It's like thinking you're going to heaven, but when you get there it turns out to be Cleveland.
It's not about going to church every week because you know there's a lot of people who go to church all of the time who aren't going to heaven. It's not even about that, it's not about kissing God's ass, it's about being aware.
I do know I'm going to heaven. I have read all of the Scriptures and the passages that define paradise and things like that. To me, what matters is I'm going to be with Jesus and I'm going to be in his presence. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. At that point, you know some to judgment, some to salvation.
Often the Jesus-focused churches are leaning towards a 'social gospel' interpretation of the kingdom, and the 'Paul' churches are talking about being saved from sin and going to heaven. But when we understand both Jesus and Paul in their historical contexts within the first-century Jewish world, the issues become both more complex and ultimately (I believe) more clear.
A lot of arguments happen among religious and non religious people about the question of who's going to hell and who's going to heaven and uh, a lot of times Christians get into this argument by saying 'we have the only way to heaven.' And uh, people often ask me what do I think is the way to heaven. I have a problem when they ask me this question because it assumes that the primary purpose of Jesus' coming and the primary message of Jesus was a message about how to get to heaven.
One day of praying and six days of fun, the odds against going to heaven are six to one.
Nirvana isn't a physical place. It is not like going to heaven. It just means no more individualized awareness, no aggregate body of experience.
Something larger is happening than just going to heaven.
And they would ask, well, now, are you one of those narrow-minded Baptists who think only Baptists are going to heaven? To which I enjoy replying, now actually I'm more narrow than that, I don't think all the Baptists are going to make it.
I think I'll be going to Heaven, because I had good intentions. But my actions are another thing.
I don't think we've got the gospel right yet. What does it mean to be 'saved'? When I read the Bible, I don't see it meaning, 'I'm going to heaven after I die.' Before modern evangelicalism nobody accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, or walked down an aisle, or said the sinner's prayer.
We have two boys. After George Zimmerman was found not guilty of killing Trayvon Martin, we had to explain to our older son, who was 12 at the time, how that could happen. Instead of hugging and consoling him, my husband pulled out a documentary about Emmett Till and showed it to him and started to talk about how the justice system works in this country - and how it often doesn't. From that conversation, our son wrote a short story about Trayvon Martin going to heaven to meet Emmett Till.
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