Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

I just finished reading a book in which the main characters and her followers believe that humanity's future lies in the stars. They work hard to make sure that the physical needs of everyone in the group are met. But, the groups time, talents, treasures and their dreams are most fully invested in outer space. In that story the main character's half brother has invested his life in Earth. He pours himself out trying to make things better here. I found it much easier to have sympathy for his character. As I was reading NT Wright's Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, I couldn't help but think that it was fortuitous that I read these two books back-to-back. One, a Science Fiction novel with an openly anti-Christian bias, and the other about Christianity's misguided understanding of death, the afterlife, Christ's resurrection and future events. In some ways, they both tell the same story. The story of a group of people who believe the Earth is irreparably evil and dream of escaping it and living in the heavens.

It has only been since my Dad died that I spent more than a little time thinking about what happens to a man after he has died. In my own church there is much more time spent discussing how to avoid hell than talking about what salvation means. However, long before reading Surprised by Hope I had come to the same conclusion that Wright outlines in this book. No matter how ofter I sing, "When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun; We've no less days to sing God's praise that when we'd first begun," the Bible never promises me an eternity as a disembodied spirit living in heaven. Jesus was resurrected; I will be too. My future isn't in heaven, but on a newly created Earth.

I didn't agree with all of Wright's theology, politics or conclusions. Still, the book was a book that kept my brain working long after I put it down.

People who believe that Jesus is already Lord and that he will appear again as judge of the world are called and equipped (to put it mildly) to think and act quite differently in the world from those who don't. (p. 144)

This quote reminded me of one of my favorite Bible verses:

"We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ," 2 Corinthians 10:5 (NAS)

I am not sure I agree with this quote though. If Christians are equipped to think and act differently than the world then why in the world are there so many different expressions of what it means to behave like a Christian? The best I have been able to do is to embrace some strongly held convictions that I believe I can support with book, chapter and verse. And, how I live out my faith is different from how other Christians do.

Which of our present characteristics, and indeed our present blemishes will be retained in our transformed physicality (p. 160)

This idea has actually been on my mind for quite some time. My daughter said something to me about the way she understands God. I wish I had written it down, because I don't remember what it was. But, I do remember my reaction. She sees God completely different than I do. Her brain thinks in concretes rather than abstracts. I have always believed in the resurrection our bodies would be perfect, without blemish. That day I realized that, if God were to "heal" my daughter's brain, she would be different than the person she is today. She wouldn't relate to God the same. She wouldn't relate to me the same. I haven't come to any conclusions, but I suspect that the person needing healing in the resurrection is me. I talk alot about neurodiversity, acceptance and accomodation, but on a day-to-day basis I find myself impatient and demanding "normalcy."

The last part of the book tried to answer the so what. If we are destined to a bodily resurrection on a newly created Earth how should that change the way we live out our Christian walk today. And, I found that the book failed me. I suspect Wright's audience wasn't the lay person. He was writing to people in positions of power -- his peers if you will. That isn't who I am. So, when Wright talks about reclaiming time, space and matter for Christ in the present, he talks way above my sphere of influence. I have influence over just 1/2 acre, 1300 square feet, and 24-hours a day. My mission field serves three children and a husband. I indirectly bless my family. And, how a new understanding of eternity affects me at the grassroots level is unclear.

Oh well, I needed something new to pray about and meditate upon anyway.

Parable of the Talents

I wasn't the only one who was confused about whether to classify Octavia Butler's Parable series as Science Fiction or not. I went to the library to get the next book in the series and I couldn't find it. Odd. I had checked on the book's availability just before leaving my home. Could someone have come and checked it out in the 20 or so minutes it took me to drive into town. I re-checked the computer. The first book in the series, Parable of the Sower, was classified as Science Fiction and alphabetized by author's last name in that section of the library. The second book, Parable of the Talents (and many of Butler's other books) was in the fiction section.

I was disappointed in this book. I will just admit that my biggest problem with the book was its strong anti-Christian bias. Oh, the first book in the series hinted of it. The main character's father, a Baptist minister, was described as "the best man I ever knew" and he beat one of his sons so badly that the son found living at home intolerable. The step-mother, who was also a Christian, was distant from her step-daughter and had favored this biological son. The main character couldn't bring herself to believe in the God described in the book of Job -- a God who allowed Satan to torment Job and in the end told Job he didn't have the right to question Him. This didn't really bother me. Even a cursory reading of the Bible and the story of Jacob makes it clear that there is dysfunction in the families claiming allegiance to God. Jacob's twin brother rejected the God of their father; his descendants, the Edomites, are counted among Israel's enemies. But, in the second book, Christian America, a Dominionist Protestant group, has taken over the country. The Christians are portrayed as hypocrites, sadists, rapists, pedophiles, and slavers. Even the one Christian, the long lost brother of our heroine, who is at first presented as misguided and blind to the abuses of his church is tainted by the end of the story. There is not even one who lives out what he or she believes.

