• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2311 0

change in American notions of the afterlife: very few of us think we are going to hell or even that we are in danger of going to hell. In fact, very few of us outside of the right wing conservatives take hell’s existence seriously at all. We must never forget that the lines of causation between our current lives and our hopes for the future are bidirectional. Our current lives affect our notions of the afterlife; our notions of the afterlife affect our behavior in this one. In most of our permissive society, a vision of hell would probably be greeted with disbelief by most Americans and even by derisive laughter by some. Our desire to do away with hell is natural enough, but it may not be because we want to sin with impunity. It may just as easily be due to our loss of a sure sense that our individual religions are the only right ones. Because we feel our society’s notions of equality are divinely endowed, we may be losing the easy surety that any American whose religion differs from us is automatically damned. That could be indicative that an incipiently multicultural society is forming in the United States as old parochialisms fade.

What Americans Actually Think about Heaven

FOR THE MAJORITY of Americans, heaven has become a virtual democratic entitlement. Surely we tend to project on our view of a happy afterlife those things that we think are best, most lasting, virtuous, and meaningful in this life while eliminating those things we think are the most difficult, frustrating, evil, and inessential. The data are mostly from Christians, but the description of heaven is in some ways a projective test for all Americans, with adjustment for the specifically Christian doctrines. Here is a basic list of talking points, taken from Gallup and Castelli:

The afterlife will be a better life and a good life.

There will be no more problems or troubles. “No trials and tribulations … worries and cares will vanish … no worries, no cares, no sorrows. I think to be worried all the time would really be awful.”

There will be no more sickness or pain.

The afterlife will be a spiritual, not a physical realm. “Totally spiritual … lack of physical limitations … there’s not going to be a three dimensional experience.”

It will be peaceful. “I think we’ we’ll be more peaceful because you really live your hell on earth.”

The afterlife will be happy and joyful, no sorrow.

Those who make it to heaven will be happy.

They will be in the presence of God or Jesus Christ.

There will be love between people.

God’s love will be the center of life after death.

Crippled people will be whole.

People in heaven will grow spiritually.

They will see friends, relatives, or spouses.

They will live forever.

There will be humor….

People in heaven will grow intellectually.

They will have responsibilities.

They will minister to the spiritual needs of others.

Those in heaven will be recognizable as the same people that they were on earth.

There will be angels in heaven.19

It is significant that few of the descriptions of heaven contain depictions of explicitly Christian doctrines. We see in these descriptions a significant ranking of values in American life this side of eternity. The first series of points deal with personal and familial happiness. The second express the importance of work, accomplishment, and looking after others, some of which would be very unusual priorities in past European visions of heaven and incomprehensible in ancient ones. Significantly among Americans, humor is often cited as an important component of heavenly life, arguably because we use humor to dispel tension over ethnic and regional differences. Indeed, our American notions of a competitive economy-positive growth, positive development, continuous education-are deeply enshrined in our contemporary notions of heaven.

These points are a litmus test of American goals and values, “transcendent” and ultimate values as seen from our perspective in the early twenty-first century, even