It’s often said, to the point of being a truism, that American Christianity is obsessed with personal salvation and life after death. But is this really true? Theologian Rowan Greer, in his book Christian Hope and Christian Life, disagrees. He says that, if anything, American Christians have lost their sense of an otherworldly hope, and that this is, in fact, bad, because it’s the hope of another world, a final consummation and redemption, that gives shape and motive to the Christian life. The rest of the book seeks to demonstrate this by showing how “Christian hope and Christian life” interact in the New Testament and in thinkers like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, John Donne, and Jeremy Taylor. Greer is looking to shed light on the question of how we relate the “there and then” to the “here and now.”
I think Greer’s on to something. On the Left we get Christians who tend to focus on this-worldly politics and dismiss otherworldliness as “pie in the sky by and by.” On the Right, and contrary to popular stereotype, there seems to be just as much a focus on politics (Focus on the Family, “Justice Sunday,” etc.), decrying the evils of popular culture, and/or an emphasis on a kind of Christianized (and I use that term loosely) self-help, enabling you to “live with purpose” and have “your best life now.” Leaving aside the Left Behinders and Pat Robertson types (who often are as focused on politics as anyone else anyway), where in American Christianity is Christian hope actually a lively and important part of present life?
A Thinking Reed 
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