“New Creation” and the Problem of Hope

In the wake of the many atrocities of the twentieth century and the ones continuing to happen as we speak, how can Christians speak about “new creation” with any integrity without merely relegating what Paul says is “here” to some futuristic individualized pie in the sky?

As many scholars such as Richard Hays and N.T. Wright have emphasized, this new creation is descriptive of a cosmic reality; it is seizing the old and breaking into it. But how can this be? This may seem quite simple to talk about in the context of affluent American churches that associate suffering with undesirable levels of stress. However, such contexts do not take seriously the stark reality of the world’s situation nor do they take seriously the cosmic hope, which Paul seems to be describing.

In the wake of the Holocaust and in the midst of the social rubble of Haiti and the moral cacophony of America and Europe, how can we speak of “new creation” with integrity? In his own day, how could Paul have the audacity to say, “The new has been created”?

This is not only a problem of evil. This is a problem of hope. Many folks who have an ounce or two of theological education may then parrot the cliché, “We live in the ‘now-and-not-yet.’” In other words, we live in between the first fruit – Jesus’ resurrection – and the consummation – the resurrection of the saints and the renewal of all things. However, how can we say that the new is “here” when it seems rather strikingly apparent that it is not “here” nor does there seem to be much hope that it will ever get here unless we are willing to subscribe to nothing more than a fool’s hope. We may very well say we are in between, but it seems as though the vine from which the first fruit sprang has since withered. In other words, where is the resurrection power of God today?

We are all in the business of perceiving the world, and perception seems to be crucial to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 about “new creation.” That is not to say that we must simply block bad things from our vision, but it is to say that some how our vision must make sense of the world while professing the belief that new creation has begun and is continuing to happen and will finally come to its fullness by the mercy of God. Some how our vision must be informed by the resurrection in order that whether or not we see “new creation” breaking in, somehow we trust it is. This is the problem of hope. While in the midst of impenetrable darkness and with only a foggy pair of spectacles, we do the foolish thing and continue to hope. 

But is this a flimsy hope like hope that Santa Clause will fill my stocking this Christmas?

Can we point to Christian communities that are an alternative to communities and systems of war, self-indulgent violence, money laundering, hatred based on difference, and power mongering? If we can, then this is a recollection of the empty tomb and a foretaste of a day when there will be no more sorrow.

Can we point to communities where “new creation,” where the resurrection power of God, where reconciliation happens? Can we use our fingers to point to Christian communities where immigrants have a voice? Can we point to communities where abused children are unequivocally protected and nurtured? Can we use our fingers to point to communities where women are not objectified? Can we point to communities where ethnic differences are not muted but are celebrated? Can we point to communities where the concerns of the elderly are heard? Albeit these things may be but a foretaste of things to come when there will be no more death, can we point to communities where these things are fostered in the name of the crucified messiah, Jesus? If not, then “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

What then can we say about where all this is headed?

We may echo the few but sturdy words of Brueggemann and say, “God keeps the future.” 

Don Quixote and the Gospel of Christ

What can possibly be said about that knight errant extraordinaire Don Quixote that has not already been said? He is that great knight who took his bidding from the brilliant books of chivalry. After having cleaned his long-forgotten lance, shield, and metal cap he mounted his steed to seek adventure. Don Quixote is that knight who with great determination sought to right wrongs, correct injustices, and rectify abuses. He also just so happens to have been that mad knight who mistook an inn for a castle and who was subsequently humored by a disgruntled innkeeper. Our magnificent Don Quixote read too many adventure books, which consequently so consumed his mind that it left him totally mad, and thus he rode into the sunset of absurdum charging at windmills with his lance mistaking the windmills for monstrous giants. And I suppose every lunatic needs a follower or two, and hence Sancho, a completely inane donkey-rider, followed Don Quixote into every contrivable misadventure imaginable.

Proclaiming and embodying the gospel of Christ in our culture of pop psychology, preemptive-war, and self-obsession may seem as absurd as charging at windmills with a lance, though we might say that the person who charges at windmills is an intriguing case study.

Jesus looks like Don Quixote to our eyes. We, like the innkeeper, seek merely to appease Jesus. We go along with his fanciful babbling until it proves unprofitable and disruptive. We, like the innkeeper, wish for Jesus to leave us alone as soon as possible, and when he finally leaves, we are relieved to see him leave our peaceful town without further ado.

We seek to ensure safety and stability. Jesus did not make those things a priority for himself nor did he for his followers. It is easy to say the gospel is counter-cultural. However, I am beginning to feel the gospel’s foreignness. I am beginning to feel it in my bones. It seems so foreign to us that we don’t know what to do with it, so we make it into something else that we may continue augmenting our own priorities in our own way and according to our own rationality. We continue talking about “carrying our crosses,” but we make it compatible with our wish for safety, which is far more absurd than charging at windmills with a dilapidated lance.   

