Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, And The Mission Of The Church

Wright enunciates the main questions that the book will examine: “What are we waiting for? And what are we going to do about it in the meantime?” (xi). The subject of Christian hope is widely misunderstood, even by many Christians. They tend to think of the afterlife simply as “life after death” or “going to heaven” (xii), but the historical Christian witness about the future life is much richer than this.

Writing as a biblical theologian, Wright will bring the writings and beliefs of the earliest Christians to bear on defining Christian hope and explaining how that hope can “energize our work for God’s kingdom in the present world” (xiii). Wright cautions that all language about the afterlife is necessarily vague, “a set of signposts pointing into a fog” rather than a set of definite assertions (xiii). However, this does not mean that nothing can be known at all about the future life, especially given the Christian belief that God and Christ have revealed things about what we are to expect in the future.

To conclude the Preface, Wright documents the origins of the various parts of the book in lectures given at various locations.