Heaven & Hell
Grounded in Heaven: Recentering Christian Hope and Life on God by Michael Allen Eerdmans, 2018 192 pages (paperback), $18.00 The central message of Michael Allen’s Grounded in Heaven: Recentering Christian Hope and Life on God might be summed up in one pithy axiom: The vertical empowers the horizontal. The more those who know the Lord […]
In 1998, 49 percent of eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-old Americans considered themselves moderate or very religious. By 2014, that number dropped 10 percent. “Yet 80 percent of Americans said they believe in an afterlife in 2014, up from 73 percent in 1972–74,” according to a new study led by Dr. Jean Twenge, which indicates an apparent […]
The great hope of Christians is not that they will go to heaven when they die, but that Jesus will raise them from the dead in an incorruptible body to live with him and the rest of God’s people in the new creation. The physicality of the new creation city that John reveals in Revelation […]
“Pastor, I just want to be with the Lord in heaven and for all of this to finally be over,” Ella exclaimed with an earnestness that let everyone know she meant it. This was her third round of chemotherapy, and the will to fight the good fight had diminished with each drop of poison introduced […]
Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a vineyard, a mustard seed, virgins, a king who held a wedding feast, and a master who left his home. Revelation 21 talks about walls of jasper and cities of pure gold, with the foundations of the walls adorned with every kind of jewel and each of the […]
What do a city, a garden, romanticism, and a family reunion have in common? (This could be a cateogry on Jeopardy!). If you answered “heaven,” you’re right (if you didn’t, don’t worry; neither did we—hence this interview). While Scripture isn’t lacking in analogies and descriptions of heaven, it doesn’t portray it the way our literal, […]
Near-death experience stories are neither to be discounted as total fabrication nor recalibrated as a final apologetic for the Christian case for heaven. The little-known secret—to those who have studied the matter and the numerous who have not—is that near-death experience stories have been around as long as humans have been telling stories. Once while […]
Several years ago, one of my students wrote a paper comparing C. S. Lewis’s account of heaven with that of a noted theologian. He remarked that while their formal beliefs were essentially the same, the writings of the theologian left him cold, while reading Lewis made him actually want to go to heaven. The power […]
One of my favorite preachers once illustrated our misunderstanding of heaven by comparing how we usually think of heaven (something akin to a Philadelphia Cream Cheese commercial) to how the Bible talks about heaven (something more like the exuberant joy of a Jewish wedding). I’ve always appreciated that illustration, and it helps make sense of […]
It is taken for granted’in mainline circles, at least’that traditional belief in hell is a relic of the past. More liberal Lutheran and Reformed denominations imagine that the doctrine of God's everlasting punishment is not only unnecessary but actually contradicts a proper view of God and his gracious love as celebrated by their confessions. Since […]
"Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church" by N. T. Wright
N. T. Wright's book Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church is a running complaint about the dominance of fundamentalist and liberal approaches to death, the resurrection, the intermediate state, and the mission of the church. Surprised by Hope is more polemical than insightful, too condescending to be comforting, […]
Oh, children, Zion train is comin' our way; get on board now! They said the Zion train is comin' our way; You got a ticket, so thank the Lord! Zion's train is-Zion's train is-Zion's train is-Zion's train- They said the soul train is coming our way; They said the soul train is coming our way. […]
There’s a not-so-subtle irony in the fact that our education system promotes the idea to our nation’s young people that they are little more than highly evolved animals, and then, when little Johnny grows up and behaves like one, we conclude that his real problem is his lack of education. The idea that man is […]
