Surprised by Hope

Surprised by Hope

By: N.T. Wright

N.T. Wright is one of my favorite modern theologians. His books tend to be accessible for the average reader yet have a depth that attracts the most zealous of seminarians. In my option, Surprised by Hope is one of his most important books because it challenges individuals as well as the Church to re-think salvation and the implications it has for the future and the present.

Wright talks at length at the beginning and throughout the entire book about the prevailing Platonic thought that pervades our Western culture and church. In Platonic thought, there is a great emphasis on the spiritual over and against the material called Dualism. Dualistic thinking says that all that is material is bad. The prevailing thought is to escape this world to move onto something better yet still immaterial. Those both inside the church and outside have this idea that heaven is an immaterial place where we just sit on clouds and talk to the people that have gone before. The Christian hope is reduced to escaping this earth and going onto the next form of existence. Interestingly enough, the underlying way of thinking within our western church culture resembles more Greek thought than early Christian thought.

The resurrection of Jesus is the evidence and promise of our own bodily resurrection. This is the message needed in our churches today. Those in Christ will be raised to the new heaven and the new earth. This is what Wright calls “life after life after death.” Many times, in our culture we get so focused on the intermediate state, or for some purgatory, that we completely downplay what happens after that intermediate state. The intermediate state (paradise, purgatory, and much of our culture’s concept of hell) is intermediate. It is not meant nor ever meant to be final. So, at a funeral, or when talking about how someone has passed, we need to shift our language from seeing them or being with them when we die in some spiritual, immaterial state, to the hope that someday they will be resurrected and citizens in the New Heaven and New Earth.

The hope then affects not just a future existence, but our present experience. It forces us to re-evaluate our view of social justice. We are called, because of the hope of resurrection, to stand with those who cannot, to speak for those without a voice, and to stand against injustice. Wright believes and I along with him, that as escapism and dualism continues to spread within the Western church we will continue to find churches who shun the poor and powerless.

This resurrection hope also shapes our view of evangelism. The hope of the resurrection compels us to share in that hope. We need to bring the message of God’s kingdom here on earth. It has already begun. As people are converted they are not living in a vacuum of self-salvation, but they are a part of a global kingdom. Our salvation lies in the fact that we will be resurrected at the last day. Death has no hold on us because it has already been defeated by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We need to express in our evangelistic efforts that we are truly saved from the sting of death.

I know this has been a longer post and a bit of a soapbox, but this book is one of the few modern Christian books that have truly affected and changed my life. I encourage you to pick it up and rediscover the hope we have as Christians.

Check it out on Amazon here: