 | | |
| Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church | 
 enlarge | List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $13.65
You Save: $11.30 (45%)
Buy New/Used from $13.65
Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 43 reviews)
Sales Rank: 766
Category: Book
Author: N. T. Wright
Publisher: HarperOne
Studio: HarperOne
Manufacturer: HarperOne
Label: HarperOne
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0061551821
Dewey Decimal Number: 236
EAN: 9780061551826
ASIN: 0061551821
Publication Date: February 1, 2008
Release Date: February 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
For years Christians have been asking, "If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?" It turns out that many believers have been giving the wrong answer. It is not heaven. Award-winning author N. T. Wright outlines the present confusion about a Christian's future hope and shows how it is deeply intertwined with how we live today. Wright, who is one of today's premier Bible scholars, asserts that Christianity's most distinctive idea is bodily resurrection. He provides a magisterial defense for a literal resurrection of Jesus and shows how this became the cornerstone for the Christian community's hope in the bodily resurrection of all people at the end of the age. Wright then explores our expectation of "new heavens and a new earth," revealing what happens to the dead until then and what will happen with the "second coming" of Jesus. For many, including many Christians, all this will come as a great surprise. Wright convincingly argues that what we believe about life after death directly affects what we believe about life before death. For if God intends to renew the whole creation?and if this has already begun in Jesus's resurrection?the church cannot stop at "saving souls" but must anticipate the eventual renewal by working for God's kingdom in the wider world, bringing healing and hope in the present life. Lively and accessible, this book will surprise and excite all who are interested in the meaning of life, not only after death but before it.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
Pleasantly suprised December 8, 2008
From the blurb:
For years Christians have been asking "If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?" It turns out many believers have been giving the wrong answer. It is not heaven.
For those of you unfamiliar with N. T. Wright, he is the coolest old, bald Anglican since C. S. Lewis. In fact he is even balder than Clive Staples. He is also, much more significantly, the current Bishop of Durham, and one the foremost New Testament scholars in the world. This volume, Surprised By Hope, was published this year, so is a very recent addition to the literature. In my opinion, it is a very good one.
The subtitle of Surprised By Hope is `Rethinkin Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church'. Wright begins by debunking all of the most common misconceptions about the after-life. He tackles both the secular misconceptions and misconceptions within the church. `Heaven' is given a thorough going-over, as Wright criticises the rampant Platonic dualism which has swept Evangelical circles in recent decades, and then shows what the Bible actually says about where we go when we die. It is a refreshing insight.
Wright then proceeds to analyse current trends within, and without, the church in regards to political progress or despair. With these trends in mind, he outlines and exposits what the Bible has to say about the Second Coming, the Ascension, the resurrection and redemption of our bodies, Purgatory, Hell and the New Heaven and Earth. All this time, Wright is emphasising the amazing hope which the Bible speaks of in key passages like Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, and the final chapter of Revelation, among others. It is made clear to the reader that the Bible does, indeed, speak of a very physical resurrection, and very real redemption of the entirety of creation. Jesus of Nazareth's resurrection from the dead was the inauguration of this very real victory which was won over death, and the start of the Kingdom, which is the central theme in the third part of the book.
`Part III: Hope in Practice', is a very inspiring, and helpful section of practical theological writing. Wright explores the concepts of Kingdom and Salvation, then shows how clearly Jesus resurrection was the ultimate precursor to the redemption of creation. It also becomes clear that this work of redemption started at Easter, is the Church's mission. The Church is commanded to anticipate this ultimate hope we have, by "building for the Kingdom." A key verse quoted often here is 1 Corinthians 15:58. What you do in the Lord is not in vain. Wright states that "the church is called to a mission of implementing Jesus' resurrection and thereby anticipating the final new creation." Major categories explored, in which the church can and should be active are; justice, beauty and evangelism. These three areas, Wright suggests, all point to the coming hope we have if we are in Christ. As God's church, we should be acting in justice in order to anticipate the justice of the New Creation, creating beauty in order to anticipate the incredible perfection and beauty of the New Creation, and we are to tell the world about this ultimate hope we have in the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Finally, Wright establishes a framework through which the church can start acting in anticipation of the final hope we have.
This is an important book for the church today. There is a theological framework, and vision of hope, from which the Church could launch a powerful movement to win back the hope it holds, but has forgotten in a tide of dispensationalism, cynical right-wing politics, and Platonist philosophy. Wright shows that the Bible says some quite incredible things regarding what we can very legitimately hope for. He also shows that, with that hope before us, we can behave like the hopeful Bride of Christ we are meant to behave like. There is a platform here on which the Church can build a mission of bringing justice, beauty and the Gospel to the nations; and it is hopeful! If you read this book, you will certainly be surprised by that hope. I heartily recommend this book.
