Synopses & Reviews
For years Christians have been asking, "If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?" It turns out that many believers have been giving the wrong answer. It is not heaven.
Award-winning author N. T. Wright outlines the present confusion about a Christian's future hope and shows how it is deeply intertwined with how we live today. Wright, who is one of today's premier Bible scholars, asserts that Christianity's most distinctive idea is bodily resurrection. He provides a magisterial defense for a literal resurrection of Jesus and shows how this became the cornerstone for the Christian community's hope in the bodily resurrection of all people at the end of the age. Wright then explores our expectation of "new heavens and a new earth," revealing what happens to the dead until then and what will happen with the "second coming" of Jesus. For many, including many Christians, all this will come as a great surprise.
Wright convincingly argues that what we believe about life after death directly affects what we believe about life before death. For if God intends to renew the whole creation—and if this has already begun in Jesus's resurrection—the church cannot stop at "saving souls" but must anticipate the eventual renewal by working for God's kingdom in the wider world, bringing healing and hope in the present life.
Lively and accessible, this book will surprise and excite all who are interested in the meaning of life, not only after death but before it.
Review
“This book is N.T. Wright at his finest.” Rob Bell, author of Velvet Elvis
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“In calling Christians to an epistemology of love and a re-emphasis of the Easter season, Wright knocked it out of the park.” Beliefnet (A "Top Religious Book of the Year")
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“Wrights unwavering faith in the resurrection is quite evident as he defends the Easter narratives on historical and theological grounds.” America Magazine
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This book will be widely read because it stirs together Scripture, tradition, art and world affairs with pleasing metaphors and public courage. The Dallas Morning News
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“N.T. Wright can write. . . when it comes to questions of Christs resurrection and what that means, no one is more persuasive. Wrights new book, Surprised by Hope, builds on C.S. Lewis succinct defense of the faith and takes it to a new level.” World Magazine
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A crystal-clear, powerful course-correction for all of us--Christian or otherwise. If you want to know what Easter is about, get yourself a copy of Surprised by Hope and hunker down for the read of a lifetime....literally. Phyllis Tickle, Beliefnet.com
Review
His conclusions are both simple and world-shaking Library Journal
Synopsis
The award-winning author and premier New Testament scholar tackles the idea of what happens after we die and shows how most Christians get it wrong and the difference it makes.
Synopsis
In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, top-selling author and Anglican bishop, N.T. Wright tackles the biblical question of what happens after we die and shows how most Christians get it wrong. We do not “go to” heaven; we are resurrected and heaven comes down to earth--a difference that makes all of the difference to how we live on earth. Following N.T. Wrights resonant exploration of a life of faith in Simply Christian, the award-winning author whom Newsweek calls “the worlds leading New Testament scholar” takes on one of lifes most controversial topics, a matter of life, death, spirituality, and survival for everyone living in the world today.
About the Author
N. T. Wright is the former bishop of Durham in the Church of England and one of the world's leading Bible scholars. He is now serving as the Chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews. For twenty years he taught New Testament studies at Cambridge, McGill, and Oxford Universities, and he has been featured on ABC News, Dateline, The Colbert Report, and Fresh Air. Wright is the award-winning author of Surprised by Scripture, The Case for the Psalms, How God Became King, Simply Jesus, After You Believe, Surprised by Hope, Simply Christian, Scripture and the Authority of God, The Meaning of Jesus (coauthored with Marcus Borg), as well as being the translator for The Kingdom New Testament.