Der Sämann

In seinem aktuellen Werk Surprised by Hope legt N.T. Wright zunächst in einer Zusammenfassung seines Monumentalwerkes The Resurrection of the Son of God dar, warum er an die Auferstehung Jesu glaubt und wie er sich die kommende Auferstehung der Gläubigen denkt. Anschließend erläutert er das Leben nach dem Tod sowie das Leben nach dem Leben nach dem Tod. Weil wir seiner Ansicht nach nicht das Reich Gottes, sondern für das Reich Gottes bauen können, ruft er die Kirche zum Eintreten für Gerechtigkeit und kreativen Umgang mit der Schönheit der Schöpfung auf. Dort bleibt er aber nicht stehen, sondern fügt einen für ihn entscheidenden dritten Punkt hinzu: Evangelisation – ein Wort, das manche heute schon gar nicht mehr hören wollen. Was Wright unter dem Evangelium versteht und wie er sich Evangelisation vorstellt, macht dieser etwas längere Abschnitt deutlich, der mir aus dem Herzen spricht:

The gospel, in the New Testament, is the good news that God (the world’s Creator) is at last becoming king and that Jesus, whom this God raised from the dead, is the world’s true lord. … The power of the gospel lies not in the offer of a new spirituality or religious experience, not in the threat of hellfire (certainly not in the threat of being “left behind”), which can be removed if only the hearer checks this box, says this prayer, raises a hand or whatever, but in the powerful announcement that God is God, that Jesus is Lord, that the powers of evil have been defeated, that God’s new world has begun. This announcement, stated as a fact about the way the world is rather than as an appeal about the way you might like your life, your emotions, or your bank balance to be, is the foundation of everything else. Of course, once the gospel announcement is made, in whatever way, it means instantly, that all people everywhere are gladly invited to come in, to join the party, to discover forgiveness for the past, an astonishing destiny in God’s future, and a vocation in the present. And in that welcome and invitation, all the emotions can be, and one hopes will eventually be, fully engaged. …
If a church is actively involved in seeking justice in the world, both globally and locally, and if it’s cheerfully celebrating God’s good creation and its rescue from corruption in art and music, and if, in addition, its own internal life gives every sign that new creation is indeed happening, generating a new type of community – then suddenly the announcement makes a lot of sense. … Stating the matter like this avoids three problems into which evangelism can run.
First, it makes clear that to become a Christian is not to say no to the good world, which God has made. It is, of course, to turn one’s back on all the corruptions into which the world has fallen and into which each individual has fallen. …
Seond, to see evangelism in terms of the announcement of God’s kingdom, of Jesus’s lordship and of the consequent new creation, avoids from the start any suggestion that the main or central thing that has happened is that the new Christian has entered into a private relationship with God or with Jesus and that this relationship is the main or only thing that matters. … Seeing evangelism and any resulting conversions in terms of new creation means that the new convert knows from the start that he or she is part of God’s kingdom project, which stretches out beyond “me and my salvation” to embrace, or rather to be embraced by, God’s worldwide purposes. Along with conversion there will then go, at least in principle, the call to find out where in the total project one can make one’s won contribution. …
Third, putting evangelism and conversion within the context of new creation means that the convert, who has heard the message in terms of the sovereign and saving lordship of Jesus himself, will never be inclined to think that Christian behavior – saying no to the things that diminish human flourishing and God’s glory and saying yes to the things that enhance them – is an optional extra or simply a matter of wrapping your head around some rather strange rules and regulations. … To speak of Jesus’s lordship and of the new creation, which results from his victory on Calvary and at Easter, implies at once that to confess him as Lord and to believe that God raised him from the dead is to allow one’s entire life to be reshaped by him, knowing that though this will be painful trom time to time, it will be the way not to a diminished or cramped human existence but to genuine human life in the present and to complete, glorious, resurrected human life in the future. (S. 226-230)

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