This book is politically charged and one-sided. It presents Dominion Theology as a widespread doctrine of all Evangelical and Protestant churches. As a home schooling mom, I know that the theology exists. Some individuals within the home schooling community hold a Dominionist interpretation of the Bible. I was in the Army; I moved around a lot. At each duty station, I did the obligatory "find a church" church visits. I have never in my entire life been in a church which advocated this theological position and I have been in a lot of churches. During last year's election season, my church did little more than make voter guides available in the lobby and remind members to vote. The voter guides highlighted all the major party candidates. I was annoyed that the third party candidates weren't included. But, I didn't feel that the church was trying to sway my vote any more than the mainstream media whose reporting also featured only the two major parties. There wasn't one sermon on abortion, homosexuality or the national budget. And, in fact, it is my opinion that Dominionist Theology isn't even biblical.

Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm." ~ John 18:36 (NAS)

Since, I know that Dominionism is not as widespread as people seem to think it is, I get annoyed when mainstream media tries to present "Dominionism" as something other than what it is -- an attempt to seize political power and create a theocracy. I am not comfortable with groups who seem to want to remake America into a theocracy. History has shown us over and over that a religion with political clout is a dangerous thing. Sadly, there is a lot of wickedness that the universal church needs to answer for. But, an inidividual Christian who is active politically is not necessarily a Dominionist. I didn't give up my US citizenship and my right to vote, run for office or support the candidate of my choice when I accepted a Christian worldveiw. I am equally uncomfortable with liberals who want to take over Washington and create laws "prohibiting the free exercise thereof." I find both the Democrat and Republican platforms a danger to a society in which everyone is free to pursue happiness. I find the national debt, an issue that wasn't directly addressed in the Parable series, a threat to individual freedom. I am not free if I have to pay a large part of my income to the government -- I am, instead, indentured to that government. I am much more comfortable with libertarians than with either of the two major parties. In the Parable of the Talents, Butler did an admirable job creating a future in which the Christian Right "wins." She exposes the danger that occurs when a group tries to force their beliefs and opinions on others. She is not as good at seeing that there are two sides to the coin. The future will be just as scary and potentially abusive if a strong anti-Christian group becomes politically and culturally powerful. And, it is just as likely.

"Priestly groping of child bodies is disgusting. But it may be less harmful in the long run than priestly subversion of child minds. ~ Richard Dawkins

There are people who would classify reading a religious text to a child, taking them to Sunday school, or praying with them as involuntarily involving a child in religious practices and a violation of the child's rights -- a form of child abuse really. In the Parable of the Talents, the children of the followers of Earthseed, the religious worldview embraced by the main character and her community, are forcibly stolen and placed in adoptive homes where they can be re-educated and re-socialized. After all, the group in power needs people to think like them if they are to continue to win elections and stay in power. What if the Richard Dawkins of this world were the ones with power? Would there not be a similar attempt to socialize and re-teach the children who are being raised in Christian homes? And, how do our current laws on mandatory education, mandated scope and sequences, mandatory testing using state developed tests affect how individuals educate their children in their own home? For what it is worth, I believe that parents should be free to educate and socialize their children however they like.

Probably the area that made me most uncomfortable, because it is the most visible at this moment, is the idea that Christians, and Christians only, should adopt children so that they can raise them "in the faith." Individual Christians may indeed feel led to adopt. In my case, I am infertile and chose adoption as a way to build my family. But, I believe with all my heart that the universal church, the one that Christ said would be known for its love, should have an agenda that has as its primary goal orphan reduction. Most adopted children (those adopted domestically and those adopted through foreign adoption) are not truly orphans. It seems to me that many Christians have looked at the poor, those living in war torn countries and the mentally ill and found them wanting -- unfit to parent their own children.

Additionally, there are Christians who just shouldn't ever adopt. I have found only a little support or understanding within the Christian church when dealing with the behavioral and emotional needs of my daughter with fetal alcohol syndrome. Her current youth pastor and the adult volunteers have been wonderful. But, I can honestly say that this is the first time I found a group of adults who let her join her same-age peers and willingly accommodated her brain differences. Others cannot see my daughter's behavior as anything but evidence of sin. The medications that help her function every day are considered unnecessary. Psychiatry and psychology are viewed as totally at odds with a Christian worldview.

