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Christians Wrong About Heaven
Time ^ | February 7, 2008 | David Van Biema

Posted on 02/08/2008 7:25:41 PM PST by 49th

"Tom" Wright is one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought. As Bishop of Durham, he is the fourth most senior cleric in the Church of England and a major player in the strife-riven global Anglican Communion; as a much-read theologian and Biblical scholar he has taught at Cambridge and is a hero to conservative Christians worldwide for his 2003 book The Resurrection of the Son of God, which argued forcefully for a literal interpretation of that event.

TIME: At one point you call the common view of heaven a "distortion and serious diminution of Christian hope."

Wright: It really is. I've often heard people say, "I'm going to heaven soon, and I won't need this stupid body there, thank goodness.' That's a very damaging distortion, all the more so for being unintentional. [...] At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, "Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven." It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation. [...] There is Luke 23, where Jesus says to the good thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." But in Luke, we know first of all that Christ himself will not be resurrected for three days, so "paradise" cannot be a resurrection. It has to be an intermediate state. [...] Yes, you might get disappointment in the case where somebody has recently gone through the death of somebody they love and they are wanting simply to be with them. And I'd say that's understandable. But the end of Revelation describes a marvelous human participation in God's plan.

(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...


TOPICS: Apologetics
KEYWORDS: anglican; bible; christianity; fv; heaven; newtestament; npp; theology; tomwright; wright
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To: 49th

http://catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=11731

Peter upon this Rock I build MY church...( not Calvins not Henry 8th not Luthers not the Shopping center retail Church)

The Pope the Vicar of Christ direct descendant of St Peter speaks about heaven and hell and Mentions nobody talks about sin anymore and its Consequences.Good Reading...
http://catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=11731

Do people really understand the BIBLE??


21 posted on 02/08/2008 7:54:50 PM PST by philly-d-kidder ( sOUTH OF iRAQ eAST oF sAUIDI wEST OF iRAN AND nORTH OF dUBAI...kuwait)
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To: 49th

Actually I did. Where am I wrong?


22 posted on 02/08/2008 7:57:14 PM PST by jwalsh07 (CHANGE, is what you'll have left in your pocket with McCain, Obama or Clinton)
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To: 49th

Heavenologists....what a concept..


23 posted on 02/08/2008 8:00:31 PM PST by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole....)
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To: Cicero

Thanks, that was an excellent, concise summary. What is your preferred theory of eschatology? I say “preferred” because I don’t necessarily subscribe to any - to many good theologins are all over board on it other than the most broad outlines. Is there a generally accepted eschatology in the Catholic Church or are they as all over the board as we Protestants?


24 posted on 02/08/2008 8:00:40 PM PST by joebuck
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To: 49th
See John 5:29. Both good and evil will be resurrected. The good are promised eternal life. The evil are promised judgment and/or eternal damnation. Lots of details are left out.
25 posted on 02/08/2008 8:03:56 PM PST by Myrddin
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To: Cicero
There is much in the Bible that has been glossed over in contemporary times, regarding the soul after death. This bishop hews more closely to what is written than many. Jesus went down into Sheol (Hades, Hell) and ministered to the souls there, between Crucifixion and Resurrection. The implications of this alone are fairly astounding, if you care to dwell upon it. Another thing that is rather astounding, is that the entirety of creation, meaning the planet itself and everything ... everything, that has ever lived, groans in anticipation of restoration. The understanding of most Christians doesn't begin to encompass any of this, and that's a shame. It's not the sort of error that would endanger the salvation of believers, but the beauty and mercy of it could very well lead to salvation for many who otherwise would be lost.
26 posted on 02/08/2008 8:05:08 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: Cicero
Paul said that to be absent from the body was to be presesnt with the Lord. He also said "eye has not seen, ears have not heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the ____? that God has prepared for those who love Him.

I don't find any particular conflict between what the bible scholar said and my understanding from the bible.

He didn't talk about hell and the second death though. I can't ignore that.

One of the big differences between my understanding of the afterlife and that of Islam is that the Christian one is not sensual which to the carnal mind might seem less appealing; I'll have it however Jesus would have it. Jesus told us that we wouldn't marry or be given in marriage but be as the angels in heaven. Now in the resurrection, I don't have any idea what our bodies will be like.

