Surprised by Hope [Kindle Edition]

N. T. Wright (Author)

Book Description

Award-winning author and premier theologian N. T. Wright tackles the biblical question of what happens after we die and shows how most Christians get it wrong—a difference that makes all the difference to the lives we live here on Earth. Following his resonant exploration of a life of faith in Simply Christian, the award-winning author whom Newsweek calls “the world’s leading New Testament scholar” takes on one of life’s most controversial topics, a matter of life, death, spirituality, and survival for everyone living in the world today.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wright, one of the greatest, and certainly most prolific, Bible scholars in the world, will touch a nerve with this book. What happens when we die? How should we think about heaven, hell, purgatory and eternal life? Wright critiques the views of heaven that have become regnant in Western culture, especially the assumption of the continuance of the soul after death in a sort of blissful non-bodily existence. This is simply not Christian teaching, Wright insists. The New Testament's clear witness is to the resurrection of the body, not the migration of the soul. And not right away, but only when Jesus returns in judgment and glory. The "paradise," the experience of being "with Christ" spoken of occasionally in the scriptures, is a period of waiting for this return. But Christian teaching of life after death should really be an emphasis on "life after life after death"-the resurrection of the body, which is also the ground for all faithful political action, as the last part of this book argues. Wright's prose is as accessible as it is learned-an increasingly rare combination. No one can doubt his erudition or the greatness of the churchmanship of the Anglican Bishop of Durham. One wonders, however, at the regular citation of his own previous work. And no other scholar can get away so cleanly with continuing to propagate the "hellenization thesis," by which the early church is eventually polluted by contaminating Greek philosophical influence.
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham, shares the strong current interest in Christian beginnings evidenced by the historical Jesus quest but points to faith, more than practice, more than dogma, as what most differentiates early from later Christians. Early Christians had faith in the Resurrection, that is, not only that Jesus rose from the dead in a new body but that they (indeed, everyone) would also rise from death in new bodies and into a new creation, not different but fulfilled, in which all would live fully and never die. That is what Christian hope consists in, and not in an afterlife in a distant heaven or hell, both of which domains are largely medieval fabrications popularized by a Florentine satirist, Dante. After explaining why we ought to believe objectively in Jesus’ literal resurrection, Wright argues that in his ministry resurrection is called the first fruits of the new creation because it demonstrated that the conditions of the new creation could be realized, however imperfectly, in the old, and by human agency. In the long run, Christian hope empowers and enjoins Christians to heal humanity and nature now, not to participate in general degradation through war, greed, and pollution. --Ray Olson

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Product Details

• File Size: 354 KB
• Print Length: 356 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0061551821
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (May 5, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0010SIPOY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,895 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Theology > Eschatology
  • #7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian Living > Death & Grief
  • #95 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian Living > Spiritual Growth

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The need for a new eschatology September 1, 2012

By Glen Grunau

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My views of eschatology were formed in the 60s and 70s when sermons from Revelation were a dime a dozen and Hal Lindsey was considered one of the ordained prophets of our day, with his book The Late Great Planet Earth topping the best sellers lists in Christian bookstores across the nation. The picture of heaven that I was given during these formative years has stayed with me. Yet to be completely honest, my love of God's "first" creation on this planet Earth has made it difficult for me to accept this picture of it all being burned up and replaced with a heavenly kingdom where the streets are paved with gold and the walls made of jewels. Give me a lake or a stream nestled in the Rocky Mountains any day over this sterile new home that I was supposed to anticipate with enthusiastic joy!

I was ready for this book by NT Wright! One of his primary agendas in this book was to expose much of this view of eschatology as being less influenced by Scripture and more informed by a Platonic philosophy which creates a dualistic distinction between the material Earth on which we reside and the non-material spiritual reality that we have associated with heaven. It has never been difficult for me to accept a physical resurrection and to believe that our resurrected bodies will be as material as Jesus' body was to his disciples following his resurrection. However, I could never quite imagine how these physical bodies would be at home in a non-material spiritual universe way out there somewhere. NT Wright takes the Scripture of Revelation 21:1-2 and uses this as the basis for his depiction of heaven, which he argues is much more consistent with the rest of Scripture then the depiction we are given of the first creation being abandoned by God and destroyed in favour of a new heaven - out there somewhere in a distant galaxy. After reading this book, I actually realized that one of my favourite TV series Fringe (the name of the series referring to the thin barrier separating two alternate universes existing at the same point in time) may be a more accurate depiction of the kingdoms of earth and heaven than that given to us by some of our supposed Bible scholars.

The scope of this book goes far beyond giving us a different view of heaven and focuses on the implications of the new heaven and new earth being founded on planet Terra. The author spends a lot of time exposing the political and religious ramifications of viewing our present earth as something that will merely be burned up and destroyed. He argues that the criticism directed at Christians who have such a poor environmental record is completely justified. Why bother taking care of a planet that is simply going to be burned up anyways? I must confess that I thought more than once while reading this book of the recent environmental record of our conservative government under the leadership of Stephen Harper, a conservative evangelical Christian. I have wondered how his eschatological views might be influencing his politics.

I found myself resonating strongly with NT Wright's view that God's second creation will not simply replace his first creation. Genesis 1:31 reminds us following his first creation: "God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good". Jesus bodily resurrection gives us a new surprising hope that in the end, just as Jesus' physical body given to him at Bethlehem will not be replaced with a spiritual body, God will also resurrect and restore his first creation when the presently distinct earth and heaven are joined together in a new heaven and new earth.

NT Wright's book comes on the tail of one of the most popular Christian fiction series ever written, the Left Behind series written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Wright makes specific reference to this series and goes on to suggest that "The American obsession--I don't think that's too strong a word--with the second coming of Jesus, or rather with one particular and, as we shall see, highly distorted interpretation of it, continues unabated . . . So-called end-time speculation, which is the daily bread of many in the American religious right, is not unconnected to the agenda of some of America's leading politicians".

Perhaps it takes a "Brit" to help those of us in North America see how so many of our political views are influenced in unhealthy ways by our religious views.

3.0 out of 5 stars Surprised by Hope April 27, 2013

By Roberta C. McDade

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Wright makes a lot of assumptions about believers. The book is a collection of Wright's various travels and presentations. It will get one thinking, but I've read better books.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Product and Service April 12, 2013

By RGB

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Product is very very good,, delivery was digital so very timely, and it is a nice way to get a good book for a reasonable price.

More About the Author

N.T. Wright is Bishop of Durham and was formerly Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey and dean of Lichfield Cathedral. He taught New Testament studies for twenty years at Cambridge, McGill and Oxford Universities. Wright's full-scale works The New Testament and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God, and The Resurrection of the Son of God are part of a projected six-volume series entitled Christian Origins and the Question of God. Among his many other published works are The Original Jesus, What Saint Paul Really Said and The Climax of the Covenant. He is also coauthor with Marcus Borg of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions and the volume on Colossians and Philemon in The Tyndale New Testament Commentary series.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#90 in Books > Religion & Spirituality

#90 in Books > Religion & Spirituality