As I researched this author I learned that she had intended on writing a third book in this series. She died before it was completed. Frankly, I don't know where the story would have gone. Earthseed has started to leave Earth. They are on their way to the stars to start new colonies in outer space -- human seeds from Earth. The Parable of the Talents ends with the main character, indeed most of the characters, dead or dying from old age. The story on Earth is done. There is nowhere for the story to go but to the new colony in space. Butler seems to write about the worst, most brutal side of humanity. Would she have been willing to admit that humans from Earthseed took their worst and most brutal side into space and recreated the evilness that was part of the Earth? Even in a space where religion couldn't be blamed?

Five Dialogues

Recently my daughter's boyfriend was restricted for a week. As she bemoaned the fact that she wasn't going to see him and that he couldn't even call her on the phone, she explained his crime. Her story was that he forgot to let the dog out. It seemed unreasonable for a parent to restrict a child for a week for such an infraction, but that was her story and she was sticking to it. I found out later that he had sneaked through a window and out of the house to smoke a cigarette. He was caught on his way back in as he drug his snow-covered boots over the antique desk that sits in front of the window. My daughter had tried to present her boyfriend in the best possible light and in the process told a thinly veiled lie.


That is how I felt when I finished reading Plato's Five Dialogues -- Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo. Before we were married, my husband purchased a complete set of the Great Books of the Western World. This is the translation I read. I don't know whether or not this is considered a good translation of Plato or not. I am unsure whether experts in language would agree that the translation accurately reflects Plato's thoughts and ideas. But, the translation was easy to read and understand.

The Apostle Paul boasted of sitting at the feet of Gamileal. Well, Plato sat at the feet of Socrates. He was mentored and learned from him. The story Plato tells is not unbiased. Socrates was a man he respected greatly. And, I suspect he was trying to present Socrates in the best possible light. Because, if I understood the reading correctly, Socrates was tried and put to death for being a boor! They did this when he was 70 years old and ready to die of natural causes. Which of course makes little sense.

"Did you not put to death Socrates the sophist, fellow citizens, because he was shown to have been the teacher of Critias, one of the Thirty who overthrew the democracy?" ~ Aeschines

Two years ago, my daughter and I read Plato's Republic as part of her home school curriculum. Plato's ideal city-state isn't a democracy. It isn't even a republic. It is an oligarchy.

Perhaps, I am wrong. Perhaps, Socrates really truly was executed because he pointed out the flaws in the reasoning of Greece's upper crust. It seems more likely that his young students were taking his ideas about government and running amok with them. I think there is more to the story than what is contained in the pages of the dialogue. If I am wrong, I will join Simmias in saying:

I perceive that I was unconsciously talking nonsense. ~ Simmias, as quoted by Phaedo in Plato's Phaedo

That was my favorite line from the book! And it came from the most difficult dialogue to read. It was also the dialogue that stimulated the most thought. Phaedo takes place in Socrates' prison cell just before he is to drink the poison hemlock. In it Socrates and some of his pupils discuss what happens to the soul after death. Plato didn't attend Socrates' death. He relates the story as told by Phaedo. I think the major difficulty I had following this dialague was that Socrates' thoughts were communicated in the third person.

"And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the body, as I was saying before; the habit of the soul gathering and collecting herself into herself from all sides out of the body; the dwelling in her own place alone, as in another life, so also in this, as far as she can; -- the release of the soul from the chains of the body?" ~ Socrates, as quoted by Phaedo in Plato's Phaedo

There are times when I feel my reading is being guided by a force outside of myself. When I am feeling less mystical and more practical, I know that some questions are eternal. I multi-read. That means I have a stack of books on my bedside table that I have started and not finished. One of the other books that I am currently reading is NT Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. In it Wright points out that the hope of Christians is not a disembodied soul living eternally in heaven. In fact, we are promised a physical, bodily resurrection here on earth. The idea that creation and matter are bad and a distortion of what perfectly exists elsewhere isn't biblical. Yet, this idea has crept into the teachings and doctrines of the church.

In the end, it is my opinion, that the most important question that the Five Dialogues seeks to answer is this:

"But then, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life, but of eternity! Socrates, as quoted by Phaedo in Plato's Phaedo.

Last, and as an aside, I had never really thought about Socrates having a wife and children. He did have a wife. She was in the prison the day he died. He sent her away at the end so that he could die in peace. He didn't want a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. But, she seemed devoted to him until the end. Socrates is said to have said of her:

It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: "None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit" in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else.

I did not read this in context. But, I suspect that Socrates may have thought that this was the highest praise he could pay anyone. After all, he felt that being a gadfly to the entire Greek citizenry was his highest calling.

The Parable of the Sower

Octavia Butler has been one of Shelfari's featured authors. I hadn't heard of her and the reviews of her books looked interesting. I added The Parable of the Sower to my wish list. I was thrilled to find the book at our local, small library.

