In Chapter 2 of Surprised by Hope, N. T. Wright examines the wide sweep of confusing views that the Church has commonly held about death over the past few centuries. I found them quite familiar. From the stern “death is our enemy” position all the way over to the “death is our friend to take us out of this place” end of things, Wright quotes familiar hymns (most of which you’ve probably sung in church before) to point out the varied viewpoints. Really, how do you even begin to start to rectify John Donne’s “Death be not proud… Death, thou shalt die”, with Abide With Me’s “heav’n’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee”? There’s a disconnect there somewhere. Wright reminds us that “God’s intention is not to let death have its way with us.” Death is an enemy, one that has been and will be defeated.

So, then, what about heaven? The common Christian conception of heaven, Wright says, and I find this true in my experience, is that it is “…the appropriate term for the ultimate destination, the final home, and that the language of resurrection, and of the new earth as well as the new heavens, must somehow be fitted into that.” Not so, says Wright - “there is actually very little in the Bible about ‘going to heaven when you die’ and not a lot about a postmortem hell either”. Rather, Wright says, “Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other, hudden, dimension of our ordinary life - God’s dimension, if you like.”

Wright goes on to ask a series of questions that he will answer later in the book: What about the human soul? What is it? What do we mean by “Jesus coming to judge the living and the dead”? What do we mean by “the communion of the saints”? In this final introductory chapter, Wright definitely impresses us enough that there is widespread confusion, not just from outside the church about the church’s beliefs, but from inside as well. It is that confusion that he hopes to iron out in future chapters.

Also in this series:

  • Overview
  • Chapter 1: All Dressed Up and No Place To Go?
  • Chapter 2: Puzzled About Paradise? (this post)
  • Chapter 3: Early Christian Hope in Its Historical Setting
  • Chapter 4: The Strange Story of Easter
  • Chapter 5: Cosmic Future: Progress or Despair?
  • Chapter 6: What the Whole World’s Waiting For
  • Chapter 7: Jesus, Heaven, and New Creation
  • Chapter 8: When He Appears
  • Chapter 9: Jesus, the Coming Judge
  • Chapter 10: The Redemption of Our Bodies
  • Chapter 11: Purgatory, Paradise, Hell
  • Chapter 12: Rethinking Salvation: Heaven, Earth, and the Kingdom of God
  • Chapter 13: Building for the Kingdom
  • Chapter 14: Reshaping the Church for Mission (1): Biblical Roots
  • Chapter 15: Reshaping the Church for Mission (2): Living the Future