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A review by juliasilge
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright
4.0
This is my first book by Anglican theologian [a:N.T. Wright|38932|N.T. Wright|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1262134375p2/38932.jpg] and I enjoyed it tremendously; his tone falls somewhere that combines scholarly and devotional but is not dry or overly academic or drippy. I found his main theme here really great and challenging in a good way: we as Christians don't take the resurrection of Jesus seriously enough, especially in what it means for the ultimate future of everybody and everything and what we should we occupied with in the present (including global poverty, third world debt, environmental issues, & so forth). I really appreciate Wright's extended case against Gnostic/Platonic dualism, because I think that colors a lot of my thinking without me realizing it.
Some other aspects of Wright's arguments were challenging to me in a different way-- Do we evangelicals really get our eschatology so wrong (i.e. the rapture and tribulation and so forth)? Is the evangelical understanding of baptism and communion as symbols only really so off target? Not that Wright's main point in this book is evangelical-bashing, by any means; he argues equally strongly against the errors of modernist liberal theology when it comes to denying the resurrection or whatever. Anyway, these smaller issues did not keep me from thinking more deeply and in new ways about his larger points. Really good.
Oh, and look! Wright was on The Colbert Report doing publicity for this very book.
Some other aspects of Wright's arguments were challenging to me in a different way-- Do we evangelicals really get our eschatology so wrong (i.e. the rapture and tribulation and so forth)? Is the evangelical understanding of baptism and communion as symbols only really so off target? Not that Wright's main point in this book is evangelical-bashing, by any means; he argues equally strongly against the errors of modernist liberal theology when it comes to denying the resurrection or whatever. Anyway, these smaller issues did not keep me from thinking more deeply and in new ways about his larger points. Really good.
Oh, and look! Wright was on The Colbert Report doing publicity for this very book.