discuss in much detail. The events of September 11 of that year are etched in global memory; the thousands who died and the tens of thousands who were bereaved evoke our love and prayers. I shall not say much more about that day, but for many people it raised once more, very sharply, the questions this book seeks to discuss-as did, in their different ways, the three massive so-called natural disasters of 2004 and 2005: the Asian tsunami of Boxing Day 2004; the hurricanes on the Gulf Coast of North America of August 2005, bringing long-lasting devastation to New Orleans in particular; and the horrifying earthquake in Pakistan and Kashmir in October of that same year.\ The fifth scene is a graveyard of a different sort. If you go to the historic village of Easington in County Durham, England, and walk down the hill toward the sea, you come to the town called Easington Colliery. The town still bears that name, but there is no colliery there anymore. Where the pit head once stood, with thousands of people working to produce more coal faster and more efficiently than at most other pits, there is smooth and level grass. Empty to the eye, but pregnant with bereavement. All around, despite the heroic efforts of local leaders, there are the signs of postindustrial blight, with all the human fallout of other people's power games. And that sight stands in my mind as a symbol, or rather a symbolic question, every bit as relevant to similar communities in America and elsewhere in the world as they are to my home territory. What hope is there for communities that have lost their way, their way of life, their coherence, their hope?1\ This book addresses two questions that have often been dealt with entirely separately but that, I passionately believe, belong tightly together. First, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Second, what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present? And the main answer can be put like this. As long as we see Christian hope in terms of "going to heaven," of a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated. Indeed, some insist angrily that to ask the second one at all is to ignore the first one, which is the really important one. This in turn makes some others get angry when people talk of resurrection, as if this might draw attention away from the really important and pressing matters of contemporary social concern. But if the Christian hope is for God's new creation, for "new heavens and new earth," and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together. And if that is so, we find that answering the one is also answering the other. I find that to many-not least, many Christians -all this comes as a surprise: both that the Christian hope is surprisingly different from what they had assumed and that this same hope offers a coherent and energizing basis for work in today's world.\ In this first chapter I want to set the scene and open up the questions by looking at the contemporary confusion in our world-the wider world, beyond the churches-about life after death. Then, in the second chapter, I shall look at the churches themselves, where there seems to me a worryingly similar uncertainty. This will highlight the key questions that have to be asked and suggest a framework for how we go about answering them.\ Surprised by Hope\ Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. Copyright (c) by N.T. Wright . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

PrefacePart I Setting the Scene1 All Dressed Up and No Place to Go?Introduction 3Confusion about Hope: The Wider World 7Varieties of Belief 92 Puzzled About Paradise?Christian Confusion About Hope 13Exploring the Options 16The Effects of Confusion 20Wider Implications of Confusion 25The Key Questions 273 Early Christian Hope in Its Historical SettingIntroduction 31Resurrection and Life after Death in Ancient Paganism and Judaism 35The Surprising Character of Early Christian Hope 404 The Strange Story of EasterStories Without Precedent 53Easter and History 58Conclusion 74Part II God's Future Plan5 Cosmic Future: Progress or Despair?Introduction 79Option 1 Evolutionary Optimism 81Option 2 Souls in Transit 886 What the Whole World's Waiting ForIntroduction 93Fundamental Structures of Hope 93Seedtime and Harvest 98The Victorious Battle 99Citizens of Heaven, Colonizing the Earth 100God Will Be All in All 101New Birth 103The Marriage of Heaven and Earth 104Conclusion 1067 Jesus, Heaven, and New CreationThe Ascension 109What About the Second Coming? 1178 When He AppearsIntroduction 123Coming, Appearing, Revealing, Royal Presence 1249 Jesus, the Coming JudgeIntroduction 137Second Coming and Judgment 14210 The Redemption of Our BodiesIntroduction 147Resurrection: Life After Life After Death 148Resurrection in Corinth 152Resurrection: Later Debates 156Rethinking Resurrection Today: Who, Where, What Why, When, and How 15911 Purgatory, Paradise, HellIntroduction 165Purgatory 166Paradise 171Beyond Hope, Beyond Pity175Conclusion: Human Goals and New Creation 183Part III Hope in Practice: Resurrection and the Mission of the Church12 Rethinking Salvation: Heaven, Earth, and the Kingdom of GodIntroduction 189The Meaning of Salvation 194The Kingdom of God 20113 Building for the KingdomIntroduction 207Justice 213Beauty 222Evangelism 225Conclusion 23014 Reshaping the Church for Mission (1): Biblical RootsIntroduction 233The Gospels and Acts 234Paul 24615 Reshaping the Church for Mission (2): Living the FutureIntroduction: Celebrating Easter 255Space, Time, and Matter: Creation Redeemed 257Resurrection and Mission 264Resurrection and Spirituality 271Appendix Two Easter Sermons 291Notes 297Index 315Biblical Passages 331

\ Rob Bell"This book is N.T. Wright at his finest."\ \ \ \ \ Phyllis TickleA crystal-clear, powerful course-correction for all of us—Christian or otherwise. If you want to know what Easter is about, get yourself a copy of Surprised by Hope and hunker down for the read of a lifetime....literally.\ \ \ Beliefnet (A "Top Religious Book of the Year")“In calling Christians to an epistemology of love and a re-emphasis of the Easter season, Wright knocked it out of the park.”\ \ \ \ \ America Magazine"Wright’s unwavering faith in the resurrection is quite evident as he defends the Easter narratives on historical and theological grounds."\ \ \ \ \ World Magazine"N.T. Wright can write. . . when it comes to questions of Christ’s resurrection and what that means, no one is more persuasive. Wright’s new book, Surprised by Hope, builds on C.S. Lewis’ succinct defense of the faith and takes it to a new level."\ \ \ \ \ The Dallas Morning NewsThis book will be widely read because it stirs together Scripture, tradition, art and world affairs with pleasing metaphors and public courage.\ \ \ \ \ Beliefnet Editors"In calling Christians to an epistemology of love and a re-emphasis of the Easter season, Wright knocked it out of the park."\ \ \ \ \ World Magazine“N.T. Wright can write. . . when it comes to questions of Christ’s resurrection and what that means, no one is more persuasive. Wright’s new book, Surprised by Hope, builds on C.S. Lewis’ succinct defense of the faith and takes it to a new level.”\ \ \ \ \ America Magazine“Wright’s unwavering faith in the resurrection is quite evident as he defends the Easter narratives on historical and theological grounds.”\ \ \ \ \ Beliefnet Editors“In calling Christians to an epistemology of love and a re-emphasis of the Easter season, Wright knocked it out of the park.”\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalWright's subtitle aptly describes his purpose with this work, which is to rethink what is essential to Christianity. His conclusions are both simple and world-shaking. The "good news of the Gospels" is not, as many Christians and non-Christians seem to believe, that if you behave well and believe in Jesus then you will go to heaven when you die. Wright doesn't deny the existence of some paradisical resting place, the "many rooms in my Father's mansion" of Scripture, but he offers that the real promise is of another life in God's new creation. Jesus's resurrection in this light is simply the first instance of this new life foretold for all. Wright believes this new creation will be a redeeming of God's first creation; for him, far from rushing to leave this world behind, a Christian's true calling is to work toward this new creation right now. Readers will need a Bible handy to appreciate this work fully, as Wright prefers to cite rather than print Scripture. His prose, deep but not murky, is lightened by glints of humor. For any library serving patrons who are willing to think a bit about religion.\ —Eric Norton\ \ \