The key sentences-- In Jesus, God’s kingdom has been launched on earth as in heaven, evil has been defeated and the new creation has begun. Jesus’ followers have been commissioned and equipped to put that inaugurated new world into practise through mission to the world, and care and stewardship of the world. This does not mean that individual salvation is not intrinsically important. It does mean that the personal meaning of this, both for the Trinity and the believer, is completed in God's larger purposes for the creation as a whole.

The problem is that Tom Wright's ideas are based on ideas about the cosmos and end of time that are now redundant and have been for a long time. When you die, you rot, and the only thing that recycles is atoms. They will regroup and regather, but into anything, or go to energy, and the consciousness that depended on a functioning brain stopped when the brain died and became unrecoverable. So he is talking myth and in this case myth that is weak myth. It is just as credible or more so to believe in a spaceless formless heaven or some ghostly quantum pause than in lost ideas about restoring a world.

Thank you Mari for your refreshing article on Christian hope.  I too have found Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope full of good things and a powerful reminder of the cosmic dimensions of the salvation of humanity and the entire created order.  Such a big vision for God's kingdom is desperately needed at every level in society and in every culture throughout God's world.

We have just published 'Surprised by Tom Wright' by Mari Williams. Please use this thread for discussion

http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=731