Even though N.T. Wright has three more chapters to Surprised by Scripture, I believe I can adequately cover them in this post. “How to Engage Tomorrow’s World” (Ch. 10), “Apocalypse and the Beauty of God,” (Ch. 11), and “Becoming a People of Hope” (Ch. 12) all serve as challenges by Wright to Christians of today to actively engage the world and provide answers to the problems that we in the modern world have.
In chapter 10, Wright’s main point can be summed up as follows: “Since Jesus’s way of life is the path of self-giving love, that mission and service can never be about imposing a would-be Christian policy or ethic on an unwilling or unready public, but rather allowing Jesus’s way of bringing his kingdom to work through us and in us. The church at its best has always sought to transform society from within.”
I think that is a very important thing to remember, especially when Christians get involved in politics. Now obviously, we should be involved in our country’s political process—but we shouldn’t be deluded into thinking that if we just “passed some Christian legislation” that we’d “get our country back to God.” That’s not, and has never been, the modus operandi of Christ’s followers.
Unfortunately, I think some in today’s Evangelical church have a brand of Christianity that is a lot more in the image of the GOP than in the image of Christ. I say that, mind you, as someone who is fairly conservative, and will not be voting for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders! But it scares me to see some Evangelical Christians blur the line way too much between being a Christian and being a Republican. “Getting prayer back in public school” isn’t going to change a thing—and the supposed “demise” of our country didn’t start when prayer was taken out of public schools. If you want to play that game, I can come back with, “Well, it was after prayer was taken out of public schools that the civil rights movement finally started seeing results and that black people started to be granted equal rights!” Do you really things were morally awesome before prayer was taken out of public schools? I don’t think so.
In chapter 11, Wright takes on understanding the Book of Revelation. I imagine I’ll be discussing that in later posts, so I’ll summarize his thoughts here. Here goes: Tim LaHaye’s and Hal Lindsey’s dispensationalist take on Revelation as some “future in advance” history of the rapture, Nicolae Carpathia, a seven year tribulation of Christians, and end of the world—no, not at all. For the first 1850 years of Church history, nobody thought that.
Wright’s emphasis in the chapter, though, is that the Book of Revelation, being an apocalypse, is a highly literary and artistic genre of literature that sought to speak to Christians undergoing persecution—it was to comfort and encourage them that God was still king, and that he was actually saving and redeeming the world through their suffering, because they were imitating Christ’s sufferings. Wright’s point is that it is a highly artistic work, and Christians need to appreciate the fact that the most profound biblical truth often comes in the form of art.
It’s true all the way around. Think of the most moving films you’ve watched, ones that have challenged how you’ve viewed the world or understood the truth about an issue. Don’t those creative films have a bigger impact on your worldview than reading a textbook? There’s a reason for that: we are creative beings made in the image of a creative, Creator God. We understand truth best when it comes in the form of artistry and creativity. Evangelical Christians have misunderstood Revelation because they don’t understand the artistry of apocalyptic literature. That’s a shame, because the bold truth of Revelation is lost on most Evangelicals, and they end up interpreting Revelation along the lines of a really bad Kirk Cameron or Nicholas Cage movie.
Finally, chapter 12 encourages Christians to be people of hope. We are to bring forgiveness and love to the world, and often that takes patience. Just like Jesus was patient with Thomas, and even patient with Peter (Peter couldn’t bring himself to say the “agape” word to Jesus, but Jesus took what he could get), we Christians have to be patient with unbelievers’ skepticism, and people’s shame and hurt that hinders them from being able to love. All we need to do is live out the resurrection reality, and have faith that the hope of resurrection will be realized by people who see Jesus’ love in us.
So there it is…N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Scripture—a wonderful and thought-provoking book. I hope you’ve enjoyed my posts on it.
