The problem with our dualistic approach to life and death (i.e. the separation of “this world” and the “next world”) is that it tends to create this phenomena called the “God of the gaps” or the deus ex machina.

The “God of the gaps” is when there’s a knowledge void or a valley of difficulty that we either can’t comprehend or don’t want to deal with so we simply stick God in the gap.

Question: “Why did my sister die so young?

God of the gap answer:  “We can’t always understand God’s plan, but we know it’s for the best.”

Question: “What happens after we die?”

God of the gap answer:  “God brings us to paradise.”

When it comes to death and the difficult journey that it produces for the living, the God of the gaps answer is simply “heaven.”

Honestly, I think Christians have a better answer than “heaven” and that is the idea of resurrection.

Today, believers tend to focus on heaven, while keeping the idea of resurrection as a tertiary sub point.  But, it would seem, that it should be the other way around.  Resurrection is at the center of Christian understanding, while heaven is secondary.

The idea of resurrection is that life can come out of death.

The dualistic idea of heaven has little benefit for grief work, as it expects life after this life.  But, the idea of resurrection is that which is lifeless is being given new life in the here and now; not in the hereafter.  That despite all the evidence to the contrary, there is hope in our grief, hope in our despair, hope for the future, hope for the present.

Resurrection takes what we have and breathes life into it.  It doesn’t look to replace this world and solve all of our fears in the future; but it gets dirty, messy, now.

Every time we choose guilt, we deny the resurrection.  Every time we choose bitterness towards a family member or the deceased, we deny the resurrection.  Every time we choose hatred of the deceased or of ourselves for not “stopping it” or “doing more”, we deny the resurrection.  Every time we choose to be guarded and elect NOT to heal, we are denying the resurrection.

Resurrection life says keep on walking through your difficulty … there’s hope.

Resurrection life says embrace your doubts, strength is in silence.

Resurrection life says it’s okay to fear, to cry, to struggle.

There is life in death.

Resurrection, though, is a not a rejection of the body for the spiritual realm, but a renewing, redeeming of the present condition.  The resurrection brings heaven to earth; not earth to heaven.  When we work through the here and now with love and compassion for ourselves and others, when we deal with the gap – the questions and the difficulty — we advance our grief work and bring the future to the present … we look to bring heaven to earth.

And, you’re opinions are probably wrong.

If heaven exists at all, it – by definition — is much different than what you or I imagine it to be.  And while my religion’s scripture (Christianity) has little to say about what heaven is like, it seems that my religion’s preachers – especially the ones at funerals – know much more about it than their Bible.

So, here are eight common ideas about heaven that I think are false.

Heaven is not …

One.  An opiate.  Like religion, heaven has too often been used as an opiate to blind people to the dismal reality that someone is in fact dead.

Two.  It’s probably not about you.  It’s selfishness that has made this place so shitty.  So, if heaven is better than what exists today, it will probably only happen when we are somehow drawn out of self-absorption by something greater (i.e. God).

Three.  A product of subjective validation. If you find heaven meaningful, good for you.  But, that doesn’t mean it exists.  Just because you like the idea of an eternal life where everything is unicorns and butterflies is not proof for heaven being an actual reality.

Four.  Subject to wishful thinking.  “In heaven I’m going to have a Ferrari with Kathy Ireland as my wife.  I’ll dress her up in My Little Pony outfits and I’ll play Black Ops all day.  Oh yeah, and grandpa will be there too and we’ll fly around together on the back of my Pegasus.”  Probably not.

Five.  A product of communal reinforcement.  If the only reason you believe in heaven is because your family believes in heaven and because everybody wants to believe in heaven, you probably haven’t thought about it too much.  And any perception you have about heaven probably sucks.

Six. Escapism.  Or, an excuse to trash this world because it’s going to be destroyed anyways (some evangelicals believe this.)  If anything, I believe in an inaugural eschatology that is bringing heaven to earth as opposed to bringing us earthlings to heaven.

Seven.  Hedonism.  A place where we can do whatever the hell we want.  Yeah, that place – if it exists – is called Las Vegas.

