Summer has officially begun here in Canada. School let out last week and then yesterday, July 1, we celebrated Canada Day. Between these two events and the heat wave we’re experiencing, it’s clear that summer is upon us. It won’t be long before my family is traveling and, actually, I have to make a brief trip down to Buffalo, New York today to take my niece, nephew and mother to the airport there (they’ve been visiting for the past week). One thing that becomes clear to me when I drive over the border is the contrast between driving and flying.

Driving into the U.S. is simple; you simply speak to a person at the border, explain why you’re traveling and explain why they can’t tax you for anything you’re bringing in. It’s an all-human affair. Air travel is very different. Flying in or to the United States brings you under the dominion of the TSA. Since the TSA was created in the wake of 9/11, it has gradually been clamping down, demanding more and more restrictions on how we travel, what we travel with, and how we will be screened before we do so. To varying degrees Canada’s airport security organizations have had to follow suit. It's an interesting conundrum we find ourselves in. Most of us travel by air on a regular or at least semi-regular basis. And all of us want to enjoy peace of mind while we are cruising along at 550 miles per hour. And so we welcome some level of screening--the kind of screening that allows the 99.99% of us who have no evil intentions to pass through quickly, easily and conveniently, but at the same time ensures that all the bad guys will get caught. We know that there are millions and millions of innocent people processed through those lines in order to weed out the very few terrorists.

It's the humiliation that most people find so odious. Before 9/11 airport security was a slight annoyance, but by no means a major bother. Then the rules changed. Soon we were taking off our shoes, then having to ensure we had only travel-size cosmetics, and then actually take those cosmetics out so the TSA could see them. And then came the infamous full body scanners, the machines that digitally remove your clothes so the agents can peer underneath to see what you might be carrying on or in your body. Of course it also gives them a pretty good view of the particulars of your body. The alternative, should you choose to opt out of the scanner, is a thorough pat-down, one that is quite invasive and involves hands rubbing over the inner thigh, the genitals and the breasts. I have been through these patdowns more times than I care to admit; they are typically conducted professionally, but are still a wee bit unnerving.

So what is the TSA to do? They are between a rock and a hard place, between their mandate to protect the skies and passengers who are ready to say, "Enough!"

After writing about this new genre of I went to heaven books, I received many comments and emails asking me about biblical examples of those who glimpsed heaven—John in the book of Revelation, Paul in 2 Corinthians, Isaiah in his prophecy. I will address this briefly today.

There are several themes in today’s “I went to heaven” books:

• Each of the people experienced heaven after dying a natural death. In every case, the soul had left the body so the person was clinically and spiritually dead.
• After the experience of heaven, each of the people was restored to life so that the soul returned to the body and the body was no longer clinically or spiritually dead.
• Each of the people describes as much as they can remember and does so in order to offer encouragement and in order to validate what the Bible says.

There is no biblical precedent for experiences of this kind. Let me look to each of the biblical passages.

Revelation

The Revelation is unique in being New Testament apocalyptic literature. This genre is prophetic, meaning that it is inspired by God in order to show what will take place in the end times, tying together past, present and future. Here is how John introduces his experience:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. (Revelation 1:1-2)

God gave Jesus Christ a revelation which he in turn made known to John through an intermediary. John says that he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day when he experienced some kind of a vision (Revelation 1:10). He was fully alive and consious when this vision was given to him. The purpose was not to speak of heaven or to validate heaven, but to speak of events that will soon take place.

It is important to note how he closes the book: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book” (Revelation 22:18-19). John makes it clear that the final words of Revelation mark the closing of the canon—the closing of God’s revelation through Scripture. A certain kind of revelation came to a close after John’s vision of the things that would soon take place. Equating John’s experience—an Apostle receiving an inerrant, canonical vision from God himself—with Colton Burpo’s, is to compare apples to battleships.

