This short read is mainly mainly a stimulating and persuasive protest against the undermining of a proper gospel confidence by a recent liturgical innovation: the now widely held annual commemoration of the departed on All Souls Day (2nd November). If this appears of peripheral or arcane interest to most Themelios readers, the underlying theological issues are not. Wright’s book is relevant not only for the substantive issue he addresses, but also as an example of how biblically-rounded theology must govern church practice, if well-meaning sentimentalism is not to rob Christians of real joy in the gospel.

Wright describes this book, which arose from his former ministry at Westminster Abbey, as a footnote to his major study, The Resurrection of the Son of God (SPCK, 2003). In For all the Saints he is highly critical of the ambiguity he perceives in much current Anglican observance of all Souls’ Day. It is, he argues, ‘pulling the implicit belief of the church out of shape’.

There are four chapters and a conclusion. Chapter four is a separate treatment of another Anglican novelty: the recent insertion of a ‘kingdom season’ into the liturgical calendar before Advent, culminating in the new feast of ‘Christ the King’. Wright observes that the justification for a calendar is its provision of a framework corresponding to the gospel narrative, reinforcing the need for personal appropriation. To emphasise, however, the kingdom at the end of the year downplays the inauguration of the new age in the earthly ministry of Jesus, while the celebration of ‘Christ the King’ at this point implies that he is not king until the end of the sequence. The doctrine of the Ascension is thus undermined and the dual focus of Advent—preparation for the second coming as well as the first—obscured.

The other chapters concentrate on the fate of the Christian departed and legitimate church practice in its light. Wright outlines the development of medieval notions of purgatory, and its place in modern Roman Catholicism, before describing the emergence of ‘new style’ purgatory in recent Anglican thought. Today, he claims, there is an implicit assumption of ‘a sort of purgatory-for-all’, not punitive but rather a post-death journey of cleansing, including the opportunity for non-Christians to consider again Christ’s claims.

Such a position, reflected in the gloomy liturgical wistfulness of All Souls Day observations, Wright argues, stems from two roots. On the one hand, he identifies a loss of confidence in the biblical promises to believers; on the other, an incipient drift towards universalism. Both are connected with an assumption inherited from the medieval era, that the Christian departed from two classes—saints and souls—one destined immediately for heaven, the other for a transitional period of further preparation. Wright points out that such a distinction has no scriptural support whatever. All Christians are, biblically speaking, ‘saints’. After death, believers face no further trials or testing, but—as far as we can discern from the limited biblical evidence—are in a state of happy, conscious awaiting for the bodily resurrection.

Given this conclusion, the author contends that forms of commemoration of the departed which lack this assurance are misguided, misleading and wrong. By implying uncertainty and anxiety about the destination of the faithful departed, they deny believers the solid hope of the gospel, and obscure the significance of this life as the time of decision and testing.

Wright’s thesis is a characteristically robust combination of theological muscle and pastoral heart. The Anglican practices he condemns may not be familiar to many Themelios readers, but the sentimental universalist zeitgeist from which they spring is widespread. The book is ludicrously over-priced but time spent with a library copy would provide an exhilarating, stimulating and spiritually worthwhile break from more turgid theological tomes!

---