Heaven in the American Imagination

Heaven in the American Imagination
Author: Gary Scott Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2011-06-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199831971

Does heaven exist? If so, what is it like? And how does one get in? Throughout history, painters, poets, philosophers, pastors, and many ordinary people have pondered these questions. Perhaps no other topic captures the popular imagination quite like heaven. Gary Scott Smith examines how Americans from the Puritans to the present have imagined heaven. He argues that whether Americans have perceived heaven as reality or fantasy, as God's home or a human invention, as a source of inspiration and comfort or an opiate that distracts from earthly life, or as a place of worship or a perpetual playground has varied largely according to the spirit of the age. In the colonial era, conceptions of heaven focused primarily on the glory of God. For the Victorians, heaven was a warm, comfortable home where people would live forever with their family and friends. Today, heaven is often less distinctively Christian and more of a celestial entertainment center or a paradise where everyone can reach his full potential. Drawing on an astounding array of sources, including works of art, music, sociology, psychology, folklore, liturgy, sermons, poetry, fiction, jokes, and devotional books, Smith paints a sweeping, provocative portrait of what Americans-from Jonathan Edwards to Mitch Albom-have thought about heaven.

HEAVEN

HEAVEN
Author: Michael G. Maness
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2004-12-01
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1468512781

In heaven we shall know everlasting rest and the full measure of our inheritance. Though no eye has seen what God has prepared for us, from Revelation 21-22 we can understand a little of what heaven will feel like. We shall know a new freedom, economy, purity, peace, and so much more. Those will be the simple experiences. The greater experiences will be in everlasting love, most especially in an everlasting marriage and an enduring intimate community. Likewise, we shall know a growing and everlasting security within our grand heritage within God’s promises and in the work of Christ. Yet the greatest experience of all is also the hardest to understand, because it is the farthest removed from our earthly experience. The greatest experience of all will be that—for the rest of our everlasting loving lives—we will share in the very life and glory of our dynamic and loving God, our loving Father and Abba. The greatest experience in heaven will be the very life and light that we share with God Himself, so very personal and loving to the uttermost.