Eight.  A certainty.  That’s right.  It’s a hope, not a certainty.  It’s a valid hope during death.  It has a valid place in our lives now, but you simply can’t prove its existence empirically.  In some sense, we are creating heaven.  We are bringing it into existence.  And its creation is conditioned on us losing our egotistical outlook.  Heaving is becoming, but it’s not a certainty.

I have some problems with the idea of heaven.  I know, you might hate me for saying that.

The Barna Group says 81% of Americans believe in the afterlife.

The Washington Post quotes 75%.

The Council of Secular Humanism states 55% definitely believe in life after.

Anyway you look at, the majority of us believe in life after death.  My problem has less to do with the idea of the afterlife and more to do with how we use it.  The afterlife is powerful; and like most powerful things, its easily abused.  The easiest abuse that arises is that we can pay more attention to the life after than the life here and now.  As the saying goes, we become so heavenly focused that we become no earthly good.

This plays out especially during death and dying.

The “Don’t grieve, deary, your husband is with Jesus” cliché, death-related responses hit right at the heart of what I’m trying to communicate.

To start with, religious believers have a very difficult time accepting their grief as legitimate because many worship a god who is impassible … who is without emotion.  We emulate what we worship and nothing is unhealthier than humanity trying to act like their unemotive deity during times of distress, pain and death.

Compound that with the belief that death isn’t really real … that death is the pathway to another life … that we shouldn’t grieve because “your husband is with Jesus” and we have a recipe for disastrous dishonesty about our pain in death.

Religious people tend to downplay tragedy with clichés like:

“It’s God’s will”

“God meant it for good.”

“We don’t always understand God’s mysterious plans.”

And in the same way, we use the powerful antidote of the afterlife to downplay our grief and pain during times of death:

“At least you know he’s in a better place.”

“You can be happy to know she’s in the arms of Jesus.”

All this speaks to repression, delusion and the tendency to skip the first four stages of Kubler-Ross’ grief model and go right to a faux form of “acceptance.”

And this is why I think it’s unhealthy.  It’s unhealthy because it can too easily take away your grief work.  It’s a “get out of pain for free” card that all too many play to the detriment of their personal growth.  In the same way that I disdain a person buying a fake online PhD, so do I distain this attempt to skip the labor of grief, the growth of grief and the personal evaluation that inevitably comes with death.

Heaven’s the trump card.

The “Easy Button”.

We become so heavenly minded that we’re no good at grief.  We can become so heavenly focused, that we forget the here and now.  We see death as unreal, as almost fake; and we become just like our view of it.

(Either this week or the next, I’ll post a follow-up called, “How Heaven Can Help Grief Work.”)

We hear these stories a couple times a year.  And I want to believe them.  Those who tell us these stories, tell them with such conviction, such sincerity that I believe the stories themselves are true; but did the dying person REALLY see Jesus … and their parents … before they died?

The interpretation of these stories is where I start to question.

“We just know that Jesus was there, in the room, welcoming mom to heaven!”  And I respond, “That’s amazing!  Wow!  You know for certain where your mom is at!”  But I don’t always believe my own words.

It seems like every other year somebody with a near death experience (NDE) has these incredible visions of heaven, they write a book about it and make their millions (See “Heaven is For Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back” for a more recent contribution).

But what happens if these NDEs are simply concoctions of end-of-life chemical reactions?

Dr. Rick Strassman, while conducting DMT research at the University of New Mexico, proposed that a massive release of Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) from the pineal gland prior to death or near death was the cause of the near death experience (NDE).

DMT Inspired Artwork

DMT is a psychedelic drug, producing intense visuals, euphoria and hallucinations; and, according to Dr. Rick Strassman, near death experiences.  In fact, DMT is an illegal drug that you can find on the streets.  So, if you want a near-death hallucination, go ahead and try some.  You can – to some degree – chemically induce a NDE, where you’ll see angels, celestial bodies, heaven … or maybe, if it’s a bad trip, you’ll see the other side.  Philosopher Terence McKenna suggested that DMT is a pathway drug to other worlds, as most people who use DMT hallucinate heaven and hell type experiences.

But, Strassman’s hypothesis that the human body produces massive amounts of DMT near death has yet to proven.  Even if Strassman’s hypothesis that DMT is the hallucinogenic cause of NDE is false, it still is very possible that other chemicals produce visions of the celestial.  We just don’t know for certain, but we hope.

