Surprised by Hope: Part 2

My last post dealt with the past, and this one will deal with the future. I’ll try to keep it brief, as you are quite capable of reading the book for yourself! Instead, I will pull out just a few key ideas from this part.

Tom begins with two great cosmic pictures: progress and despair. The first is represented by what he calls an evolutionary optimism, which assumes that everything is almost fatalistically moving towards the good. History, in this view, is a long and steady march towards perfection. The second is represented by the idea that we are merely souls in transit to a better place. Getting off this rock we call earth is taken to be a blessing, and Plato has dominated the landscape here for millennia. However, Tom says both views are mistaken. The heart God’s plan lies in the renewal of creation. Resurrection is part of that renewal.

The initiation of the future will be marked by the second coming of Christ. Now, this has been a big issue in evangelical circles for decades. Left Behind works off of a very particular theology where Christians are taken away from the world, or rapture. And Tom thinks that many people, at least in America, have it all backwards when they adopt this into their own personal theologies.

The go-to proof-text on this issue is I Thessalonians 4:16-17. Much emphasis is placed on the line, “We… will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” If this is taken in an absurdly literal fashion, based only off of the English translation with no regard for the cultural context, it might be possible to get to Left Behind. But the Greek word used is parousia, which is associated with a royal or divine presence. When the Roman emperor would visit a city, the people would go out to bring him in. In this passage, it makes more sense that Paul was saying that we will meet the Lord in the air as he returns, not as one who will evacuate his people, but one who will be fully present in the kingdom already established.

So what is the ultimate hope for Christians according to Wright? It isn’t heaven; at least not as that “other place” it is often imagined to be. Rather, it is in the life after the life after death. It is in the Kingdom of God, on earth, in resurrection bodies.