Travelling to heaven and back is where it’s at today. Don Piper spent ninety minutes there and sold four million copies of his account. Colton Burpo doesn’t know how long he was there, but his travel diary has surpassed 6 million copies sold, with a kids’ edition accounting for another half million. Bill Wiese obviously booked his trip on the wrong web site and found himself in hell, which did, well, hellish things to his sales figures. Still, 23 Minutes in Hell sold better than if he had described a journey to, say, Detroit, and he even saw his book hit the bestseller lists for a few weeks. There have been others as well, and together they have established afterlife travel journals as a whole new genre in Christian publishing—a genre that is selling like hotcakes, or Amish fiction, for that.

I’ll grant that the cost of this type of journey is rather steep (you’ve got to die, though only for just a few minutes), but it’s a sound investment when you factor in the sales figures. I can think of quite a few authors who would trade a few minutes of life for 50+ weeks on the bestseller lists and a few appearances on TBN.

The most recent heaven tourist is Mary C. Neal. Much like Todd Burpo, who is responsible for taking his son’s adventures to print, Neal only decided to write about her experiences many years after the fact, after all those other “I went to heaven” books began to sell in the hundreds of thousands. But that’s definitely just coincidence. She initially self-published her book To Heaven and Back, but once it started generating buzz (i.e. selling lots and lots of copies), Waterbrook Multnomah stooped down and scraped it off the bottom of a shoe somewhere, and promptly re-issued it. With the extra marketing nudge, it has now made its debut on the New York Times list of bestsellers. I gave it a skim—I just couldn’t bear to read it all the way—and found that it is much the same as the others. In fact, it may be worse than the others in that it contains even less Christian theology, less gospel and far more New Age, sub-Christian nonsense. That a publisher of Christian books would even consider taking this to print is appalling.

I am not going to review To Heaven and Back. It’s pure junk, fiction in the guise of biography, paganism in the guise of Christianity. But I do want to address a question that often arises around this book and others in the genre: How do I respond to them? How do I respond to those who say they have been to heaven? When a Christian, or a person who claims to be a Christian, tells me that he has been to heaven, am I obliged to believe him or at least to give him the benefit of the doubt?

No, I am under no such obligation. I do not believe that Don Piper or Colton Burpo or Mary Neal or Bill Wiese visited the afterlife. They can tell me all the stories they want, and then can tell those stories in a sincere tone, but I do not believe them (even when they send me very angry and condescending emails that accuse me of character assassination). I am not necessarily saying that these people are liars—just that I am under no obligation to believe another person’s experience. Here’s why:

John Piper sparked quite a storm with his biographical message on the "frank and manly" J. C. Ryle. One of his conclusion was that Christianity is meant to have a masculine feel to it. Response to his message ranged from outrage to applause. I found myself perplexed and needed to give it some time to work itself out in my mind. For a while I gave up, but then decided that it would be worth the effort, so sat down and began to hash out my thoughts. It took a long time, but having done so, I find that I am pretty sure I disagree with Piper. I will tell you why, but first, a short refresher on his message.

After some introductory observations about the prominence of masculinity in the Christian faith--like the fact that God is revealed to us as a king and father rather than as a queen and mother, that Jesus came as a man, that all priests and pastors in the Bible are men and so on--Piper went on to define this "masculine feel" or "masculine Christianity" more precisely. A masculine Christianity is a Christianity in which,

Theology and church and mission are marked by overarching godly male leadership in the spirit of Christ, with an ethos of tender-hearted strength, and contrite courage, and risk-taking decisiveness, and readiness to sacrifice for the sake of leading, protecting, and providing for the community--all of which is possible only through the death and resurrection of Jesus. It's the feel of a great, majestic God, who by his redeeming work in Jesus Christ, inclines men to take humble, Christ-exalting initiative, and inclines women to come alongside the men with joyful support, intelligent helpfulness, and fruitful partnership in the work.

