I’ve been reading N. T. Wright’s, Surprised by Hope and I’ve found myself frustrated by N. T. Wright. As one example, in part 13 ‘Building for the Kingdom’, Wright engages rhetoric that is overly reactionary and to a degree mitigates the points he wishes to make. Under redemption, Jesus’ resurrection and the new creation of salvation, Wright places the work of garden keeping in the world of space, time and matter. Fair enough (carefully understood). Yet I am not sure how the case for ”garden keeping” can be built on God’s ultimate intention to redeem creation itself (something that God will do in the end). Because of God’s ultimate intention, Wright insists that we cannot picture God looking at the fallen world (and we might add, the groaning world, Romans eight) and saying, “Oh, well, nice try, good while it lasted but obviously gone bad, so let’s drop it and go for a non-spatiotemporal, nonmaterial world instead.” He then argues that since God intends to redeem rather than reject His created world (would ”rejecting” be the wrong word for what the apostle desribes God doing in II Peter 3), we should celebrate that redemption (what he calls healing and transformation) in the present as a means of anticipating what is to come. Along these lines, he pictures the Church as called to “implementing Jesus resurrection and thereby anticipating the final new creation.”
At this point, I am not entirely sure if he’s talking about some brand of Christian care for the earth or something more. He then anticipates what he calls “obvious objections” to his suggestion. 1. Turning mother earth into an idol. 2. Giving up on the earth until the Lord returns (the attitude that says, “Oh well, no sense shining the brass if the ships going under!”). At this point, Wright makes an interesting leap from Jesus’ resurrection as breaking into the present– to work for justice in ongoing campaigns for debt remission (something Wright is passionate about to say the least). It is all in this work Wright refers to as “implementing” God’s intended future in the here and now.
He also sets up a bit of a straw man view of ministry by picturing people who reduce it to merely saving souls for the future while letting the world go to corruption. I am sure there are some who irresponsibly hold such extreme views but using such examples to make a point frustrates me. Similarly, he laments “rampant belief in the rapture as a strong support for the attitude that says “who cares what the state of the planet is.” I know plenty of people who believe in the rapture (and, I assume Wright also believes in some sort of rapture in I Thessalonians 4:16-17) , but I personally do not know any who hold to this extreme view of the earth. Certainly, as II Peter 3 teaches, the day will come when, “The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” But, as the apostle wrote, “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.”
These narrow visions for God’s work that Wright mentions seem to be from an older brand of fundamentalism that has been changing in encouraging ways over the past several decades (see my ‘History, fundamentalism and holistic ministry’).
Although Wright pauses to recognize that “the final putting to rights of everything does indeed wait for the last day” and aptly wants to reject the defeatist attitude that puts off the work of doing justice work in the here and now, I wish he would engage more seriously how this final act of God relates to the present type of garden keeping ministry he advances. When he writes of ministries of justice, I am not sure he is asking for much more than the holistic ministry advocated in Scripture (see these posts). But. I believe Wright uses some odd terminology and associations to call for such ministry.
(This post also appears at Answers for Life.)
Re: Frustrated by N. T. Wright
Steve, how is N.T. Wright’s "picturing people who reduce it [heaven] to merely saving souls for the future while letting the world go to corruption" a straw man tactic? There ARE believers who believe in exactly this type of a reduced eschatology. Even popular conceptions of "heaven" is this very view of a truncated eschatology. If you talk to any run-of-the-mill classical dispensationalist about heaven, I’m pretty sure this is the same answer you will get. I don’t see this as straw man, but a real conception that people have about heaven.
I was at the actual event in which Wright spoke about his new book this past Monday in New York City, an event sponsored by Socrates in the City. In his lecture that night, Wright was surely reacting to such inadequate and incomplete view of heaven and was bringing it back to the notion of God’s "kingdom" that has already be inaugurated. He regards heaven as the already conceived reality which Christ has begun through his life, death, and resurrection. And it is because of Christ’s inauguration of the kingdom, that the church is able to stand in the future and look at the present with hope and proceed to live out the Gospel. This is what he’s arguing for.
Check out some pictures I took from the Wright lecture at Socrates in the City: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=34685&l=5c71e&id=722626820
Re: Frustrated by N. T. Wright
I am sure there are people who minimize the “already” by wrongly fixating on the “not yet”. But I am not sure it is pervasive enough to employ it in the way that Wright does. It is this “already” “not yet” tension that seems to be forced into a merger beyond the limits of Scripture.
See: http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/i-want-heaven-now/
http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/hope-a-matter-of-past-present-and-future/
Steve Cornell
Re: Frustrated by N. T. Wright
Hi. I’m a new registrant, but I’ve been a reader for some time.
I suspect that one’s environment affects the way he thinks Christian culture tends to be. Environment includes the the company he keeps, the books he reads, the voices to whom he listens, et cetera.
For example, only in the last couple of years have I become at all environmentally responsible. Before my change, I would have asserted that only the smallest minority was sensitive to the environment. After my interest grew on the subject, I found myself in environmentalist circles of relationship, articles, and hearsay, and I realized it was a larger movement than I had previously thought. Yet it was only my perception of the movement that changed.
