Book Notes: Surprised by Hope by Tom Wright

N.T. (Tom) Wright, has written a book with the (ambitious) aim of correcting what he sees as an error in all streams of the 'western' church. In essence, Wright argues that due to the prevailing influence of the greek philosophical tradition (specifically Platonic dualism) the church has lost sight of the New Testament's central theological and historical concern: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The result of this, he says, is at best a distortion of the meaning of Christian hope and a failure to grasp our responsibilities to this world; and at worst an apologetic for social, ethical and environmental neglect.

Compared to many of Wrights works (such as the densely argued 'Origins' series) this book is a blast, a genuine page-turner which illuminates and surprises with every chapter. Stylistically its only fault is a tendency for repetition of the central theme a little more than was perhaps necessary.

Wright believes that both the liberalism to his left and the fundamentalism to his right have mis-interpreted the resurrection texts of the New Testament's Easter narrative. Fundamentalism he believes has taken a 'flat' reading of 1 Thessalonians to develop 'St' Paul's "we shall meet him in the air" comment into a 'rapture' theology that views salvation in terms of escape from this world. That is to say it sees Christian hope as 'going to heaven when we die'. This, argues Wright misinterprets Paul and does so to replace the genuine biblical hope of resurrection, replacing it with the medieval artists disembodied harp-playing notions of glory. Such views, he insists, are rooted in Platonism and Gnosticism, which make the 'soul' the good-bit that gets saved, and the body the 'bad bit' that is lost with death. In contrast, biblical hope lies in the bodily resurrection of Christ which is the pre-cursor to the physical resurrection of us all. Theological liberalism has made a mirror-image error by lapsing into the same unbiblical categories as this wonky scan from p230 demonstrates:

The end result of this is a crisis in which the hymns, liturgy and preaching of all sides have obscured the central claim of historic Christianity. Fundamentalism's 'soul-only' gospel detaches body from soul and seeks only to save souls and has little concern for bodies or this world which it regards as of no consequence - rather than being loaded with massive resurrection significance. Likewise liberalism, in its denial of the bodily resurrection of Christ, cannot offer the hope of a renewed, resurrected, perfected world-order of justice, hope, peace and the oft-invoked Kingdom of God; because these are the very promises of physical resurrection and renewal of the whole earth. The answer to both these extremes, says Wright - is the rediscovery of the Christian orthodoxy of hope! This he says is historically grounded, theologically coherent and demands holistic mission from the church; challenging those to his right to thoroughly engage in social concern - doing mission in a world that will ultimately renewed; and those on his left to proclaim Christ and the salvation he is bringing to the world and calling people be part of that.

On his central theme - Wright is excellent. Less convincing are some of his excursus into related matters, which are interesting cul-de-sacs which are often well-observed but do sometimes obscure. His view of 'justification by faith' as a temporary expedient until works are done, is perhaps especially unfortunate in this regard (especially as this so strongly militates against genuine hope in a book about hope!), but this is but a footnote in the overall project. Critics from the right will also want to know the basis on which Wright selects which eshcatalogical images to interpret literally, and which metaphorically; in more helpful terms than references to his other works.

Despite these reservations, this is a great read; fascinating, well-argued, thought-provoking and response demanding!