Book #39 for 2024: surprised by HOPE by Tom Wright
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a book I picked up because church were having a giveaway. It felt like quite heavy going, as there was a lot of theology, and philosophy. It was interesting to see what some of the source materials used were, as this included the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Throughout the book, there is a lot of talk about what happens when we die; is it the end, or is there an afterlife? This is how Tom Wright starts his series of essays, and he does make it quite clear that he does not believe in the idea of purgatory, as popularised by Dante.
A lot of the book is also about the idea of resurrection, and what it means, starting with the Easter story, which the author acknowledges is becoming less significant to many Christians, in comparison to Christmas, while citing that Jesus' resurrection is just a taste of what he believes will happen to all those who are saved at the end of times. The book also talks a lot about the notion of having "second birth" as a Christian, and the final section is about how to evangelise others by sharing The Word. I could sense the urgency that the author felt about the situation as I read the last few chapters.
While this wasn't the easiest of books, I was glad I took the trouble to read it, particularly as the author did disspell a few myths about Christianity (citing for example that the Eucharist is "not an attempt to perform magic"). One of the final paragraphs of the book summed things up nicely:
"Of course, in our incomplete world, God's gentle offer and demand press upon us as fearful things, almost threatening. But God's offer and demand are neither fearful nor threatening. God in his gentle love longs to set us free from the prison we have stumbled into - the loveless prison where we refuse both the offer and the demand of forgiveness."
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