What Piper saw as characteristic of a masculine faith is the presence of these sometimes-paradoxical virtues, exercised in the Spirit of Christ and for his glory:

• tender-hearted strength
• contrite courage
• risk-taking decisiveness
• sacrificial leadership, protection, and provision
• humble initiative-taking

He went on:

... I conclude that God has given Christianity a masculine feel. And, being a God of love, he has done it for the maximum flourishing of men and women. He did not create women to languish, or be frustrated, or in any way to suffer or fall short of full and lasting joy, in a masculine Christianity. She is a fellow heir of the grace of life (1 Peter 3:7). From which I infer that the fullest flourishing of women and men takes place in churches and families where Christianity has this God-ordained, masculine feel. For the sake of the glory of women, and for the sake of the security and joy of children, God has made Christianity to have a masculine feel. He has ordained for the church a masculine ministry.

I find that I do not agree. For those of you who are given to over-reaction, just breathe—I am allowed to disagree and I’m sure Piper is just fine with people disagreeing. If you don’t have a category for charitable disagreement on secondary matters, you need to develop one! I still love the man, but want to offer an alternative to his masculine Christianity. 

An Alternative

I believe it is a category mistake to say that Christianity is either masculine or feminine just as it would be a category mistake to say that Christianity is Caucasian or African-American or young or old. It exists beyond or outside of such categories. I affirm that male headship is clearly laid out in the Bible, that God assigns church leadership to qualified men, and that God has given to men certain traits or virtues that allow them to lead well. However, it does not follow from these facts that the Christian faith ought to feel more masculine than feminine. 

A couple of weeks ago Carl Trueman posted a review of a new book from G.R. Evans. Trueman had read The Roots of the Reformation: Tradition, Emergence, and Rupture in the hope that he would be able to use it as a text for his Reformation History classes. Very quickly he came to see that it would not be suitable, saying, “The Reformation section is unfortunately replete with errors of historical fact, some of which are very serious, even if a few are possibly the result of typos. The sheer number of these errors renders the book a liability in the classroom and undermines its stated purpose as a textbook.”

After documenting a long list of errors—and even then only the errors that he noticed on the basis of one read—he came to this conclusion: 

Sadly, the multitude of factual mistakes it contains render it a complete classroom liability.  Pace the stellar jacket commendations from some of the most learned Reformation scholars alive, I cannot recommend it other than as a salutary lesson in what happens when one writes too quickly and too confidently outside of one’s own field of expertise.  As a teacher, I cannot use this book because it does not do that which I require of a textbook: provide a reliable guide to names, dates and events.

IVP, the book’s publisher, responded well, immediately taking the book out of print and getting to work on a revised edition that will correct the errors. They have also promised to provide a complimentary copy of the second edition to anyone who purchased the first. This is a praiseworthy response.

Well and good. Because The Roots of the Reformation is a scholarly, historical work, it is one that few of us would know of but for Trueman’s review. However, I find this situation interesting because I think it points to a wider issue, and one I have been meaning to discuss for some time. Trueman hints at this in the conclusion of his review:

In short, this is a very curious book: curious for the fact that a fine scholar such as Professor Evans would produce such a seriously flawed piece of work; and curious for the fact that highly respected scholars have given it their imprimaturs in the form of glowing jacket commendations. Sadly, in line with the old proverb, you cannot judge this book by its cover. 

It is curious indeed that several highly respected scholars—J.I. Packer, Timothy George, and others among them—wrote endorsements for this book. What do you make of a book that receives such accolades as “superb” and “remarkable” and “essential reading,” and yet contains such a multitude of serious errors?

You may well conclude that many of the endorsers had not read the book or, at the very least, had not read it closely. And without accusing any of the people whose names appear on the back cover, that may well be the case. 

Have you seen the video of the orchestral flash mob in the Copenhagen metro? A couple of months ago the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra surprised a car full of passengers by setting up shop in the metro and performing Edvard Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” right there in the train. The video is not even two-and-a-half minutes long, so give it a watch.

