{"id":3149,"date":"2008-01-23T00:30:29","date_gmt":"2008-01-23T00:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/surprised-by-hope-2.html"},"modified":"2008-01-23T00:30:29","modified_gmt":"2008-01-23T00:30:29","slug":"surprised-by-hope-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/surprised-by-hope-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Surprised by Hope 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

A key word for Tom Wright in his book Surprised by Hope:<\/a>\"\"<\/em> is “muddle.” That word best describes how so many Christians think about life after death and resurrection and the like. Wright aims to end the muddle. One of the finest forms of theology is to enter into a problem and resolve it; another is to clarify muddle. Wright does that in this book.
\n\"nt-wright.jpg\"<\/a>
\nWright begins with the muddle in his own church, illustrated by the famous lines of Canon Henry Scott Holland (St. Paul’s), and it might good for you to look through this poem to see what you think is Christian theology and what is not … it’s a good test case for this book.
\nDeath is nothing at all
\nI have only slipped away into the next room
\nI am I and you are you
\nWhatever we were to each other
\nThat we are still
\nCall me by my old familiar name
\nSpeak to me in the easy way you always used
\nPut no difference into your tone
\nWear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
\nLaugh as we always laughed
\nAt the little jokes we always enjoyed together
\nPlay, smile, think of me, pray for me
\nLet my name be ever the household word that it always was
\nLet it be spoken without effort
\nWithout the ghost of a shadow in it
\nLife means all that it ever meant
\nIt is the same as it ever was
\nThere is absolute unbroken continuity
\nWhat is death but a negligible accident?
\nWhy should I be out of mind
\nBecause I am out of sight?
\nI am waiting for you for an interval
\nSomewhere very near
\nJust around the corner
\nAll is well.
\nNothing is past; nothing is lost
\nOne brief moment and all will be as it was before
\nHow we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!
\nWright calls this into question, not only because it is not Christian theology but also because it is ripped from its context and suggests Holland had different ideas than he had. Here’s how Wright responds: “It offers hollow comfort. By itself, without comment, it simply tells lies. It is not even a parody of Christian hope. Instead, it simply denies that there is any problem, any need for hope in the first place” (14). Then he contrasts that with the famous lines of John Donne, “Death be not proud … Death, thou shalt die.”
\nSomehow Christians have oscillated between death as a vile enemy and a welcome friend. He knows “heaven” is not understood properly by most Christians — we’ll get to this later in this series — and then he enters into more of the muddle. Here is some more:
\nHymns — he picks on John Keble’s “Till in the ocean of love we lose ourselves in heaven above.” And John Henry Newman’s reference to a previous life with angels and the blatant Platonism of “Abide with Me” in “Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee.”
\nThe Christian Year — he picks on some Christmas hymns (“It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” and “Away in a Manger”) and then suggests Christmas has become too central with no energy left for the most important event of Easter.
\nFunerals — he enters here (he comes back to this later in the book) into issues with cremation and how many conceive it. I like this:
\n“if someone came to these funeral services with no idea of the classic Jewish and Christian teaching on the subject, the funeral services would do little to enlighten them and plenty to mislead them or confirm them in their existing muddle” (25).
\n“Frankly, what we have at the moment isn’t, as the old liturgies used to say, ‘the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead’ but the vague and fuzzy optimism that somehow things may work out in the end” (25).
\nThe robust Christian doctrine ties together work in this world with the Life to Come.
\nNow this teaser to what is to come: “Scripture, in fact, teaches things about the future life that most Christians, and almost all non-Christians, have never heard of” (27).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A key word for Tom Wright in his book Surprised by Hope: is “muddle.” That word best describes how so many Christians think about life after death and resurrection and the like. Wright aims to end the muddle. One of the finest forms of theology is to enter into a problem and resolve it; another…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"\nSurprised by Hope 2 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/surprised-by-hope-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Surprised by Hope 2 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A key word for Tom Wright in his book Surprised by Hope: is “muddle.” That word best describes how so many Christians think about life after death and resurrection and the like. 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