parables of a prodigal world

For ease of navigation, I'm providing links to the entire Pirate Review Series of N.T. Wright's "Surprised by Hope" in one post. Day 1 (Chapter 1) Day 2 (Chapter 2) Day 3 (Chapters 3 & 4) Day 4 (Chapter 5) Day 5 (Chapter 6) Day 6 (Chapter 7) Day 7 (Chapters 8 & 9) Day 8 (Chapter 10) Day 9 (Chapter 11) Intermission Day 10 (Chapter 12) Day 11 (Chapter 13) Day 12 (Chapter 14) Day 13 (Chapter 15, Part 1) Day 14 (Chapter 15, Part 2) Epilogue: Top 10(+3) Excepts from the Book Happy navigating. Grace and Peace, Raffi

Epilogue Top 10 (+3) Excepts from "Surprised by Hope" I thought long and hard about a tailpiece to the Pirate Review Series. My initial thought was to do a piece about what I've learned from the book, how its changed my perspective, etc. But inasmuch as the book is a compilation of so much other material by Wright (lectures, sermons, articles) that has been around for a few years now, and inasmuch as I've devoured all of it, and inasmuch as trying to describe how it has all changed my perspective would be like trying to describe how Einstein's work changed the perspective of the scientific community in the early 20th century, I figured that may be too grand a task. The short answer to how Wright's work, as summarized in this book, changed my perspective would be this: "I was blind but now I see." So I opted instead for a somewhat more easily digestible final post, a list of my top 10 favorite quotes/excerpts from the book. I've tried to structure...

Chapter 15 Reshaping the Church for Mission (2): Living the Future -- Part II OK, OK! This will be the final post of the series; well, the review series, anyway. I might do one or two more riffs over the next few days, maybe a Top 10 excepts from the book, or a parable to put it all in perspective (Wright has one after the final chapter, what he calls a "Tailpiece" where he examines two imaginary Easter sermons, but I'll leave that for everyone to read for themselves inasmuch as its not conducive to summary, but is itself one). So in the final section of this concluding chapter, Wright sets off to summarize six areas of Christian spirituality when reviewed in light of "[God's] Easter call to us to wake up and come alive within His new world." New Birth and Baptism Wright here seeks to provide a greatly condensed theology of baptism, and the new birth, the "born againness" that stems from it. His summary is based on his view of sacramental theolog...

Chapter 15 Reshaping the Church for Mission (2): Living the Future We've reached the final chapter of Surprised by Hope. It's been quite a journey, starting as we did in those risky, pre-publication days. I guess both my readers and I should be relieved that we've arrived at the final post of the series! Well, not quite. You see, in Chapter 15, Wright sets off to discuss the various areas of the Christian life that would be redefined if we were to take seriously the picture that has been redrawn in Chapters 1-14: Celebrating Easter; Space, Time and Matter (redefined in light of resurrection); Mission (redefined in light of the redefinition of space, time and matter); Baptism; Eucharist; Prayer; Scripture; Holiness; Love. Quite a list of topics, huh? So rather than trying tackle all of them in one post, today I'm going to let the good Bishop's own words do the talking regarding the first three subjects. There are two reasons for this. First, it would be impossibl...

Chapter 14 Reshaping the Church for Mission (1): Biblical Roots With all due respect to Scot McKnight, and with utter appreciation to his dedicated and insightful review series on the book over at Jesus Creed , I find myself forced to vigorously disagree with the premise of his introduction to his last post on the series, where he chooses to summarize these last chapters of the book with the barest of details "because we have already come to terms with the central ideas." Well, yes and no. Wright has, up till now, brought us to terms with the central foundational ideas, but it is in these last few chapters, I believe, where the whole purpose for those ideas is found. Without taking seriously the natural consequences of the solidified vision of the historical Christian faith, and the hope generated by it, wouldn't this all be an exercise in futility? If we are at least intrigued by the picture Wright has painted so far, wouldn't we naturally want to see where this ...

