After You Believe is preceded by Surprised by Hope, an exceptional work that challenges the conservative Christian perspective of heaven (that we say a prayer and go to heaven by eternity.) It’s not only a challenge but quite simply a return to orthodoxy. I found Surprised by Hope to be an exceptional contemporary work that should hit everyone’s must read list.

Simply Christian precedes Surprised by Hope. Simply Christian is another gem, not quite on par with Surprised by Hope IMO, but best described as a contemporary ‘Mere Christianity’.

But of course, this post is about ‘After You Believe’. Admittedly, the third was my least favorite, however, that’s not to suggest it’s not an important read. Rather, the first two, especially Surprised by Hope, were of exceptional value that could not be matched in the third. (I was reading Brian Mclaren’s latest while reading After you Believe and the former doesn’t hold water against the latter.)

Simply Christian dealt with the ‘urges of humanity (beauty, relationships, justice, spirituality)’; Surprised by Hope deal with Heaven & Kingdom language; AFter you Believe dealt with Christian character.

Wright re-uses the term ‘virtue’ to highlight the need for Christians to adopt more than vein morality goals or individual authenticity when it comes to maturing in Christ. He compares three primary ways people approach their faith:

Option one: The wait for Heaven Option (condemning and discarding this world a la evangelicals right-wing)

Option two: The work for the Kingdom Option (a la left wing)

Option three: The live out by way of Anticipating the Kingdom

The third option is Wright’s proposition to reclaim virtue in Christian culture that’s barely skin deep.

Wright is not the most accessible writer, but given his content and scholarship he IS highly accessible. For that reason it makes sense for Christians to pay attention to the message he is trying to communicate. It’s not necessary to accept everything he’s saying part and parcel, but it DOES emphasize the need to accept his words as grounded in scholarship and orthodoxy.

The discussion obviously extends beyond virtues and character, including church systems and interesting expositions on passages in Romans and Corinthians to support his ‘KIngdom’.

Though Wright has entered into the centre of no few theological debates, he makes it clear that After You Believe is not polemical – he steers clear of his more controversial scholarship (the most controversial being his work on justification and the so-called “new perspective on Paul”) His purpose, as he writes in the preface, is to stimulate believers to be excited about Christian virtue. The book is intended as a sequel of sorts to Simply Christian and Surprised By Hope. In these previously-published books, Wright (an evangelical hero of sorts when it comes to writing on the resurrection) worked out what has been his theological hobby-horse: the idea that hope for Christians is not limited to simply being whisked off to an ethereal heaven after death, but rather the resurrection that has already begun to break into creation, which will culminate in the new heaven and new earth (he cleverly refers to this as “life after ‘life after death’”). What he hopes Christians will see is that new creation has already begun, that this new resurrection reality has already taken root, and that the way the story ends is going to shape how we live today. Picking up where he left off, Wright ventures into the world of Biblical ethics and the question of a New Testament morality in this book about Christian character.

If there is something N.T. Wright is known for, it is communicating difficult and important theological ideas to a popular-level audience in an approachable way. This book is no exception. Though its length may prove daunting (and I don’t really know of any books on ethics that haven’t), After You Believe is, from the beginning, not an intimidating read. Full of everyday illustrations and examples from the lives of ordinary folks, it is a thorough and accessible introduction to what comes between new life and life after death.

You can check out my review in full at my blog: nickschuurman.blogspot.com

That, I believe, is the most profound statement this book makes. It seems that the world either over-complicates this commandment by making Christianity into a mere set of rules, or to reduce Christianity to simply finding one’s self. Wright addresses this by saying:

In the last analysis, what matters after you believe is neither rules nor spontaneous self-discovery, but character.
p.7

He reminds the reader that they are not alone in this character-development process and that they can’t be good enough on their own, that we have the Holy Spirit:

… the grace which continues to be active by the Spirit in the lives of believers. It is simply not the case that God does some of the work of our salvation and we have to do the rest.

What’s more, if we try to put God in our debt by trying to make ourselves “good enough for him” (whatever that might mean), we are prone to make matters worse.
p.60-61

Referring to Romans 12:1, he says “…the mind must be transformed, so that you can think out for yourself, weigh up and consider, what God’s will actually is.”

