R'Ai ew

Heaven explained
by William C. Pldier
SURPRISED BY

HOPE
Rethinking Heaven the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church
WRIGHT

hristians don't go to heaven when we diethat's the dramatic way to sum marize . T. Wright's book. The Christian hope is that our bodies will be raised on a transformed Earth when Christ returns, not that our souls will be freed of our bod ies so that they can get to heaven. . T. Wright is a distinguished New Testament scholar and (sometimes under the more approachable name of "Tom Wright") author of short introductions to New Testament texts and widely read pop ular defenses o Christianity. A British evangelical and a gifted and prolific writer, he is probably the closest living equivalent to C. S. Lewis. He also has a day job as the Anglican bishop of Durham. Luther would have agreed with Wright about resurrection hope, but for Luther our intervening state is one of sleep. After death, he said, his next experience would be at the second coming, when he would hear a voice saying, "Dr. Martin, wake up!" Wright concludes that a body of scriptural evidence, beginning with Jesus' promise to one of the thieves crucified with him, demands something more: When Jesus tells the brigand that he will join him in paradise that very day, paradise clearly cannot be their ultimate destination Paradise is, rather, the blissful garden where God's people rest prior to the resurrection. . . . The early Christians held firmly to a twostep belief about the future: first, death and whatever lies immediately beyond; second, a new bodily existence in a newly remade world. Resurrection therefore means not life after death, but life after life after death. Using an analogy from technology, Wright explains that in this intervening
Christian Century May 20, 2008

period, "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time when he gives us new hardware to run the software again." That waiting area of paradise cannot be the end of the Christian story for at least two reasons. First, Jesus' bodily resurrection back in this world is the foundation of Christian hope: "What God did for Jesus on the first Easter Day, he has promised to do for each one who is in Christ That is the biblical and historic Christian expectation." Wright thinks that the empty tomb and Jesus' followers' experiences of meeting him are "as well established ... as any historical data could expect to b e . . . . They are the only possible explanation for the stories and beliefs that grew up so quickly among Jesus's followers." True, they are not the sort of experiences for which we can find analogies in the rest of our experience; some facts about the world, like the evidence of Jesus' resurrection, are of the sort that challenge us to remake our worldview in order to find new hope. We give up this grounding for our hope, however, if our hope is not in bodily resurrection. Second, Christians should not believe in the myth of progressthe world is not steadily getting better and will never approach perfectionnor is it true that only a few of us will be rescued from a world doomed to destruction, as many American fundamentalists believe. Rather, the worldthe physical world will be transformed and redeemed. What does that mean? The incomplete world we know will be re-created in different space and matter, flooded with God's own life. Jesus will be present "as the center and focus of the new world." And in that world our bodies will be resurrectedagain in a transformed way, and not 36

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.
By . T. Wright. HarperOne, 352 pp., $24.95

necessarily including any of the same mol ecules that now make up our bodies (after all, we can preserve our identities even in this life through complete changes in the matter that we contain). These trans formed bodies will not be somehow ethe real but will be "more real, more solid" than the ones we have now. Will the world be too crowded to hold all the accumulated generations? Wright assures us that God can figure out a way to solve such problems in any event, but notes that half the people who have ever lived are now alive, as if to suggest that this future world might not need to be too different from the current one in order to hold everybody. It will not be a world in which we will simply lounge around"There will be work to do, and we shall relish doing it." But first, when Christ returns, there will be judgment. Wright sees no need for pur gatorydeath itself will free most of us from all that is sinful. He also does not expect eternal punishment of the most sin ful, or their annihilation. Rather, he thinks that some people so turn to evil that they are "conniving at their own ultimate dehumanization." Some who were once human so destroy the image of God within them that they cease to be human, and their eternal fate will be to exist forever in the new creation in this less than human state.
William C Flacker is professor of philosophy and religion at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana

