Life abundant after death

The young Palestinian men who volunteer to become human bombs and commit suicide in order to punish/kill others appear to have a vivid sense of abundant life after death. They receive this faith and the description of such immortality from their Islamic teachers.

I mention this phenomenon, which is also common in groups living in the Middle East, the Arab world, and places life Pakistan, not to seek to analyze it. Rather my purpose is to note that amongst YOUNG MEN belief in the LORD GOD, Creator and Judge, and in LIFE AFTER DEATH with God is very real, so real that they are prepared to live/die in the light of it and for it.

In contrast, in the West, because of what we call secularization, it is difficult to find any young men, even church-attending young men, who have a vivid belief in, and sense of, the gift of eternal life.

In the main-line, old-line churches, there is very little evidence that members live their daily lives “watching and praying” for the Coming of the Son of God in glory, or thinking and behaving as if they were merely pilgrims and sojourners in this world. Rather, religion seems to be very much for this world and for appropriate comforts and blessing in this life with the occasional nod to belief in heaven. And, in the churches with more conservative theological traditions, while there is a lip service given to the gift of eternal life and the threat of hell, this does not seem to have much effect upon the general life-style and deportment of the members.

Of course, within the life of the Church through history up to the present day, there is a persisting and pervasive witness wherein Christians’ hearts are so set on things above, where Christ is, that they are prepared to give all and sacrifice all for him, even if this means martyrdom or persecution or early death.

That is, there have always been Christian people (even if rare in the West now) who are so committed to the kingdom of heaven that for them all other reality is secondary and subservient. And, strange to relate, Christians of this kind have usually been of more earthly use than those whose minds were set on things below!

Part of the spiritual weakness of American Christianity (which has many adherents and much money and influence) is that it is earthly-minded, so secularized that the authentic Christian whose mind is set on things above (Colossians 3:1ff) is seen as an oddity or a nuisance by the majority.

I get the impression that there is very little desire within Western Christianity of either the liberal or conservative varieties to recover the sense that we are to be pilgrims and sojourners in this world for it is not our home. We seem to want to accommodate the Christian Faith to being mostly about this world, with only an appendix about the life of the world above us, beyond us and to come.

One question that arises is – Are we seeking to be genuine Christians? Or are we better described as religious people using the Christian tradition as a source for our religion?

The Rev’d Dr. Peter Toon , October 10, 2001