When Paul talks about the “mind,” he is not ranking Christians in terms of what we would call their intellectual or “academic” ability. Some Christians have that sort of mind. Plenty of others don’t. But Paul wants all Christians to have their minds renewed, so that they can think in a different way.
p.151

Wright also mentions virtue frequently throughout the book, basically saying virtue is developing natural reactions after much effort and concentration (p.20) which he says is “what happens when habitual choices have been wise.” (p.76-77)

But to insist that the three primary virtues are faith, hope, and above all love is to insist that to grow in these virtues is precisely to grow in looking away from oneself and toward God on the one hand and one’s neighbor on the other. The more you cultivate these virtues, the less you will be thinking about yourself at all.
p.204

Overall, the book gives a great perspective on what we should do after becoming Christians and why we’re actually doing it. I enjoyed the well-researched scientific facts, real world examples, and philosophy that were littered throughout the book along with scripture(which is N.T. Wright’s own translation). The book was a bit repetitious, but rightfully so in making clear the goal or “telos” of our Christian walk. I would encourage using discretion as Wright’s eschatological views are presented very clearly and convincingly. I’d say with some theological and eschatological disagreements aside, this book is a great read on character development.

So when I came across “After You Believe,” Wright’s newest book, I was understandably excited. What new things were I to learn from this Biblical scholar and pastor.

However, I was disappointed with the book. Having been a Biblical Studies and Philosophy major in college, I don’t shy away from technical writing or more dense expositions. However, I found Wright particularly difficult to understand in this tome. His usually easy-to-understand prose was now much more dense than I was used to. It took me a long to time to get through the book, usually due to having to reread sections to understand.

In the end, I have few problems with what Wright actually said. His section on the fruit (singular) of the Spirit is particularly illuminating and–more importantly–true! But I’m afraid that the more technical elements of this book will keep people from accessing some of the most basic truths of the Christian faith. One reviewer noted not knowing the intended audience of the book. I agree. It was published by HarperOne which published Wrights more popular works such as “Simply Christian” and “Surprised by Hope,” (as opposed to IVP Academic who published the much more technical “Justification”), and Wright even wrote that he saw this book as their legitimate sequel. However, those coming from one or both of those books to this one hoping for the same brevity and clarity of writing will be disappointed.

I have trouble recommending this book to the general audience. It would need to be read with the understanding that it takes a serious commitment. Which is fine. Learning about our faith SHOULD take commitment. Just know that ahead of time. Read it with a pastor or one of those theology students at a university nearby.

As for pastors and dedicated learners, this book leans toward a “must-read.” Wright is doing a fantastic job in this “series” of explaining the full gamut of what God–through His work in Christ–is calling us too. This may not be Wright’s best writing, but it certainly is some great thinking! Read this book so that, if for no other reason, you can explain it to your congregation, your classroom, your small group, etc.

***
(Three stars out of Five)

Whatever you think of Wright, he’s always worth reading. And Wright’s latest, After You Believe, is no exception. It’s third in a series of books that includes Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope. Having explained why Christianity makes sense and what really happens when we die, Wright now focuses on the question of how Christians should live in the present. In short, this is a book on virtue, specifically Christian virtue. It asks how our characters can be “shaped, together and individually, to become the human beings God meant us to be.”

There’s a lot of ground to cover. Wright points past mere rule-keeping to the transformation of character. He examines the ancient concept of virtue, and wrestles with how the Christian understanding of virtue is different from other views. It has much in common, but it also has radical differences. Wright understands that the transformation of character is a slowly forming thing, similar to learning a new language or learning to play a musical instrument. It feels strange at first, but slowly becomes second nature.

You can’t talk about these issues without confronting counterfeits. So Wright dismantles some views that are prevalent today: that virtue is discovering the real you buried deep inside (a modern version of Gnosticism), or that it’s just a matter of living authentically and spontaneously without any rules. He argues that character is formed through the kingdom-establishing work of Jesus and the Spirit, anticipating the ultimate reality of our future in a renewed heaven and earth, allowing that future reality to shape how we live now. It’s about reclaiming our original vocation. “God’s future is arriving in the present, in the person and work of Jesus, and you can practice, right now, the habits of live which will find their goal in that coming future.”

Wright then applies this, using some well-known passages of Scripture on love and the fruit of the Spirit and the unity of the church. He applies all of this to the worship and mission of the church. And he explores some of the practices that will aid in developing Christian character with God’s help.

This is a profound book. I especially appreciated chapter 3, which talks about our original vocation as humans, and how this vision has been recaptured and restored through Jesus’ inauguration of the kingdom. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book. Overall, Wright does a masterful job of clearly explaining some challenging concepts without getting bogged down.

I didn’t find this book to be a page-turner. At times I found myself searching for the structure of the book. And I’m not completely sure of the intended audience: it’s not quite a popular-level book, nor is it an academic one. It’s a great book for pastors to read as we work at understanding our role in helping God’s people develop Christian character.

Wright is always worth reading. This isn’t a perfect book, but it’s a profound one, and I’m sure I’ll be reading it again.

As post-conversion people – that is, Christians – how should we live? And how do we know how to live?