Wright devotes the last third of his book to arguing that his claims about the resurrection matter for the mission of the church today. If our hope rested in escaping the material world, he explains, then there would be no ultimate value in trying to improve it. After all, it would all be destined to destruction. But if we await a transformed world, then "every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk... all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make." Wright therefore urges Christians who believe in the resurrection to work for justice, beauty and evangelism in the here and now. As to justice, interestingly enough, he identifies Third World debt as the most important moral issue of our time. As to beauty, perhaps the unexpected item on the list, he argues that "when people cease to be surrounded by beauty, they cease to hope," and he therefore insists that the aesthetic must be an important component of the church's mission. I had great hopes for this book. We desperately need some reflection on what lies beyond death that falls somewhere between the Left Behind series and the often hopelessly vague thoughts of much theological liberalism, and Wright could have been the man to give it to us. Maybe I was hoping for too much, but I ended up disappointed. For one thing, Wright's work could have used more vigorous editing; the central points here could have been made in a book half as long. Second, as with C. S. Lewis's apologetic works, I sometimes felt bullied. After an argument that seems a little fuzzy, Wright insists that it is "crystal clear" and that there is "no room for doubt" about the conclusion. Most of all, though, I was frustrated that Wright keeps wavering between the assertion of specific conclusions and the acknowledgment that of course everything about the future "is simply a set of signposts pointing into a fog." The Puritans of colonial New Haven were buried facing Jerusalem so they could see Jesus returning at the general resurrection without having to turn

around. Sometimes Wright seems fairly close to them, sometimes far, far away. For example, sometimes Wright talks about the transformation of the whole cosmos into a different kind of space and matter. At other points he talks about the transformation of this world as a new home for our resurrected bodies, and he seems to mean that we will inhabit something like the terrestrial ball on which we now live. Which is it? Will Indiana still be Indiana, albeit (we may hope!) in a transformed condition? I do not know what Wright would say. Similarly, of course, any description of the interim state in which we exist before the resurrection will be tentative, but Wright offers such radically different pictures of that statea garden where we rest up and our software existing on God's hardwarethat one wonders whether there would be a basis for rejecting any alternative. If Wright says confidently that other people have the picture wrong, then he needs to give us a little more detail about the right picture.

Trinity Lutheran Seminary on the Great Lakes 2008

A Jewish - Christian Dialogue: Learning from and with Each Other
Great Lakes Theological Academy Traverse City, Michigan July 21 - 25, 2008
FACULTY PRESENTERS

YUMA REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER

Caring for the growing needs of our communities

Vi

Darrell Jodock, Drell and Adeline Bernhardson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Gustavus Adolphus College, St Peter, MN Rabbi Herbert N. Brockman, Senior Rabbi, Congregation Mishkan Israel, New Haven, CT, and Lecturer, Yale Divinity School

CLINICAL PASTORAL EDUCATION IN THE DESERT SOUTHWEST

Five one-year, Level I and Level II Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Residency positions available in mid-August 2008-August 2009 This full year, intensive Spiritual Care education includes opportunities to practice ministry within a clinical team environment These opportunities include trauma-on-call, end-of-hfe issues and crisis intervention The CPE Residency Program is enthusiastically supported by YRMC, shown through its generous financial package of $36,000 The director and CPE supervisor, the Rev Dr Earl Cooper, can be reached at (928) 336-7002 or ecooper@yumaregional org More information about the CPE program and Yuma Regional Medical Center can be found on the Internet at www yumaregional org
YRMC Clinical Pastoral Education Program is accredited to offer Level I, Level II and Supervisory training by The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Ine 1549 Clairmont Road, Suite 103 Decatur, GA 30033 (404) 320 1472 www acpe edu

Relating the Gospel to a Pop Culture Audience: Exploring a Crisis in Ministry

Lakeside Theological Convocation Lakeside, Ohio Sept. 2 - 4 , 2008
FACULTY PRESENTERS

Christian Scharen, Director, Faith as a Way of Life Project, Yale Center for Faith and Culture Lynn Schofield Clark, Assistant Professor and Director Estlow International Center for Journalism, University of Denver

For more information:

Center for Continuing Education and Life Long Learning | L Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, 614-235-4136 www.TrinityLutheranSeminary.edu

37

Christian Century May 20, 2008

Furthermore, the main ethical conclusion that Wright draws strikes me as a non sequitur. The reality of history is that some good things do get lost. The severely handicapped child I teach to walk (to use Wright's example) may get run over by a truck, with my good deed forgotten. Why should I assume that my deed will find its way into God's new creation? The thought that all that we do is spiritually preserved in God's eternity seems at least as good a reason for hoping that our good deeds will not go for naught. This book exhibits Wright's usual combination of great learning and friendly prose. Along the way he raises important questions and points in some interesting directions. I realize that any sensible account of what lies beyond this life can only offer, as Wright says, signposts and not photographs. It is the wavering line between matters where Wright seems absolutely certain and matters where he lets everything remain unclear that leaves me frustrated.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

By Mohsin Hamid. Harcourt, 192 pp., $22.00.

