Death and Beyond

"'Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me (John 5:39).'

"A mysterious disconnect exists between the amount of biblical material about death and Western theology's scant reliance on that body of Scripture to universally explain what happens when life ends. In a vague way, we assume to understand what occurs after our last breath, but do we really? Can we say with surety what happens next? Where precisely do we go, and when do we get there? Are we able to point to ancient authoritative sources and say, 'See, here it is?' Due to the fuzzy nature or our current ideas, the hodgepodge of religious speculations dealing with the afterlife are more likely an outgrowth of popular culture, religious songs, and anecdotal stories instead of solid biblical texts or early Judeo-Christian orthodoxy.

"This quandary is probably a modern anomaly since medieval society was more familiar with the certainty of dying than we are. The disassociation with spiritual reality might be a product of advancements in science and medicine that give us a false notion of immortality; however, nothing could be farther from the truth. Unquestionably, we will all die, and guaranteed that fact, a knowledge of what immediately follows the cessation of life is an asset worth having, not only for peace of mind here but also for advanced preparation until we get there, especially regarding faith-based groups like Christianity. If anyone should master the questions and answers dealing with the transition between life and death, it should be the Church.

"Maybe the somber nature of death makes us avoid the subject, or possibly the opposite is true. Our illiteracy of God's Word might be the reason death seems so cryptic and foreboding, thus creating our shortsighted ignorance of the topic. Regardless, Jesus admonished us to pull our heads from the sand, search the Scripture, and make sure that our doctrines actually match God's source material... hence the purpose of this book."