And I imagine hope may be the main drug behind NDE.  We hope that heaven waits at death.  We hope that Jesus is awaiting us, to welcome us into heaven.  We hope that heaven is real.  And that hope may be founded on reality, or mere hallucination; but we still hope.

*****

Steve Jobs will be remember for being an innovative visionary.  His vision, in fact, was so expansive that we’ll be enjoying his technological legacy for possible decades into the future.

And yet, there’s part of me that wants to speculate that Jobs innovation and vision extended past the technological realm and touched religion and maybe even theology.

Apple developed an almost otherworldly, religious mystic that I think Jobs consciously enjoyed and even planned.

He seemed to weave biblical imagery into his very brand image.

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.  The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Nobody knows what kind of tree it was, but many assume — for a reason that escapes my six years of theological education — it was an apple tree.

I don’t know why church history has assumed an Apple tree … but we have.  The story continues:

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

They ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil … the “tree of wisdom.”

*****

Now look at Jobs’ brand image.

I’m just speculating, but I think Steve Jobs was a visionary.   Okay.  That’s no speculation.

But this is:  I think he was a theological visionary.

I think he was re-narrating Genesis.  He was attempting to cast an alternate vision.

Maybe I’m reading into the symbol too much, but I don’t think I am.

Could the same knowledge that lead us out of Eden bring us back into it?

What is the end of technology?  The ultimate endgame of our tech?

Isn’t it Eden?  Was that Jobs vision?  Did he think that maybe we could find Eden with the knowledge we obtained from Eden? Is that what the Apple logo evoked in his mind?

Like I said.  All speculation.

And speculation or not, it does raise some visionary/futurist questions that I’m sure Mr. Jobs would have loved to talk about.  Here are some of those questions:

What are the limitations of technology?

What is the future of technology?

Is it possible to recreate Eden apart from God?

Or, maybe the only way to recreate Eden is without a God?

After all, isn’t God the source of all the tension, all the strife and hatred in this world?

Maybe the only way back to Eden is to march into it and kick God out?

Or, maybe God was gracious enough to give us knowledge in our rebellion, so as to create a path back to Eden?

Maybe technology is part of God’s attempt to bring us back to the garden?

*****

Maybe.

The Jews couldn’t accept Jesus because he didn’t fit their understanding of “Messiah.”  They expected strength of armies, he brought a strength of peace.  They expected a political kingdom, and he did something entirely different.

Their eschatology was so wrong, so off the mark of what God was actually doing that many of them literally walked right by their Messiah and didn’t notice Him (of course, they would still disagree to this day).

And so, as Christians, we like to think we know the future.  We like to think God has told us how the future works.

But, let’s not forget that God’s people have been oblivious before.  Maybe we’re looking for the kingdom to come from the sky … from the heavens; but maybe it will come from earth?  Maybe Eden will be here, again, after all; and maybe technology will play a part. Maybe in 20 or 30 years the iRise offering eternal life is on sale down at the Apple store.

It could be.

I don’t know much about the future.  I deal with the dead.  That’s my job.  I’m nothing like the visionary Steve was.  His was a rare gift (CNN put out a great short doc on his tech advances [And, he was adopted ... something that I'll be sure to tell my children]).  And the world will miss him as we continue to enjoy the benefits of his vision well into the future.

If there’s a heritage Jobs left behind, it’s that it’s okay to dream.  It’s okay to see alternate futures.

And if Jobs was a sort of theologian, he might be right: there’s a place for technology in the Kingdom come.  I know there’s no Eden apart from Jesus, but maybe, just maybe, in the history books of the future, Steve Jobs will not only be remembered for what he gave to the world, but maybe he’ll be remember for what he gave to the people of God.

Most believers — and even nonbelievers — see heaven as a place of joy and love, where “ever tear is wiped away.”

But how can heaven exist if we are eternally separated from some of our relatives and friends?

For the truly loving person, will heaven be a kind of hell as we eternally remember the anguish and punishment of our unsaved loved ones?

Let’s look at a couple of assumptions within Christian community.

1.)  Eternal life is for those who benevolently love Jesus and love others.

2.)  Eternal hell is for those who don’t.

3.)  People who love others suffer with those who suffer.  (Assuming that compassion is a characteristic of love).