And so, I’m going to have to take sides… I’ve only recently been aware that Christians exist that don’t reduce the Gospel to be 100% about saving souls for the future while letting the world go to corruption.
Perhaps I’m mistaken, but my perception tells me that Wright has a significant audience to persuade (I’d guess the vast majority of American Christians).
Kind regards,
Re: Frustrated by N. T. Wright
I certainly appreciate environmental responsibility (although I fear it has become trendy among some evangelicals—certainly not a good motivation). What I am interested in is a broader commitment to holistic ministry. And let’s remember albiet with humility, that throughout history, Christians took the lead in helping solve the social problems of their communities: medical care, trade unions, prison reform, abolition of slavery, establishment of orphanages, rescue missions, crisis pregnancy centers, shelters for the abused etc… But this is not just history, many,many believers today are devoted to these ministries (even those who believe in a rapture!)
Side bar: It has also become disturbingly trendy for many younger evangelicals to think (wrongly so) that it’s actually the democratic party that leads the way in these ministries of care.
This holistic approach to ministry should be based on one’s theology of God, creation, redemption and restoration. God made humans physical beings with bodily needs, social beings with community needs, and spiritual beings in need of salvation.
A truly biblical approach to ministry will involve works of relief, development, and evangelism.
I find that we too easily become one dimensional. We focus on the spiritual needs and overlook the physical and social. Or, we reverse this pattern by deemphasizing the spiritual needs. Clearly the priority must be placed on the gospel and the human need to be reconciled to God. But we should not do this at the expense of a biblically holistic view of humanity.
Steve Cornell
Re: Frustrated by N. T. Wright
Hi I completely agree with you… I also have just finished Suprised by Hope and I guess I found it inspiring and frustrating in equal parts. I have been reading Wright’s stuff for some time and was impressed once again by his grasp of the big picture and his work has definitely shaped my theology and preaching for many years. I particularly find how his way of linking the ‘kingdom of God’ theme of Jesus with the ‘Jesus is Lord’ theme of Paul makes the whole NT come alive and fit together.
The frustration, however, comes right at the end and slightly dampens my complete and wholehearted endorsement… His last but one sentence of the book is pertinent… and indeed you pick up on this in your second quote (the first one is fantastic though)… As you note his final words to us are a call to ‘implement’ the resurrection and this idea which he repeats whenever he can in interviews and blogs, runs through most of the final chapters and now seems to be the driving motivation for his life and work.
Now, I completely agree that the church is a foretaste of the future kingdom, that the church is called to stand up for the poor etc, but I can’t find any place where the phrase ‘implement the resurrection’ (or any like it) comes in the NT. Can you?
Even when we change the wording and talk instead of the ‘Builidng for Kingdom of God’ it is important to note that (as Guder has told us) that Jesus never once encouraged any one to build or extend the kingdom. The words Jesus uses are ‘receive’ and ‘enter’. Wright talks about ‘building for the kingdom’, but I think this is not our calling. Rather we are called to be salt and light. This is not to say that we are to be passive however in the face of injustice, ugliness or violence, but just that Jesus told us to proclaim the kingdom not extend it, ot embody it and not force it into being. The church is the church when it recklessly gives away its life like Jesus did for the sake of the world trusting in the reality and power of the resurrection, and of the reconciliation of all things to God when Jesus returns. I think Wright thinks that a ‘credit union’ or a play gorup is a sign of the kingdom. It might be, but it might not be too… God’s kingdom is only present (logically) over the parts of the world that he is king over. God’s kingdom is definitely expressed by individuals and communities who live under the rule of God, love the poor, proclaim good news, set free the captives, and heal the sick… but it is not ‘extended’ or ‘built’. It is expressed, embodied, preached, proclaimed, demonstrated. Wright is very keen that we get involved in politics like him (sitting in the house of Lords), but I think this is not the primary calling of the Church, nor one that necessarily comes out of the resurrection of Jesus. Greg Boyd’s reflection on this seems pertinent to this…
I think so much of Wright’s book is fantastic though and only feel frustrated by the conclusions… I am just keen to be part of a church that does the basic things well - loving neighbour and enemy, forgiving others, proclaiming the good news, etc, before we feel the need to sort out the politics of this world…
Do you have any other thoughts about this idea of ‘implementing’ the resurrection or ‘building for the kingdom’?
Richard www.stmichaelstwerton.co.uk
Re: Frustrated by N. T. Wright
I would have to say that in actuallity there are indeed people who have an understanding of Christianity that is so pessimistic and dulistic that yes the goal becomes saving souls from a planet that is only and inevitably getting worse until God raptures his people away and smites the snot out of everyone else for a few years. My geographic local has many with this mindset and I have seen, in quite a few people and churches which I know, the distructive affect this very popular theology has on those who adhere to it and their approach to social, environmental, and political issues. As one who has much firsthand experience in that camp, Wright was not exagerating his concern.