Let me tell you why I find this a fascinating video. It begins with a crowd of people cramming into a metro car, just like they do every morning and evening, completely unaware that this ride will be different. A lot of them are plugged in to iPods or other devices, but as the orchestra begins to play, the headphones come off. Moments ago this was a train full of individuals lost in their own little media worlds, but in an instant it becomes a community joined together by their shared experience of this music. Each one of them instinctively knows that what they have the opportunity to experience here and now is better than what they may experience over their headphones or on their screens. Headphones are pulled off, blank stares are replaced by smiles. There is an immediate transformation.

But then something else happens. Many of those who turned off their music now exchange it for their video cameras. The device that pumped out music now captures video. They perceive that they are experiencing something remarkable and with the click of a few buttons they begin to record it. It seems unremarkable today; it is the expected action—you grab your phone and starting recording video.

But why? Why would they record this performance? They have an opportunity here to enjoy something entirely unique and something uniquely beautiful, but so many of them get only half of the experience because they now become reporters instead of an audience. My guess is that many of them don’t even have a conscious thought about what they are doing; they record it because that is just what we do today. We have trained ourselves to respond to great experiences by making sure we digitize them. If we can’t post it to Facebook and YouTube, if we can’t give evidence of what we’ve experienced, it’s like we haven’t experienced it at all.

Today my parents and brothers and sisters and brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews are gathering in a little house in Chattanooga. Forty years ago today, the third of June of 1972, was a double celebration for my parents: my father marked his twenty-third birthday and he married my mother. Both had been born and raised in Quebec, one of the most unchurched areas in all of North America, yet against all odds both had recently encountered the gospel and been saved. Fresh out of university, they began life together. Andrew, my older brother, came into the world almost a year after they were married, and he was soon followed by me and then by three girls. By the time my parents celebrated their fifteenth anniversary, they had five children.

Today four of those children have settled in Atlanta or Chattanooga or somewhere between, while one, this one, remains in Canada. Four children are married and between us we have been blessed with children of our own--twelve grandchildren for my parents (with one of my sisters having recently announced that number thirteen is on the way). The Lord has been so kind to my family.

As I ponder forty years of marriage, more than thirty-six of which I witnessed either up-close or from some distance, I find myself wondering this: How do you measure success as parents? What is a fair and realistic measure? Is it subjective, based on thoughts and feelings and impressions? Is it objective, based on numbers and statistics and dollar figures? I don't know. What I do know is that the Bible provides a simple and overarching command to every parent: raise your children in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. According to that measure my parents experienced an abundance of the Lord's grace and were successful. Today each one of the five children professes faith in Christ and each one is living as if that profession is genuine.

Yesterday I sat for some time and pondered their success. I looked to my own life and my own parenting to see what lessons I've drawn from my parents and applied to my own family. There are four that stood out.

Ann Voskamp sent me an email the other day. She invited me to bring my family to the Voskamp farm for a meal--they live just a couple of hours from us--to put people to the pixels, so to speak. It was a kind invitation and well-received. I am hoping that my family and hers can coordinate our calendars and make it happen.

Voskamp's invitation came just a day after I reviewed her book One Thousand Gifts. I have a long history of reviewing books at this site. I didn't set out to be a book reviewer--it just kind of happened. I love to read and I love to analyze what I've read. From there it is just a short step to put those thoughts into pixels and to post them for the world to see. I've done this five or six hundred times over the years, reviewing the good, the bad and the ugly of Christian publishing.

While I wouldn't classify One Thousand Gifts as one of those books that inhabits the full-out ugly side of Christian publishing, neither did I find that I was able to recommend it. In fact, in my review I went so far as to say that it could well prove to be dangerous to some readers. The thread of mysticism influenced by the likes of Nouwen and Manning and Willard, the language of sexuality and ecstasy--these are genuinely troubling and I stand by the concerns I raised. If Ann and I manage to get together, I hope we can discuss these things as I will gladly share my concerns in far more words than I could use in my review. From the little I know of her, I believe she will be eager to hear and engage.

It bears saying as well that I feel no moral quandary about reviewing her book or any other and even warning of potential weaknesses. Any author who releases a book acknowledges that it is entering into the public sphere and may receive both praise and criticism. This is an inevitable component of making writing available to the public and it is one that authors welcome; it is an honor that other people consider your ideas worth discussing.