Chapter 13 Building for the Kingdom 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, ...

Chapter 12 Rethinking Salvation: Heaven, Earth and the Kingdom of God Chapter 12 culminates the final section of the book. where Wright will attempt to tie in all that he has put forward regarding the proper understanding of the Christian hope to the question of what it all means for us today. This, as Wright likes to say, is the "So What?" moment. The main theme of the book so far, if we can reduce it to just one, is the insistence that the historical Christian hope has very little to do with a disembodied life after death, and very much to do with life here on earth, both today and in the future when God's promise to make "all things new" (not "all new things") is fulfilled. And Chapter 12 continues on pressing that point, but here in the context of clarifying our ideas of Salvation and The Kingdom of God . I thought about summarizing Wright's take on these two themes from Chapter 12, but inasmuch as (1) they are so similar to two lectures that ...

We've covered a lot of ground with Parts I and II of Surprised by Hope , and Part III is going to be the magnificent climax where all that has been leading, the "So What?" moment. So before I delve into it, I think this is a good place for a little intermission, where we might all ask ourselves how our own muddled views about the ultimate Christian hope, about salvation, have shaped our own personal stories, or are still doing so today. For me, I've touched upon the subject in the first few pages of Chapter Three of my book, Parables of a Prodigal Son: The Theologically Grounded Testimony of an Ordinary Scoundrel . Having chronicled my 2-year abandonment of my family as a direct result of my then atheist/humanistic worldview, and my reconciliation with them as a direct result of God's grace as communicated to me in and through my wife, Chapter 3 starts with a brief description of the "muddled views" with which I began my new "born again" life. ...

Chapter 11 Purgatory, Paradise, Hell Having completed his argument about the specific Christian hope of bodily resurection within the larger scope of the promise of new heavens and new earth, with the person of Jesus Christ at the center, and before turning to the relevance of that hope for the world today, Wright tackles the question of the intermediary state: "Where are the dead right now?" Purgatory Wright first discusses the concept of Purgatory, a Roman Catholic doctrine that emerged during the middle ages and which held that many souls that were not yet ready for heaven but also did not merit hell were in a state of further purification, to be helped along by prayer, mass, and (eventually) the purchase of indulgences, which was the primary catalyst for the Protestant Reformation. The official presentation of the doctrine today is a "quite a climbdown" from the traditional view as propounded by Aquinas and Dante, but the notion is still around in some forms and...

Chapters 10 The Redemption of Our Bodies Chapter 10 constitutes essentially an 18-page summary of Wright's 740-page scholarly masterpiece, The Resurrection of the Son of God . Inasmuch as this post is a summary of that summary, please don't make the mistake of assuming the points/issues raised here are the complete story. This post is kind of like doctrine: its an attempt to fit a long, complex story into a tight, portable package. Never mistake the package for the wealth of stuff contained within it. Given the unanimous witness of the NT regarding the promise of the bodily resurrection of God's people, Wright questions how the issue could have become as muddled as it is today. The popular modern understanding of the ultimate Christian hope in a one-stage post-mortem journey (going to heaven or going to hell), and the attempts of some to squeeze the concept of bodily resurrection within that picture, are both serious distortions, according to Wright. The NT talks very litt...

Chapters 8 & 9 When He Appears & Jesus the Coming Judge The 2-chapter discussion on the historical Christian doctrine of Jesus' "second-coming" actually begins at the end of Chapter 7, where Wright introduces the topic by identifying the two prevailing modern misconceptions about the doctrine. One is the literalist "Left Behind" theology present in much of the fundamentalist or "dispensationalist" segment of the church, the propnents of which have naturally tended to believe that if the world is literally going to come to an end and that Jesus is literally going to snatch "true believers" away from it and up to a place called heaven, then why worry about acid rain, or third world debt, or war, or injustice, here on earth. Working and worrying about such things, as Wright often says, would then be like "oiling the wheels of a car that's about to go over a cliff." The other misconception is precisely the liberal reaction t...