Surprised by Hope vs Between the World and Me

Thematically, the coming of the kingdom of heaven, via the bodily resurrection in Wright's language, strongly parallels the inexorable struggle, and building of the "kingdom of black Americans" Coates describes. These kingdoms are not inevitable--they are built through struggle and the specific efforts and labors of people, fighting against the powers which abuse the purposes of God, and abuse black bodies. The world is not getting better in an evolutionary way or regressing into some apocalyptic rubble (or is it?).

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an atheist. He might appreciate the parallels literarily but likely would not be compelled by the concept of the kingdom of God. In the passage below he calls to resist "the comforting narrative of divine law" that implies "irrepressible justice"...and so does Wright. At least when it comes to our bringing the kingdom of God to earth.

Two quotes from Wright followed by one from Coates:

The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it…). They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom.

What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that's about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that's shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting rosed in a garden that's about to be dug up for a building site. You are -- strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself -- accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God's new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world—all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God. God’s recreation of his wonderful world, which began with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously as God’s people live in the risen Christ and in the power of his Spirit, means that what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted. It will last all the way into God’s new world. In fact, it will be enhanced there.

N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice. The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine. Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance--no matter how improved--as the redemption for the lives of people who never asked for the posthumous, untouchable glory of dying for their children.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

I originally wrote this in FEB2017 after reading both books. Today I found the draft, wrote the second paragraph, and inserted the Wright quotes that I'd been holding as a placeholder.