Presby-Musings

In preparation for the sermon that I preached last Sunday, I re-read, and referenced several books on life after death, heaven and the coming kingdom of God--what theologian N.T. Wright calls "life, after life after death."   I thought it would be helpful to offer a bibliography of sorts, along with a brief critique of the books I referenced in the event anyone out their in TV Land might want to do some extra reading on the topic.  The Heaven Promise: Engaging the Bible's Truth About Life to Come  by Scot McKnight (Waterbrook Press, 2015) This was one of the new books that I read over the course of the last couple of weeks.  McKnight is the author of over fifty books and is a professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Illinois.  I found The Heaven Promise  to be an incredibly hopeful, accessible and comprehensive view of what the Bible actually says about heaven and life after death.  McKnight covers all of the big questions (Who gets t...

The following list of books with accompanying reviews represents some of the more challenging books on Heaven that I read in preparation for the sermons I have been preaching on the Afterlife.  By challenging I mean that they challenge the status quo, the traditional views of Heaven.  Some of them were written by non-Christians, and each of them contains conclusions (and speculations) that push the reader to reassess his/her preconceived notions about Heaven. Heaven:  Our Enduring Fascination With The Afterlife by Lisa Miller [Harper Collins, 2010] Lisa Miller is an award winning journalist in the field of religion.  She regularly has columns in Newsweek , and was formerly on staff at the Wall Street Journal  and The New Yorker .  Miller, who is Jewish, felt her fascination with the afterlife grow after the events of 9/11 and the subsequent work that she did in the new religious culture that emerged after that great tragedy.   Heaven  is the ...

What is Heaven like? Is it where God lives?  A city of gold with pearly gates?  Is it full of angels with wings, strumming harps? Or is it just a state of being in perfect peace---one with the universe, some might say. Is it where "good" people go to spend eternity after they die? Does anyone really know? Well, some people actually claim that they do.  According to a Gallup pole at least 8 million people in America alone have had near-death experiences, nearly all of whom emerged from them with an unshakable belief in the afterlife. Once when I was visiting an elderly lady at her home she leaned over and in a conspiratorial whisper she told me, "I have seen Heaven."  Of course I immediately asked her "What's it like?"  She went on to describe an unbelievable journey from a bed in a hospital room through the air and to a beautiful garden filled with light.  I can still see her face as she described it. Even the most skeptical people hav...