For much of Western Christianity, salvation has been imagined as an escape: a way out of the world rather than God’s commitment to it. That theological narrowing, New Testament scholar N.T. Wright argues, has quietly reshaped not only how Christians preach the gospel, but how they imagine power, belonging, and even the stranger in their midst.

In his latest book, God’s Homecoming: The Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal, Wright presses a claim that lands with particular force in the current American moment: the church itself is meant to be a sign to the “powers and principalities” that God’s reign has already begun. And that sign, he insists, is not doctrinal uniformity or cultural dominance, but what he calls the polychrome church — a community marked by unity across ethnic, cultural, and social difference.

“The point of Christianity is not that we should go to heaven,” Wright says. “The point of Christianity is that heaven should come to earth.” That conviction reframes salvation not as a private destination, but as God’s public project of new creation — one that is made visible when people from different nations, languages, and histories are gathered into a single, reconciled body.

Wright locates this vision deep within the biblical narrative. From God’s promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed, to the prophets’ insistence that Israel’s vocation was always outward-facing, to the New Testament declaration that the Spirit has been poured out “on all flesh,” salvation unfolds as a transethnic movement. The diverse church, Wright argues, is not a concession to modern pluralism but a theological announcement: the powers that divide, exclude, and dehumanize no longer have the final word.

That claim stands in sharp contrast to contemporary expressions of Western Christianity that have increasingly aligned themselves with exclusionary politics and nationalist identities. In the United States, debates over immigration, DEI initiatives, and cultural belonging have often been framed by Christian nationalists as threats to order rather than tests of Christian faithfulness. Wright suggests this is not merely a moral failure, but a theological one — rooted in a diminished understanding of the purpose of salvation.

“When the church becomes monochrome,” Wright writes, “it is a sign that the principalities and powers are at work, forcing everything into the same shape and dealing violently with what refuses to conform.” In other words, the church’s treatment of the stranger — whether welcomed as a fellow image-bearer or rejected as a disruption — reveals which story of power it has chosen to tell.

In a full-length Q&A and exclusive video published on Faithfully Mag’s Substack, Wright speaks with Managing Editor Nicola A. Menzie about why an escapist view of salvation has weakened Christian witness, how Jesus’ vision of power subverts both ancient empire and modern political Christianity, and why the church’s diversity is not a side issue but a visible sign of God’s victory over the powers.

Click to read & watch: ‘The Point of Christianity Is Not Going to Heaven’ — N.T. Wright Talks Salvation, Power, and God’s Transethnic Church

Editor’s note: This article was written with the assistance of AI.