Do we strive to be as authentic as possible, being true to who we really are as humans at the core of which is the image of God? Or do we strive to keep the rules?

These are the questions N.T. Wright explores in his newest AFTER YOU BELIEVE and the same answer applies to all of these questions. But before we nail down just what that answer is, I want to frame this in the larger conversation which Wright started in his previous book, SURPRISED BY HOPE and which he rehashes in this one.

This world is not all there is.

We know that much (well, most of us do). But neither is heaven as a disembodied other-wordly existence all we have to hope for. Instead, it is the life after life after death – the new heavens and the new earth. That is our ultimate destination and we will be there with resurrected bodies.

This, Wright maintains, is not a different goal from what God started in the Garden with Adam and Eve as though, once they ate the forbidden fruit, God scrapped that idea altogether. Quite the opposite, the restoration of the Garden – where humans are in right relationship with God, one another, and the rest of creation – that is the goal we are moving towards and the one which Jesus inaugurated in his life, death, and resurrection.

For many of us, that message in itself was a breath of fresh air. We’re not just waiting around for Jesus to come get us and take us away to some better place. What we do actually matters.

But how?

That’s what Wright seeks to answer through this work. But he gives in to neither the true-to-self-ers or the rule-keepers. Jesus, he demonstrates, said neither, “Here are the rules you need to obey” or “What you need to do is follow your heart, your dream.”

Instead, he said something quite simple…and profound: “Follow me.”

Whereas most of us fumble around our lives somewhere between keeping the rules because we think God wants us to and pursuing our dreams and fulfillment, Jesus’ call transcends both while encapsulating and deconstructing them as well.

And the call is to a particular type of character, what Aristotle called virtue, but as Wright demonstrates, a different kind of virtue entirely (though not completely unrelated). The call is to develop the character and virtue of Jesus which is for the purpose of one’s own happiness or fulfillment, but which puts happiness in its rightful place as the byproduct of participation in the Kingdom of God.

These are not two different conversations as some of us suppose. Our lives and actions are not as disconnected from God’s plan of redemption as we often belief. In fact, they are integral. To use Wright’s own analogy, this Christian character/virtue is perhaps best understood as the language of God’s now but not yet kingdom. It will shape everything we do in eternity as we live the way we were meant to in the restored Garden. But we can begin speaking it now, too.

Even more, our learning to speak this language now is actually being used by God as he redeems the whole cosmos.

And it revolves around one stumbling block: rules. Should we strive to keep them or not? And why?

Wright dives deep into some of these pressing questions offering deep theological exegesis in easy-to-understand language even while analyzing and critiquing psychology, philosophy, and Christian history itself. The book is densely packed with insight that chances are readers will find themselves experiencing “A-ha!” moments more often than not.

The result is a profoundly deep work with the potential to literally change the lives of Christians, offering them something which actually makes sense…for once!

It is not without work, though. Wright is verbose and takes his time taking his readers on intellectual and philosophical journeys so that his major points have the ability to stick. If you’re a skimmer, this is the not the book for you. After You Believe requires a concerted effort to focus on the text. But fear not, Wright has a conversational, almost poetic, style and, if you’re willing to stick with him, it is undoubted that you’ll find yourself loving his work.

For those familiar with Wright, this work is right up there with Surprised by Hope. For those unfamiliar…just know this: this book will offer you more than ten of the typical Christian books written by today’s popular authors.

If you want a book that encourages, inspires, and challenges – particularly on an intellectual level – pick up After You Believe.

You won’t regret it.

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the product mentioned above for free by The Ooze Viral Bloggers in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

In this insightful work, Wright declares that there is much more to Christian conduct than “just keeping the rules” on one hand, or “just being yourself” on the other. He says Christian character is a matter of virtue. . . or Christlikeness. . . or living as Kingdom people.

The good bishop’s emphasis on virtue reminds me of another Anglican — John Wesley (although Wesley uses other words, it’s the same concept of heart holiness.)

As usual, Wright brings it back around to eschatology. We are called to live virtuous lives, as a reflection of the Kingdom that has already come (in Christ) — and WILL come in fullness.

We are Kingdom people — and thus, our lives should reflect this citizenship.
If we’re falling short, we need to keep practicing! As Peter Bohler told John Wesley (my paraphrase), “Preach it until you have it, and then. because you have it, you will preach it.”
Or, “Practice it until you have it, and then, because you have it, you will practice it.”

So far I haven’t found that at all. The first clue that should have warned me was that this book was written under the name N.T. rather than Tom. I think I was hoping to read a book by Tom Wright, rather than his more scholarly counterpart – N.T. What we have instead is not knee deep in scholasticism but I would not say that it is all that accessible to someone just starting out. I can’t say it is a complaint because the book just wasn’t written to address what I thought it might.