I imagine if Jesus were to walk down Wall Street or for that matter “Main Street,” he would appear to us to be a ludicrous dreamer, an absent-minded vagabond who has read Isaiah too many times and who knows nothing of honest pragmatism, for he is an alleged king who thinks victory comes through crucifixion. We wouldn’t vote for him; his health plan is too costly.  We do not want to carry a cross and walk a road that leads to bloody crucifixion. We, like Jesus’ disciples, duck for cover.

After spending several weeks eating, sleeping, and breathing the Gospel of Matthew, it struck me as foreign, foreign from the world we have constructed for ourselves. This feeling was accentuated when I watched the latest Batman movie. We simply do not want a king who is killed by his antagonists; we want a hero who protects us and who survives in the process. We want heroes who will keep us safe. None of us want a murdered king as our king. None of us believe that a war can be won without weapons, for believing that a war can be won without weapons would be like mistaking dangerous giants for harmless windmills.

We say it is “just” to kill rather than be killed. And so we kill our enemies and even celebrate their deaths. We murder for “liberty” and call it “justice.” If a person is a domestic murderer, then that person deserves the death penalty. However, this rationality knows nothing of the gospel of Christ, but we prefer doling out death because it is more conducive to our self-obsessed schedule and budget than the dangerous business of peace and restoration. At the foot of the cross, we divide and conquer instead of seeking forgiveness.

The absurdity of the gospel of Christ remains absurd without the vindication of Christ and those who follow him. It remains absurd without resurrection. We wish to make the cross and safety compatible because we have forgotten the last sentence of the Nicene Creed, the Apostle’s Creed, and the last act of the gospels. We have forgotten (or perhaps disbelieved) resurrection. And so the gospel of Christ remains absurd to our eyes. We then content ourselves with mythologizing Jesus, which is conducive to our attempts to live as long as possible at the expense of others. 

Surprised by Hope: a Review of N.T. Wright’s book

There are innumerable book reviews on the Internet, so forgive me for adding to the mass. I would like merely to highlight a few points in N.T. Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope, which especially struck me as either rather wise or helpful. It should be said also that this particular book is not one of his scholarly works and should be judged accordingly. It seems to be largely pastoral, which I appreciate immensely.

Wright remarks on the rather apparent confusion about Christian hope for the future. We are all going to die, so what is the Christian hope? Christians describe death in all sorts of ways and with wide degrees of reactions. No doubt many Christians consider their hope to be in zipping off to heaven after they die, residing in perpetual bliss for eternity. Wright contends that this belief is due in part to Platonic philosophy infiltrating Christian theology. Furthermore, Wright notes that immaterial immortality was not the early Christians’ hope and that actually early Christians hoped for future resurrection based on Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection adumbrates and is the foundation for the future resurrection of the saints. Physical resurrection is the Christian hope (for as Wright notes in one of his longer works, there is no other kind of resurrection). The Christian hope is not to escape a condemned world but is to resurrect and become part of a redeemed world, a new heaven and a new earth. The future resurrection of the saints is what Wright deems life after life after death. Basically, a loose chronology based on various New Testament texts: people die, people go to be with Christ (life after death), people resurrect (life after life after death). He speaks briefly of hell and arrives to a similar conclusion as C.S. Lewis.

I would suggest that any critique of Wright’s view regarding the physicality and centrality of resurrection should first consider Wright’s longer scholarly work, The Resurrection of the Son of God (a great book by the way!).

New creation began with Jesus’ resurrection, but the present day is riddled with trouble; evil is a reality, but “Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of new life, the fresh grass growing through the concrete of corruption and decay in the old world” (123). The culmination of new creation will be the marriage of heaven and earth (again, the hope is not to ascend into an immaterial heaven but is for a new heaven and a new earth). With this there will be an eradication of evil, and in the present day Christians may work for the kingdom. Wright aptly distinguishes between Christians building a kingdom themselves and God’s reign in which Christians may participate. He subscribes to the latter, and I think rightly so.

Christians may participate in God’s reign, and what Christians do in the present day has implications for the future. What we do today matters a great deal. All we do now God can use for the future in the new heaven and new earth, a future that is not static but is teeming with new projects and possibilities. “Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness…every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk…every act of care and nurture…every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church…all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation God will one day make” (208). As we stand in an aching world and look to a future filled with hope, there is work to be done with Jesus at the helm. Working for justice in the present is a crucial element of participating in God’s reign today and contributing to the future life after life after death.

I have not, of course, done an adequate job of tying together the elements of Wright’s book, nor have I done an adequate job of reviewing all the major points. But perhaps this will suffice as a start. I highly recommend Wright’s book as a desirable and biblically founded alternative to escapist theologies that are so prevalent in today’s churches.