A Brilliant Distillation of Wright's Insights into Christian Eschatology December 3, 2008
I bought this book as a companion in my observance of Advent this year as it revisits the issue of Christian hope. It has been Wright's passionate call for the church to recover a biblically robust eschatology which the Western Church has generally reduced to either an escapist view of heaven or an evolutionary paradigm of human progress. This book is a distillation of his brilliant and massive research of the resurrection of Jesus and how that is connected to God's work in renewing the cosmos.
Ironically I first came across this idea from the Jehovah's witnesses who pointed to me the beatitude 'Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth' - that God was not in the business of destroying the world but renewing it. However, Wright is the leading evangelical scholar that reaffirms this idea without the heretical accretions and has connected the dots with his thorough examination of the Resurrection of Jesus from all angles historical and theological and how the resurrection, much more than simply proving that there's life after death (for which the early Jews needed no such evidence), was in fact the inaugural act of God's new creation. And far from redescribing death as a mere transition to the after-life, it is God's defeat of death, which has been the chief weapon of evil that mars God's good earth. This is the overarching thesis of the book, which sets out to examine what early Christians really meant when they said 'Jesus was raised from the dead'. I especially enjoyed the section 'The Surprising Character of Christian Hope' where he discusses what he calls the 'seven mutations' early Christians brought to bear on the dominant Jewish concept of the resurrection in light of the Christ events. This analysis is Wright's unique contribution to the contemporary studies on the Resurrection of Christ - which alone is worth the price of the book!
From this premise he goes on to draw out the implications for the theology, worship and mission of the church. Wright names justice, beauty and evangelism as three expressions of the church's tasks that arise out of her Easter hope. It serves as a great starting point for further reflections and shaping of the church's witness and outreach to the world with a creation-affirming gospel.
However, where Wrights takes on the corollary subjects in chapter 11 such as the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory and the concept of hell, I find his treatments less satisfying. For example, his understanding that hell consists of the destiny of those who 'refuse all whisperings of the good news, all glimmers of the true light, all signposts to the love of God' and will continue to exist as ex-humans. This in reality pretty much still leaves unanswered the real question of hell for a vast majority of ordinary decent folks who may not have answered the call of the gospel of Jesus but are neither great saints nor crooks. Perhaps, this is an area that the bible gives less information than we wish to know but Wright's explanation of hell being the resultant state of people who persist in being less than human does not quite advance the traditional answer very much.
Also, as a matter of style, I tend to get a little impatient with Wright's habit of punctuating his sentences with parenthetical phrases, disclaimers, and qualifications which tend to disrupt the flow of his writing. It could be the side effects of transcribing lectures into a book. I wish at times, he could pack in more substantive paragraphs instead, especially in developing more fully his arguments for the more obscure bits such as how 'initial justification by faith' is squared with 'final justification by the whole life lived' which continues to baffle even many of his sympathetic readers. But, this is only a picadillo I regard in his otherwise eloquent 'wrightings' which other readers might in fact adore.
On the whole, it is a great book - a book I believe that will bring to birth many more books as other gifted writers get to build on, expand, fine-tune, and flesh out the paradigmatic shift/recovery in Christian eschatology so elegantly proposed by this brilliant bible scholar.
 Still waiting for this to arrive--the 2nd time it's been ordered November 29, 2008
1 out of 11 found this review helpful
Why do you ask for a review when I am still waiting for the shipment? This is the 2nd time I have ordered this book, so I hope this one actually arrives. The first one never came.
 Turned my Theology Upside-Down! November 24, 2008
This book has quickly jumped to the top of my list of life-shaping, world-view defining books. N.T. Wright is noted as a very well-respected scholar and cited as the foremost expert in 1st Century Jewish Christianity and it shows. This book reveals how influenced Western Christianity is by Greek philosophy that stands in stark contrast to the Jewish belief systems that shaped the early Christians. Wright uses the scriptures to support everything that he postulates, but he offers as well the original context that only a first century scholar can bring. I found over and over that the original first century context radically changed the intended meaning of New Testament texts. In addition, he points out some very clear, direct scripture regarding the belief in bodily resurrection that has totally escaped me with the personal Platonic grid that I have been culturally trained to accept as absolute truth.
Finally, my favorite part of the book is that Wright shows that we, as believers in Christ, have purpose in our current life on this earth and it is tied directly to fact that His kingdom has already come AND the hope that we have in the coming kingdom when all of creation will be restored to God's original design.
Reshaped my understanding of heaven November 17, 2008
This is a fantastic book that will completely (and Biblically) reshape the way you think about Heaven and life after death (or as Wright calls it, "Life after life after death"). This is a great read for those searching to better understand the Hope Christians are supposed to have, but have somehow forgotten over the last centuries. It turns out we have something to be even MORE excited about beyond a lofty cloud in the sky. Wright points to Scripture and Church History in order to make a convincing argument that what we often think of as Heaven and the meaning of "resurrection" actually needs to be revised. This book should be read and considered by EVERYONE who has ever read or bought-into the theology encapsulated in some well intended (albeit theologically questionable) Christian books such as the Left Behind series. This is by far the best book I have read in the past few years.
|
|
|
 Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| | |
