I’ve just started reading another “blockbuster” book by my favorite theologian/author, Anglican Bishop N. T. Wright. In his just published Surprised By Hope - Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, he tackles all the tough questions and wraps it all in a powerful message of hope.Does “resurrection” have meaning here on earth? Is there life after death? What are our post-mortem options? Is it either heaven or hell? Where is heaven? Where is hell? What will happen to the earth?
I’m not far enough into the book to begin to give you an inkling yet of his contemplations. However, I do know that his conclusions are not based on “near death experiences,” nor on what is usually (inaccurately) said at funerals, nor on speculation.
His views, instead, reflect historical Christian orthodoxy, but they are concepts and truths that Wright says have become distorted in the current accumulation of folk wisdom. What most Christians believe today about life after death, he observes, is a “vague and fuzzy optimism that somehow things may work out in the end.”
This is not to be ignored, he says, and I expect the book will endeavor to clear up some of our foggy thinking. Stay tuned…
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