Another thing that stands out about this book is that Wright has gotten wordier than ever. The first 25 pages can be summed up as follows – Most people either try to live by the rules or neglect the rules in order to find out what it takes to be true to themselves (their ambitions, dreams, etc). Neither of these things really get at what God is after – a transformed heart where the inside is transformed by someone from the outside. At times he tells three or more stories in a row to make one point. It just seems excessive and makes the book that much easier to put back on the shelf.

One thing he has alluded to is answering the question of why Christian character matters in a Christian culture that insists there is nothing we can do that has anything to do with our salvation. The whole saved by grace alone line is one that needs to be better informed because as Wright repeatedly points out, character really does matter as it points to the heart of one who is actually in process of being transformed by God.

But I am hanging in there. I am not done reading this book and I expect there are some very good things on the way. I will keep you posted along the way.

N.T. Wright’s latest book, though titled “After You Believe,” is aimed rather emphatically not at newer Christians, but at those struggling to deepen their faith. It’s part of a growing canon of literature that addresses Evangelicalism’s saggy middle. How is it that we have become so doctrinally dogmatic and so culturally irrelevant? Says Wright,

“Many Christians have so emphasized the need for conversion, for the opening act of faith (“believing that Jesus died for me” or whatever), that they have a big gap in their vision of what being a Christian is all about.”

This “big gap” has left many churches detached from the real world, without significant societal influence (save in the realm of metaphysics or philosophy), and without a compelling, comprehensive vision for the perpetuation of the Gospel. I mean, is making people happy and prosperous — or enforcing biblical commands — the only validation for our existence?

After You Believe is not a how-to book, but a study of Christian virtue and its underlying purpose. Wright springboards into this study by contrasting two Christian people. The first defines their existence in terms of “freedom,” following their heart and living free from the tyranny of external rules. The second is tethered to “law,” the application of rules and adherence to biblical strictures. These opposing paradigms of “internal freedom” and “external law” form a scaffolding for Wright’s discussion.

Belief has become the end-all for many Christians, with behavior often taking a back seat. As long as I believe the right things, we say, everything else will fall in place. Sadly, this point of view has led to a Church that is theologically orthodox and behaviorally flaky. Wright broadens our perspective to include becoming. Behavior, living virtuous lives, is the means to becoming what we are meant to be. Virtue is not just a subjective state we individually define. Neither is it something that one artificially achieves through obedience to pointless moral commands. Rather, virtue is an “anticipation” or “foreshadowing” of our future, heavenly existence. We don’t pursue virtue to get to heaven or simply because God said we should behave ourselves down here, but because it manifests our truest nature and our eternal state.

This was my first encounter reading N.T. Wright and, while After You Believe is an important book, it is not a light read. The concepts here are worthy of prolonged meditation, for both old and new believers. But as someone with a moderate interest in theology, I still found myself backtracking, re-reading, and grappling with Wright’s ideas. This was good. I only wish that the discussion in After You Believe would have been a little more accessible to the lay reader.

Mike Duran

Wright explains that “virtue is what happens when wise and courageous choices have become ‘second nature’ . . . Those who follow Jesus can begin to practice, in the present, the habits of heart and life which correspond to the way things are in God’s kingdom–the way they will be eventually, yes, but also the way they already are because Jesus is here . . . But virtue is always the result of work and cost” (pgs. 21, 105, 216).

Having virtue does not mean that we are to be sinless (not that we ever could be), nor is it simply a matter of following someone’s example–even Jesus’ example! Rather, we are to engage in what Wright calls “The Virtuous Circle”–which involves scripture, stories, examples, community, and practices–and our character will thus be transformed. Our thoughts, words, and actions will begin to reflect our love for God and for other people, and it will just be “second nature,” not our pursuit of following a list of rules.

Wright states, “The key is this: the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ does not grow automatically. The nine varieties of fruit do not suddenly appear just because someone has believed in Jesus, has prayed for God’s Spirit, and has then sat back and waited for ‘fruit’ to arrive . . . The point of using the term ‘fruit,’ after all, is that these are things which grow from within rather than being imposed from without” (pgs. 195, 206).

I had never read any of N.T. Wright’s books before this one, but I am anxious now to read his previous works. Although I was a bit intimidated to dive into this Bible scholar’s teachings, I found that this book was challenging but not arduous, complex but not insurmountable. Truthfully, the only negative aspects of the book, in my opinion, are that it becomes somewhat repetitive and that Wright continually tells the reader of things he is going to talk about later in the book. (I’d rather he just let me know when I get there.)

Overall, this is an excellent book and one that I recommend every Christian read.

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the product mentioned above for free by The Ooze Viral Bloggers in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”