Let’s make a couple conclusions based on the previous assumptions:

1.)  The benevolent people who will be in heaven will suffer for those who are not in heaven.

2.)   Heaven for the benevolent will be a form of hell.  Those in heaven will eternally suffer with those in hell.

How can you enjoy heaven knowing that billions of sinners are suffering an eternity in hell?

*****

Both the assumptions and conclusions have been questioned by many within and without the church.  Which assumption/conclusion do you question?

If you agree with all the assumptions, how does or doesn’t this “problem” change your perspective of heaven?

Here’s how different Christians attempt to solve this problem:

1.  We nix the “love others” part by distancing ourselves in a type of isolationism that denigrates the “other.”

2.  In consideration of God’s great, offended glory, we realize that the sinner deserves eternal hell for their transgressions against God’s glory.

3.  We make salvation from a hell a simple commodity that is obtained by an easy, “I’m a sinner” prayer.

4.  We emphasize free will and culpability to such a degree that it makes it seem as though the sinner has CHOSEN hell … and is in the place he or she WANTS to be.

5.  We propose a type of annihilationism that sees hell as less than eternal.

6.  Universalism.

7.  We engage in missions, working tirelessly to see every soul save.

Which one of the above seven responses most resonate with you?

Then there are creatures that are biologically immortal. These creatures are not immortal in the “can never die” sense, they simply have no cellular senescence and would live “forever” barring disease or injury.  Although, theoretically, there is an aging plateau for these creatures that occurs from exterior damage, not from internal dying.

Biologically immortal creatures include the Turritopsis nutricula Jellyfish, Hydra, some lobsters, and planarian flatworms.

If the lobster can have eternal cell reproduction, and the Giant Tortoise has negligible senescence, why can’t humanity?

*****

This same question is being asked by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, the Methuselah Foundation and the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence.  It’s being asked because scientists like Marios Kyriazis are suggesting that negligible senescence is inevitable and biological immortality is likely in humans.

Who wouldn’t want immortality? Isn’t this the end that ALL of us are seeking? Isn’t it an innate desire planted within each of us?

Heaven and it’s various forms have motivated thousands of souls towards acts of glory and acts of … well … acts like the Crusades.  We’re all on a search to rediscover Eden.

What will happen if we get what we want?

What will happen if/when we engineer a pill/a medication/a five calorie juice drink that creates negligible senescence?

What happens when we produce Methuselahs on a regular basis?

What if Jesus’ view of heaven … of eternal life … happened … here … on earth?

Here’s what I think.

I don’t think negligible senescence will result from human evolution; rather it will most likely result from human manufacturing. If ever such a “Methuselah Pill” is manufactured, it will probably also be marketed.  It will be bought and sold by the powerful few who will amass their wealth and power over hundreds of years, creating a race of legitimate superhumans.

Such a race could/will rule the world.

Death as we know it is humanity’s accountability.  You can only become so powerful in one lifetime.  You’re hatred can only last so long.  Death, in many ways, is humanity’s greatest grace.

*****

Think about it: Snooki could produce 20 children.

Stalin might still be killing his people.

Sylvester Stallone could have made 45 Rocky movies

Barry Bond could have hit over 700 home runs.

We would be gods … we would be like God.

I would be out of business.  And the world would be WAAAAY overpopulated.

Yes, the world as we know it exists because of death.  Death defines our way of life.  And while I’m sure that if we’d have the ability to create a “Methuselah Pill” that we’d have the tech to solve overpopulation and the other sundry problems.  A whole new world would come into existence.  A world where the prevalence of immortality could only be rivaled by the lack of immorality.

A world with human immortality is a world we can’t fully comprehend. It would be a world of gods.  A new race … a new stage in the evolution of mankind.

*****

And all this begs the question: Do we want biological immortality?

Or, rather, I don’t like perfect me in the Greek philosophy sense of perfect, where I’m static, gloriously unmovable and unable to grow.  I like the unGreek idea of perfect me, where perfection is growth!  Where perfection is sometimes mistakes!

If the next “world” is an “afterlife” where we sit around like a bunch of 60 somethings at a high school reunion reminiscing about the old times, then take my name off the sign-up sheet.  Life is growth.  Eternal life is some type of eternal growth. But if the eternal is somehow after life, where we sit and admire both our own and God’s timeless perfection … then it’s not for me.

