Surprised by Hope 1
Part 1 | Part 2
Managed to get hold of a copy of Tom Wright’s new book (kind of pinched from my little brother), so thought it would be cool to try and blog through a book. This isn’t something I’ve done before, only seen Scot McKnight do – but thought it could be an interesting exercise. Hopefully I will manage to blog my way all the way to the end of the book.
My intention is less to try and sum up each chapter, but more to try and use the book as a launch pad for my own evaluation and reflection. So a disclaimer to start: if you are looking for a balanced summary of the book, this probably won’t be it.
Wright starts by building a case for the need of a book that deals with eschatology (life after death) by sketching a picture of the many confused and muddled up ideas people, both Christian and non-Christian have of life after death. He uses examples like the Hillsborough Disaster and the death of Princess Diana to describe the many different superstitious ideas people have around death. Two broad responses would be a kind of stubborn atheism on one hand, and what I would call the “Lion King eschatology” on the other – the dead will live on in the stars / always be watching over us from creation. He also comments that belief in reincarnation is now becoming more predominant.
He begins to build an argument about the connection between our understanding of life after death, and the way we choose to live our lives now. In theological terms, we would understand this as the link between eschatology and missiology (this being our understanding of the Christian “mission”). I’d call it (I don’t know whether this is an established term) an eschatological imperative – our hope for the future drives our present.
Wright begins to build the case that with only a confused understanding of this future hope, we lose out on the motivation to work towards it in the present.
Most Christians still have an understanding of one day being “zapped up” to heaven, and abandoning this earth – which does absolutely nothing to motivate for the present. We need to get back to a biblical understanding of the re-new-ing of creation. I’m don't need to guess that this is where Wright is going…
If we can really allow this eschatological, missional imperative to join in with God’s re-creation permeate our faith communities, then the Church will suddenly find itself with a whole lot more purpose.