I do think that may be why the Catholic teaching of displining ourselves might be helpful in overcoming lusts of the flesh and inordinate appetites.

I wonder if men will run everything there? Not much, if anything, is said about what womens' roles will be unless we share in running things, too, not that I would want that personally, don't like ordering anyone around, but then I think of male domination and oppression which does not appeal to me either (maybe because of abuse, strict father, dunno).

I long to be free without sinning!!! And I would love to have work that I enjoy, sometimes wonder if I will be allowed to do what I desire, also crave learning and understanding of the spiritual and the present physical world, some of which has eluded me in life.

27 posted on 02/08/2008 8:06:03 PM PST by Aliska
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To: johniegrad

Another very good book on this issue is HEAVEN by Randy Alcorn.


28 posted on 02/08/2008 8:07:35 PM PST by J. Worthington
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To: 49th

I believe that “to be absent from the body is to be with the Lord” (2 Cor.5), so the question would be where is Jesus now? The 9th chapter of Hebrews tells us that “He has entered the Most Holy Place”, and if this is not clear enough, in the 10th chapter the author adds that He has “sat down at the right hand of God”. I may not be as book smart as this bishop, but I firmly believe that Jesus is in heaven now, and when I die I will join Him there. Unless, of course, He comes back before I die. That doesn’t negate the description of the new earth in Revelation but until then, every born-again believer who has accepted God’s gift of salvation by faith in Jesus’ finished work at the Cross, is heaven-bound.


29 posted on 02/08/2008 8:11:00 PM PST by Former Fetus
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To: jwalsh07; 49th
Your right.
This is just more Manichees and Gnostic Junk.
Marcion and the Manichees are reported to have left this
verse out of their copies of Scriptures.
And you can see this argument is as old as the hills.

More Leftist controversy to try and discredit GOD'S word.

To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

This saying of our Lord as strong proof of the
immateriality of the soul; and it is no wonder that those
who have embraced contrary opinions should endeavor to
explain away it’s true meaning.

In order to do this, a comma is placed after to-day,
and then our Lord is supposed to have meant, “Thou shalt be with me after the resurrection I tell thee this, To-Day.”

I am sorry to find men of great positions in the church
attempting to support this most feeble and worthless
criticism.

Such support of God’s word cannot need; and,
in my opinion, it’s not only a bad interpretation but it
tries to discredit the Scriptures.

If I want to learn how to worship the beast I will read
Time magazine and the New York Times.

30 posted on 02/08/2008 8:11:59 PM PST by DaveTesla (You can fool some of the people some of the time......)
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To: Former Fetus

According to the Bishop, the Bible is clear that Jesus has been resurrected and is in ‘heaven’, but that our mortal deaths are not the resurrectory step that is required for us to enter that realm with him, but we must wait until Jesus comes back to earth, at which point we shall be resurrected and heaven and earth shall be one.


31 posted on 02/08/2008 8:17:09 PM PST by 49th
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To: 49th

“eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,”
1 Corinthians
Chapter 2 verse 9

“I can imagine a lot.”
Han Solo


32 posted on 02/08/2008 8:19:45 PM PST by Valin
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To: jwalsh07; topcat54; Dr. Eckleburg; HarleyD; Gamecock
Wright: Yes. If there's going to be an Armageddon, and we'll all be in heaven already or raptured up just in time, it really doesn't matter if you have acid rain or greenhouse gases prior to that. Or, for that matter, whether you bombed civilians in Iraq. All that really matters is saving souls for that disembodied heaven.

jwalsh07: Left wing nonsense.

Sounds like pretrib dispensationalism to me.

33 posted on 02/08/2008 8:23:57 PM PST by Alex Murphy ("Therefore the prudent keep silent at that time, for it is an evil time." - Amos 5:13)
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To: philly-d-kidder

Most Protestants read that to mean that the church will be built upon the “rock” of Peter’s faith, not on the man himself, nor his figurative descendants.


34 posted on 02/08/2008 8:24:31 PM PST by Hootowl
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To: Alex Murphy

Actually it’s Gnostic Manicheism.

http://www.fpcjackson.org/resources/church_history/augustin.htm


35 posted on 02/08/2008 8:27:31 PM PST by DaveTesla (You can fool some of the people some of the time......)
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To: Aliska
"I wonder if men will run everything there?"