The story is classified as Science Fiction(SF). Perhaps, I am a SF snob. Or, perhaps I don't get out enough, but I wouldn't have classified this book as SF. My understanding (or limited understanding) of the genre is that SF books tell the story in a setting very different than our own world, a setting in which science and technology have combined to create a much different world. In The Parable of the Sower, Butler envisions a dysfunctional America -- science and technology didn't allow us to continue our forward progress toward a future Utopia. Government has either failed or become so corrupt that society no longer functions. Crime and inflation rule the day. Food water and basic needs are in short supply and, in many cases, only available to the rich. Humans have reverted to animalistic, survivalist lifestyles. The story is told through the journal entries of the novel's heroine, Lauren Olamina, a black young becomes the leader of a small band of people determined to survive.

This book would be an excellent book to begin a discussion of worldview questions. Is there a God? What does God look like? How do we relate to God?" The god of the Parable of the Sower, really is the same god that is presented in the Star Wars movie, a pantheistic impersonal god who is subject to continuous change. A god who can be changed by the humans who interact with it. I couldn't help but think that Olamina's god was Evolution (with a capital E) -- the god of change. And, I am not talking just about biological evolution; I am speaking of evolution in the broadest sense of the word -- biological, social, cultural, political, etc.

I can't seem to get away from my life. I moved my book review blog away from my personal blog so that I could disengage from my real life when I read. After all, reading is supposed to be an escape from your real life. I wanted my reviews to be about the book and not about me. Yet, on my first review since my Official First Entry, I find myself reflecting about an idea from the book that perhaps wouldn't catch anyone else's attention. Lauren Olamina's was prenatally affected by drugs that her biological mother took during her pregnancy. Because of this she is an empath, a sharer, Lauren feels the sensations, emotions and pain of others.

My oldest daughter was prenatally affected by drugs and alcohol. She has partial fetal alcohol syndrome. The truth about her brain is almost the opposite of what is described in this novel. To some my daughter isn't capable of understanding that her family, peer group and other have plans, thoughts, and ideas of their own; she can't get inside their brain. Through a series of special education classes and negative encounters in social environments, she has learned that she is supposed to "look outside herself." And, she is "capable." If you put her in a sterile environment and ask her specific questions about how other's might be thinking or feeling, she can come up with the "right" answer. Through therapy, correcting and negative peer response, she has come to view everyone with suspicion and distrust. Social settings are often a burden rather than a pleasure. The added stress of "responding rightly" has caused anxiety that wasn't there in her early life. Anxiety that is crippling and makes her appear odd to some, withdrawn to others, snobbish to some of her peers. Is it any wonder that 80% of adults who were prenatally affected by alcohol are mentally ill?

And, like Lauren Olamina, she has learned that the damage done to the brain before birth is a horrible burden to bear.

"Anyway, my neurotransmitters are scrambled and they're going to stay scrambled. But I can do okay as long as other people don't know about me."

And, I wonder how often I make my daughter feel the way the father in this book did? "You can beat this thing..." My daughter wants to "pass." I want her to pass. I want her to be seen as normal and I am never quite sure how much to push. So, I have to wonder, does the term mental illness say more about my daughter or the culture in which she lives?

Anyway, I enjoyed this book and I am anxious to read the next book in the series, The Parable of the Talents. Oh, I think I just failed the first rule of writing a book review -- bottom line is supposed to go up front. Oh well, so far I have had exactly 0 visitors to this blog. I suspect that no one cares if I am a poor writer. I am a Christian. Many of my eventual readers may be too. So, I will warn that the characters in this book have sex. The depiction is not graphic. Just a sentence or two that it occurred.

Official First Entry

I am rather loose with New Year's Resolutions. I think about how I would like to change my life and then hope at some point throughout the year, I get around to making the change. Last year, I added two young people to my family and my adult time went away. By the end of the year, we were approaching our 6-month mark. I was exhausted. So, my New Year's Resolution was to reclaim some of my adult time by making a reading plan.

I had wanted to write a blog entry about each book I read, kind of like virtual accountability. I already have a blog and I have failed at dual-blogging in the past. Still, I decided that I would not try to add my book reviews to my regular blog. I had hoped to get this blog up and running earlier; however, in keeping up with my rather loose implementation of resolutions, I spent most of the last month designing my blog skin. Do you think it is pretty? I did start my reading earlier in the year. I transferred all of the book reviews I had written on my old blog to this, official (kind of) reading blog.

The name of my blog, Gentle Traveler, is really a dream remade. I had always said that if I ever had a little girl I would name her Damaris Sojourner. Damaris means to tame or gentle. And, of course the word traveler comes from Sojourner. I never gave birth to a child. The children who I parent all were named by their mothers, a gift I chose to leave intact when they were adopted into our family.

So, does that mean this blog is my baby? How pitiful is that?