Surprised by Hope Author: N. T. Wright | Language: English | ISBN:
B0010SIPOY | Format: EPUB
Surprised by Hope Description
In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, top-selling author and Anglican bishop, N.T. Wright tackles the biblical question of what happens after we die and shows how most Christians get it wrong. We do not “go to” heaven; we are resurrected and heaven comes down to earth--a difference that makes all of the difference to how we live on earth. Following N.T. Wright’s 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.
- File Size: 566 KB
- Print Length: 352 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (May 5, 2009)
- Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
- Language: English
- ASIN: B0010SIPOY
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,451 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Theology > Eschatology - #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian Living > Death & Grief - #13
in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Christian Living > Death & Grief
- #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Theology > Eschatology - #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian Living > Death & Grief - #13
in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Christian Living > Death & Grief
Wright states in the preface, "Most people, in my experience-including many Christan's-don't know what the ultimate Christian hope really is. Most people-again, sadly, including many Christians-don't expect Christians to have much to say about hope within the present world" (xi). Wright's aim in this book is to do his part to straighten this out.
Chapter 1 sets the scene by describing the broader world's confusion about hope, then describes three popular views about the afterlife in the world: annihilation, reincarnation, and ghosts and the possibility of spiritualistic contact with the dead (new age stuff).
Chapter 2 describes the reigning confusion about hope in the church, which has oscillated between seeing death as a vile enemy or a welcome friend. Wright blames Platonism's influence on the Christian faith for much of the confusion and reason why so many value the soul over the body. He is concerned that not many Christians understand biblical hope, and rarely think about it, much less live in light of it. The biblical vision of "heaven" is not souls flying off to a spiritual domain but resurrected bodies reigning with Christ on the new heavens and new earth. He then lays out the effects of the confusion in our hymns (the ultimate vision is not us going home up there but Christ coming here), our celebration of the Christian year (Easter should be celebrated more than Christmas), and funerals. The wider implications of our confusion about the future have to do with how we live here and now, and the way we look at earth and our actions here. If one thinks God is going to destroy this universe, why care about it now?
Friends call him "Tom" -- and, at this point, Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright has friends around the world, eagerly looking for his next visit and his next book. There's an air of C.S. Lewis about the bishop of Durham.
Nearly a decade ago, he became a sensation among American journalists for touring the country with Marcus Borg, the two of them cast as a pair of dueling Bible scholars and co-authors of a still very popular book, "The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions." What drew headlines coast to coast was that, in each city along their tour, the crowds were larger than anyone envisioned. I recall reporting on this myself, double checking to make sure the claims were true -- that thousands of people, rather than hundreds, were hungry to hear truly gifted scholars debate details of Jesus' life and ministry.
That year, Borg played the provocateur, skeptical about many traditional claims concerning Jesus. However, since that time, Borg's own path has veered right into what he calls "The Heart of Christianity" and his recent books are read by thousands of regular churchgoers across the U.S.
That year, Tom Wright played what I can best describe as the C.S. Lewis role. In many of Tom's books, he even writes in Lewis' nuts-and-bolts voice and measured cadence. Many Americans may have forgotten the role Lewis played as a Christian titan in the popular media of his era. In his heyday, before "The Chronicles of Narnia" eclipsed everything else he wrote, Lewis was famous as "a Christian apologist," meaning that he'd go anywhere and stand toe to toe with anyone to defend his orthodox view of the faith.
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