Lee’s Reviews > Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church > Status Update

Another great significance to theology of resurrection, ascension, 2nd coming & hope: it was born from confrontation w/political authorities & conviction Jesus is already Lord of all. Rapture theology avoids the confrontation saying Christians get removed from the wicked world making it lean gnostic and politically laissez-faire dreaming of Armageddon in ways Paul didn’t intend. (Out of room condensed a lot here)

🤯 believing in an actual resurrection (not Platonic death is “going home at last”) is consistent with a strong view of God’s Justice and God as good creator. English evangelicals gave up the urgency of improving society about the same time they traded resurrection for disembodied heaven. Did this same shift happen in the US?

Some of you will appreciate his discussion of hymns - “a glance through the average hymn book reveals that a good many references to the future life beyond death are closer to Tennyson, or even to Shelley, than they are to orthodox Christianity.”
(He goes on to list specific hymns that also include Buddhist eschatology, Gnosticism, and Platonism.