Having said all of that, something happened inside me when I saw Ann's name in my inbox, and that's what has compelled me to write this little article. Seeing her name brought a sudden and surprising realization and with it a twinge of guilt and remorse. It has happened to me before, this strange feeling that comes when I suddenly realize that the name on the front of the book--"Ann Voskamp" in this case--is not some cleverly programmed, unfeeling robot that spits out blog posts and magazine articles and books, but a person. A real person. That should have been no great revelation, yet there have been too many times over the years that I have had to remind myself of this simple fact. I try to remind myself before posting a review; sometimes it only comes later.

As I read back over my review of One Thousand Gifts I could see that I had neglected to remind myself while writing it that Voskamp is a real person and, not only that, but a sister in Christ. As a writer myself, I ought to remember that words are meaningful and revealing and in some way a part of the person who writes them. Every word comes from somewhere deep inside. Every word of One Thousand Gifts is a part of Voskamp just like every word I write is a part of me. There are no idle words in her book, no words that aren't felt and meant. Yet in my review I had treated her as if her words mean less than mine, as if I was free to criticize her in a way I would not want to be criticized.

Near the center of every religion is a ledger. Every religion acknowledges, on one level or another, that people do good things and bad things and every religion then maintains a tally, supposing that one day there will come a reckoning. Every religion hopes that on the day of accounting, the day of the audit, the good will outnumber or outweigh the bad. There is hope for those who come to that day with a surplus and no hope for those who come with a deficit.

Islam acknowledges sin—deeds that contradict the will of Allah—and calls its adherents to do good that will outweigh the bad. Good deeds are repentance, prayer and certain acts of charity and kindness. Each of these go in the ledger as credits meant to balance the debits.

Judaism acknowledges sin—violations of God’s commandments—and calls on its adherents to make atonement, reparation of relationship with God, through the good work of repentance, through making right the wrongs done to another person, through prayer and devotion. Each of these is a black entry in the ledger that may outweigh the red.

Buddhism acknowledges sin, or something like it, and calls on its adherents to avoid it in favor of something higher and better. Bad deeds bring bad karma which must be outweighed by the good deeds that bring about good karma. When the accounting comes, the good must outweigh the bad, or fate will not be kind.

Hinduism acknowledges deeds that draw us toward and deeds that draw us away, though a Hindu would hesitate to describe such deeds as sin. Still, it calls on its adherents to repent of what they have done that is bad and to restore parity with repentance or acts of contrition.

In God’s revelation of himself to Moses on Mount Sinai, he says that he is “slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6). However, later in the Old Testament, in the prophecy about Christ in Psalm 2, we are told to “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled“ (2:12).

So which is it? Is God slow to anger or is he quick to wrath? It can’t be both, can it?

It seems to me that the answer lies in understanding that there is a distinction between “getting angry” and “kindling wrath.” Getting angry refers to the attitude God has toward his creation. Kindling wrath refers to the ways in which he acts out that attitude.

In this sense, we can affirm both: God is slow to become angry, as he tells Moses on Mount Sinai (and repeats throughout the rest of Scripture (see Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:15, etc.). But after he is angered, his wrath, the means through which that anger is manifested, can be kindled quickly.

Romans 2:4-5 captures this distinction powerfully. After mentioning how the people have been presuming upon “the riches of [God’s] kindness and forbearance and patience” (referring to the slowness of God’s anger), Paul says that they are storing up wrath for themselves “on the day of wrath,” which, as we know from Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, will come quickly, “like a thief in the night.”

Ultimately, each of these is true and each of them is a blessing to us. The fact that God is slow to anger means that there is time and opportunity for us to repent of our sin. The fact that he is quick to wrath guards us against presuming upon his mercy and prolonging our rebellion.

(For a look at other apparent contradictions in the Bible, see Justified by Faith or Works?, Who Incited David?, and That Pesky Rooster.)