The premise is that we've got life after death all wrong. Our perceptions of dying then being whisked away to a heaven that is nowhere near earth, without our physical bodies, is prevalent if not universal in today's Christianity. Wright presents a different picture as evidenced by Scripture, early Christian writings, and a narrative, big picture view of the word of God.
Wright, having debunked our former assumptions, proceeds to present a differing worldview in which, instead of a Platonic idea of our souls leaving our earthly bodies behind, our earthly bodies, after death, are raised at the last day to become like Jesus' was on his last few days on earth. Wright accepts the reality of heaven as "paradisio" or a time of refreshing, as when Jesus declares to the thief on the cross that, "today you will be with me in paradise."
I began the book with excitement mixed with not a little trepidation. It is right for us to approach cautiously when someone presents a completely different paradigm than that of which we have prescribed for a long time. And yet by the end of the book, Mr. Wright has almost convinced me. I am looking forward to doing more reading and being more fully confident to argue the position, but I believe that he's really onto something.
I can only speak for myself when I say that my view of what happens after death has been foggy at best since I committed my life to Christ. I guess I always assumed that I wasn't supposed to think of it yet-that what really matters is what I'm supposed to be doing in the here and now. But as I read through the scriptures Wright put forward (the most significant and telling probably being 1 Corinthians 15) I felt joy and hope growing inside me as I anticipated a judgment day where all faithful Christians rise with new and glorious bodies. And rather than leaving this beautiful world, looking forward to God bringing down Heaven to meet the flawed Earth, destroying its flaws, and renewing it in complete perfection like in the days of Eden. I look forward to being a steward of it in the future as Adam was in the garden.
Wright's argument concludes with the natural progression that if this world is going to be around, and we are not going to be whisked away somewhere else, we need to work for justice here while we can with the knowledge "that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." The dualistic argument that our souls will separate from our dead bodies was a central theme of both Plato and, later, Gnosticism. We do not know how much this Western viewpoint has affected our doctrine. And yet, in Judaism, of which Christianity sprung, the idea that the soul and body could not be separated was intrinsic. In fact, heaven to the Jews was not a separate spiritual dimension, but another physical place above the earth.
And the idea that we will be leaving the earth fits in well with fundamental Christianity's agenda, oft-touted as spiritual and Christian-like. If the earth will be destroyed, why work for justice? Make your money here and call yourself a Christian, and don't worry about what happens to the earth. Treat it as you would a temporary apartment that you will leave in six months, not a house that you have bought for your family, that you have invested so much into.
So I'd like to get some dialogue here, especially from anyone who really doesn't agree with the viewpoint presented here. How can we see the real picture of what happens after death?
