IS HEAVEN IS NOWHERE?
Chances are good that you are not going to heaven. Well, at least not the heaven that you may have pictured it. In fact, heaven may be far greater than anything we could have ever imagined.
This is good news to me. I don’t know about you, but I was never crazy about standing around in a white robe, singing for eternity. I’m sure we will all do a fair bit of singing, but thankfully it’s not all that we will do.
Recently scholars N.T. Wright and Christopher Morse have revisited the subject of heaven. As well they should. There are many notions and misconceptions about what heaven might be or could be or is. And with the heightened interest in heaven, thanks to books like Heaven is For Real and 90 Minutes in Heaven, we may want to take more time to consider heaven.
Let’s be honest, it’s fun to think about a place somewhere out there that is nonstop bliss and wonder. But is it possible that our desire for what we think heaven should be may be misguided? What if heaven is not so much a place, but a time that is yet to come? Would our perspective of life, here and now, change if we understood heaven differently?
What do you think of heaven? How have you been taught about it?
Perhaps it’s time to explore those questions more thoroughly. A new book by Wright, How God Became King, explores these questions in depth.
If that feels like too much, you can start, by reading an article on Huffington Post titled, “N.T. Wright Asks: Have Christians Gotten Heaven All Wrong?”
“The oft-cliched Christian notion of heaven -- a blissful realm of harp-strumming angels -- has remained a fixture of the faith for centuries. Even as arguments will go on as to who will or won't be "saved," surveys show that a vast majority Americans believe that after death their souls will ascend to some kind of celestial resting place.