I wonder if there will be any sexual identity at all? Jesus' comments on no marriage in Heaven and the many verses on the spiritual equality (more a concept of oneness in the original Greek) of the sexes, economic classes, races, etc, and it would seem that physical reproduction would not be necessary; all lead one to think they could make an argument there is no male/female as we know it in Heaven. Or it might still be there.

36 posted on 02/08/2008 8:29:41 PM PST by joebuck
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To: Aliska

Probably I shouldn’t have implied, with that word “yes,” that I agreed with everything he said. Only that the resurrection of the body is an important teaching, as well as the immortality of the soul.

It was careless of me, and one shouldn’t be careless about such matters.


37 posted on 02/08/2008 8:38:31 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: joebuck; Cicero
I didn't think we might be androgynous in the next life, entirely possible. That would take some getting used to :-).

Cicero, I fear the fault was mine as I didn't have any problem whatsoever with your post. I think I arbitrarily clicked on reply to because I had last read yours, probably should have gone back and replied to the OP.

38 posted on 02/08/2008 8:47:40 PM PST by Aliska
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To: joebuck

I’m heading off for bed, and I think your question raises too many issues to respond to briefly. But the Catholic Church teaches that Christ will come on the clouds of glory at the Second Coming, and at that time there will be a General Judgment or Last Judgment.

It also teaches that when persons die their souls go before God for a particular judgment. Catholics retain the doctrine of Purgatory, which is a place or state where souls go who will eventually go to heaven, but died in a state of imperfection or venial sin, not serious enough to condemn them to Hell.

To me that is comforting, and Dante’s depiction of Purgatory (not official teaching, but certainly important and I believe consonant with orthodox teaching) portrays souls that suffer the pains or fires of purgation yet are happy because they will eventually be released to heaven.

The idea of the tribulation is a late development in Protestant theology, not found before the nineteenth century, although it appears to be increasingly common among the various Evangelical persuasions. I’m pretty familiar with some of the wild doctrines that appeared in England in the 1650s, among such sects as the Ranters, Anabaptists, and Quakers, yet that was not one of them. Samuel Butler’s parents were among the early adherants of this doctrine, as found among the Plymouth Brethren; he revolted against his parents and portrayed this experience in his autobiographical novel, “The Way of All Flesh.”


39 posted on 02/08/2008 8:52:33 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: 49th

Any discussion about Heaven needs one very critical question, that cannot be overlooked: Why Heaven?

What about people is worth keeping? Most arguments along these lines lead to the one small and indefinable part of people, the soul, as being the one, non-expendable part.

Everything else about people can be seen as superfluous. Our bodies, our memories and knowledge, our personalities, all the good and evil parts. There is some debate as to whether our souls grow and change, and thus retain lessons of some variety, perhaps even in more than one lifetime.

But the concept of a soul is a tricky thing. It must be bound together with a perhaps a different, but also indefinable part of us, our awareness. That is, a soul, aware that it is a soul, and also aware of other souls, and of God.

So there are two things, bound together. The part that Heaven wants, and the part that is aware of things Heavenly.

But a big question is, are souls perfect, or do they need growth before they can achieve Heaven or oneness with God?

Shed of our human garb, some consider that all souls are already perfected fragments of God, that returns to God when freed from their mortal shell. Others propose that souls must combine with each other, to evolve into ever more complex states of being, until they are perfected enough for this rejoining.

From this perspective, Heaven is greater than Earth, but is itself a training ground for souls in their growth. It is a form of life beyond the physical, where souls merge into ever more complex and perfected beings until worthy to rejoin with God.

But this is a very different idea from a return by, and resurrection by, Jesus. As taking place on Earth, this is far more like the Jewish concept of Messiah, establishing a hegemony of God on Earth.

In this purpose, the vast armies of resurrected believers would serve perhaps one of two purposes. Either to create a New Jerusalem, a kingdom of God on Earth; or perhaps to return the world to the pristine state of Eden. All those human hands, no longer consuming, but restoring.

Any number of such possibilities is certainly food for thought.


40 posted on 02/08/2008 9:04:38 PM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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