Near-Death Experiences
and Christian Theology

 

a brief summary:  Basically, I think we should not use Near Death Experiences to form-or-modify Christian theology, instead we should rely on the Bible.  When there is a question where an NDE and the Bible differ — and this often happens — we should choose to believe the Bible, not the NDE.

 

I.O.U. – Soon, during mid-June 2019, I will continue developing this page, which now is very incomplete & rough.  Below you'll find a few things worth reading now — especially links to other web-pages — plus a rough outline of ideas that I will develop later.

 

Links:

Dr Isaac Winston (President of Impact Ministries) describes reasons that we should "believe the Bible, not the NDE" when we're reading Heaven is For Real, in his book review (2011).

Dr Jeffrey Gibbs, (writing for ConcordiaTheology.org) gives gentle-yet-firm advice ("believe the Bible") in his book review (2011) of Heaven is For Real.

Hank Hanegraaff (main researcher/writer for Christian Research Institute) explains – in 10 reasons – why he "considers the movie Heaven Is for Real to be a dangerous diversion."

Heaven is For Real, popular among Christians, has extremely good reviews on Amazon:  on June 9, 2019, the book averaged 4.7 (for 15282 reviews), the movie is 4.5 (for 5388) -- but there are some who disagree (for a variety of reasons), as in these reviews with 1 star and 2 stars.

 

a general reason for caution:  In the Bible we see many resurrections — done by God thru Elijah & Elisha (2?) and by Jesus (3) and of Jesus, plus many saints (during His crucifixion), and later by Peter & Paul, and in the future (prophesied in Revelation) of the two witnesses, and (in John 5 & Revelation) the General Resurrection(s) — but there are no reports about After-Death Experiences (ADEs?).   If God thought it was important for us to know details of “what will happen” after our death, He could have told us in the Bible, but He didn't.

 

what causes NDEs?  I don't know for sure (and neither do others, even if they claim to know), but here are some possibilities:  maybe it's...  an experience of actual after-Death reality;*  an experience of actual near-Death (but before-Death) reality;  an experience that has a natural cause (like oxygen deprivation of a person who is very physiologically-stressed because they're close to death);  a humanly generated psychological fantasy;  human fraud that's intended to fool people and “get something” from them;  a communication from a spiritual being, which could be from a good being (from God or His servant angels) or a bad being (from rebel angels, evil spirits);  or a combination, with two or more of these;  or maybe the cause of a particular NDE is something I'm not imagining.  I say "particular NDE" because the cause might differ from one NDE to another.

* But this is unlikely because of the N in NDE.  We always should remember that these are NEAR-Death Experiences, not AFTER-Death Experiences.

 

NDE-Theologies versus Bible-based Theology?

Here is one way an NDE could contradict what's taught in the Bible:

    for example, if an ND-Experiencer claims they (and others) have a body NOW, before The General Resurrection of all people (John 5:28-29) when we will enter our final Heaven, with a total experiencing of Heaven.

    Also, maybe before this General Resurrection — during an Intermediate State between Our Death and The Resurrection of Everyone — people don't have bodies (this is very likely) and also don't have conscious “souls without bodies” existing in a pre-Heaven, before the final (actual) Heaven that occurs after the General Resurrection;  the Bible seems unclear about this, and maybe we just sleep (not being mentally active), and probably we don't have bodies that can see-and-hear, as often depicted in popular culture.   /   Glenn Peoples has a 5-part series of podcasts "In Search of the Soul", and in the conclusion (search for "33" on this page) he examines what the Bible says about "soul" and basically it's that people don't HAVE souls, instead we ARE souls;  i.e. when the Bible (OT & NT) uses the word translated as "soul" this is the whole person, not a part of them.

Eben Alexander, Harvard Neurosurgeon, got 3 key principles from his NDE -- “You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.” – “You have nothing to fear.” – “There is nothing you can do wrong.”   But...  although #1 seems biblically-ok,   #2 is comforting (but sometimes we should feel uncomfortable) it's biblically-questionable and is definitely-unbiblical when it means what most people will think it means, because the Bible teaches us that we should fear God and (because of #1) we also should love God and trust God,   and #3 is a definitely-unbiblical view of human sinfulness.

 

PLURALISM:

Typically, NDEs → claims for pluralism (all religious paths lead to God), because the ND-Experiencer's religious worldview (of God, etc) depends on their culture, their prior knowledge & experiences, and their worldview seems to influence what they observe-and-interpret, or what they imagine, in ways that make their own religion appear in a better way.

Some web-page writers say that Colton Burpo's NDE is, in some important ways, very unlike other NDEs.

Here is a negative (anti-Christian) cultural stereotype:  zombies (who become sub-humans after rising from dead, less than fully alive, not more fully "alive" as the Bible tells us) are evil monsters -- e.g. this would apply to Jesus, plus Lazarus (brother of Mary & Martha) and others whose resurrection was recorded in the Bible.

 

 

you can ignore these:

resurrections: [saints, M27:52-53], witnesses [Re 11:11], [John 5:28-29, Rev 20:4–6,12–13]

visions from Revelation (chapters 20-22) is about heaven-in-future, not what can be experienced now