N.T. Wright's "Surprised by Hope": The Pirate Review, Day 11
The precise wording of Chapter 13's title is critical to Wright's main theme here. Having set forth the map of the ultimate Christian hope, framed at either end by the first Easter and the final coming of the new Jerusalem from heaven to earth, our task, in the middle of those two events, is precisely to build "for the kingdom." Not to "build the kingdom," as assumed by much of the old "Social Gospel" proponents, and to sit back and let God do what God is going to do, and to get as many people on board in the meantime, as assumed by many that lean toward a more fundamental view of the Christian message. Our task, as Wright outlines, is to build for the kingdom in three primary categories (Justice, Beauty, and Evangelism), reflecting our status as those in whom new creation has begun in Christ, and thereby anticipating and setting up markers for the ultimate new creation in the future, that day when all space, time and matter will be redeemed and transformed in ways that are (admittedly) mysterious but for which we have a paradigm in the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Having said that, Wright turns to discussing those three primary categories where this will play out. Regarding Justice, Wright again stresses the error of both strands of misunderstanding prevalent today: the conservative vision, which is based on an unbiblical dualism, and the liberal vision, which tends to deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus, which was in the beginning a revolutionary doctrine, and thereby "cut off the branch from which true Christian work for justice must grow." That said, Wright goes on to discuss what he sees as the primary area of injustice in the world today, the massive economic unbalance whose main symptom is the ridiculous and unpayable "third world debt."
Wright then turns to the issue of Beauty. I am again going to defer to Wright's own masterful discourse on this issue. Given the subject matter, I think my deferral is appropriate:
And, finally, Wright turns to the issue of Evangelism. The central point he makes is that proper evangelism should not be confused with its mainstream understanding, that is, that there is a heaven and hell and our sins prevent us from going to heaven so we should accept Jesus who has already atoned for those sins. Wright does not contend that those who have become Christians through that message have been deceived, since God honors all kinds of ways of announcing the good news. But that is not an excuse to fail to understand what "the gospel" is, according to the NT, the good news that God is at last becoming king and that Jesus, the one whom this God raised from the dead, is the world's true Lord. Evangelism is the message that all are invited to the party, and once they come in, they are, a living, breathing little bit of that new creation inaugurated by Jesus at Easter and to be completed by God in the future.
Framing the message of the gospel like this avoids three problems. First, it does not communicate to people that becoming Christians means saying "no" to the world (though a natural consequence would be that they will say no to the life-destroying bits of it). Second, the new convert will not tend to think of his/her new state as simlpy a private salvation (though there is a private salvation involved), but primarily as one aspect of God's overarching and worldwide kingdom-project. Third:
"To speak of Jesus' lordship, and of the new creation which results from his victory on Calvary and at Easter, implies at once that to confess him as Lord and to believe that God raised him from the dead is to allow one's entire life to be reshaped by him, knowing that, though this will be painful from time to time, it will be the way, not to a diminished or cramped human existence, but to genuine human life in the present, and complete, glorious, resurrected human life in the future."
Wright concludes the chapter by examining how all these three, Justice, Beauty, and Evangelism, dovetail together, inasmuch as they are all part of the same larger whole, "which is the message of hope and new life which comes with the good news of Jesus' resurrection."
Indeed.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
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