ILmiPiSLA
jtotf mtmmt^$k t&ttHmq*
Who Do You Say "I A M " : Getting Honest About God Why Luther's distinction of Law and Cospel matters mote than ever to the Church and the world

M a r y Sue Dreier Steven Kuh I John Strelan

October 1 9 - 2 2 , 2008
St. Louts, Missouri

Conference information available at. www cfossings org/contetence

n ambitious young man leaves the provinces, hoping to make his fortune in the city. He first is infatuated with the glittering world he finds there, then gradually becomes disillusioned by the anxiety and corruption beneath the bright surface. What moral choices will the young man make? What will he become if he remains in the city? This, one of the classic plots of 19th- and 20th-century European and American literature, becomes globalized in Mohsin Hamid's thriller. Changez, the reluctant fundamentalist of the title, is a Pakistani who comes to Princeton on a full scholarship and graduates summa cum laude. He lands a coveted job in New York, working for the prestigious valuation firm of Underwood Samson. A natural at the job, he seems destined to advance quickly. His business card and his relationship with Erica, a wealthy and well-connected young woman, give him access to the highest levels of New York society, where he feels quite comfortable. After all, though his family is now poor, they were once rich, and they still retain a high social status in Lahore, the city of his birth. Economically and socially, Changez thinks, he's just regaining his rightful place. But his boss and mentor, Jim, has a habit of reminding him that he is an outsider. And he can't win Erica because she remains fixated on a boyfriend who has died. When he is on assignment in the Philippines, Changez turns on the TV and sees the 9/11 attacks. He is surprised by his reaction. "I stared as oneand then the otherof the twin towers of New York's Trade Center collapsed. And then I smiled. Yes, despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased," he recalls. This reaction, which he doesn't at first understand, is the turning point that gradually leads him to exchange one fundamentalism for another. He had been attending to the fundamentals of becoming an upper-class American and ex38

celling at a job that required subordinating all else to the fundamentals of finance. Now he becomes a poorly paid professor in Pakistan, a man who claims to love America but leads student protests against American influence in the Middle East. In both roles he is a man on the margins, a man between two worldsa reluctant fundamentalist. Changez is a Muslim, but religion plays no role in his change of allegiance. The America that welcomed him is devoted not to Christianity but to the secular religion of wealth and power. Though he grows the beard associated with Islamic fundamentalism, his concerns remain secular. To Changez, America's great sin is hubrisa profound conviction of its superiority and of its right to control the rest of the world for its own advantage. But much of his own motivation comes from his pride in the past glory and power of Pakistani civilization. Changez comes to see that his acceptance into the world of high finance, the world of global power, is a modern version of a ploy once practiced by the Ottoman Empire. He is like the janissaries, Christian boys captured by the Ottomans and trained to be soldiers in the Muslim army, who became complicit in the destruction of their own civilizations. Hamid has attempted a difficult thing: to write a gripping thriller that is also a novel of ideas. To keep the tension high, he uses an unusual method of narration, the dramatic monologue. Changez tells his story to an unnamed American whom he has met in an old section of Lahore and invited to dinner. The American might be an assassin hired to kill him, or it may be that the American is the one being threatened. Hamid relies too much on heavyhanded symbolism as he packs his ideas into one evening's conversation. (The characters' names, for example, are charged with meaning: Erica, like post9/11 America, is lost in a dangerous nostalgia for a past with a man named Chris.) But the novel is a gripping read and a stimulus to thought.
Reviewed by Trudy Bush, a CENTURY contributing editor

Christian Century May 20, 2008

^ s
Copyright and Use: As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individual use according to fair use as defined by U.S. and international copyright law and as otherwise authorized under your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. No content may be copied or emailed to multiple sites or publicly posted without the copyright holder(s)' express written permission. Any use, decompiling, reproduction, or distribution of this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a violation of copyright law. This journal is made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permission from the copyright holder(s). The copyright holder for an entire issue of a journal typically is the journal owner, who also may own the copyright in each article. However, for certain articles, the author of the article may maintain the copyright in the article. Please contact the copyright holder(s) to request permission to use an article or specific work for any use not covered by the fair use provisions of the copyright laws or covered by your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. For information regarding the copyright holder(s), please refer to the copyright information in the journal, if available, or contact ATLA to request contact information for the copyright holder(s). About ATLAS: The ATLA Serials (ATLAS) collection contains electronic versions of previously published religion and theology journals reproduced with permission. The ATLAS collection is owned and managed by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) and received initial funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The design and final form of this electronic document is the property of the American Theological Library Association.