I want messy relationships with God and others. I want a place where it takes an eternity for the finite to exhaust the infinite.  I want a place that’s lived in … not some fancy mansion where every little piece of furniture is in its rightful place, where the white carpet can’t be tread upon and the windows can’t be smudged.  Give me the place where I can be myself and allow God and others to mold me as I interact with them.  I want a place that’s dirtied by the use of people.

****

But I have a secret doubt that I’m afraid to admit.  I’m afraid to admit it because this doubt could undermine both my legitimacy as a Christian and my ability to comfort people during their weakest moments.

Sometimes I doubt the whole resurrection and eternal life thing even exists. In fact, there’s times when I tell myself I have to learn to be content with this life because it could be all I’ll ever have.

I know that Jesus talks time and time again about eternal life, but is it possible that his understanding of eternal life is different than ours?  Yes, it’s possible.

For those of us that are Christians, sometimes it’s the highest expression of our faith to believe in something that’s unseen. And so it’s hard to admit when we doubt about the seemingly certain promises of the unseen eternal life that’s promised in God’s Word.  It’s as though we’re being faithless and, in a sense, unChristian if we doubt and question the life to come after death.

Realizing that few of us are brave enough to put our doubts out in the public for all to question, I’ve set up this anonymous poll.

Please answer honestly.  I realize that many have NO doubts about eternal life.  And I also realize that some of you have totally written off eternal life as a type of “opiate for the masses”. Either way, feel free to respond according to what you believe.

Once you take the poll, it will show you the results.

[polldaddy poll=5986253]

Maybe Steve scripted those last words to perpetuate his legacy as this age’s greatest creative.  Or, maybe it was his body’s near death endorphins over stimulating his neurological system to the point of hallucination.

I believe they’re all possibilities and its fun to think about those possibilities.  I’d like to suggest that it’s also possible that Steve, the Buddhist, was worshipping with his last words … that the great creative / visionary could have been seeing a clear vision of the Creator.

And the idea of purgatory creates this possibility.

*****

Roman Catholics divide the Church into three different groups:

The Church Militant: Christians who are in the world now, battling sin and the devil.

The Church Triumphant: believers who have passed from this world, having overcome sin and the devil and now dwell in heaven.

The final group is where most Protestants, evangelicals and Pentecostals part with the Roman Catholics, and this group is called:

The Church Suffering: This division of the church belongs to those that need to be perfected through farther discipline before they enter heaven.  And this imperfect group of Christians finds perfection in purgatory, where they will stay until they are purged from venial (forgivable) sins and are subsequently relocated to heaven.

This past November 2^nd was “All Souls Day”.  The day the Church militant prays for the Church Suffering … that God would CHANGE / GROW the suffering to become the triumphant.

And while purgatory divides the church after death, the idea of purgatory also divides the theologians in the church today.

Yet on both sides of this issue there is an agreed upon assumption: that, in some sense, the deceased must be perfect before entering heaven.

Protestants conventionally assume that when we die, through some magical-Jesus-blood-covered-pill, we will all of a sudden have perfect intentions; perfect actions … or at least, we’ll be “seen” as perfect.  “Billy Bob died from cirrhosis of the liver caused by his intense love of strong drink, but he’s perfect now!” is the general assumption.

Some believe that you have to be perfect here on earth – before you die – in order to enter heaven.  If you die imperfect, sorry, my friend, your future looks kinda fiery.

*****

I don’t believe in the magic Jesus-pill thing, I don’t believe in holiness movement perfectionism and I don’t believe in the need to separate two different types of Church after we die.

Why?

Cause I don’t believe you have to be perfect to enter God’s presence.

Well, technically, I don’t believe we have to be perfect in the Hellenistic sense of perfect.

Hellenism influenced the church in a myriad of ways.  One such way is how we define perfection.  Thanks to Plato’s Forms, we’ve assumed that the perfect doesn’t change, but is a static ideal.  In turn, we’ve defined God as immutable, impassible and omni everything; and we’ve defined the ideal human in much the same way (in fact, it could be argued that our understanding of the ideal God is a projection of the ideal human).

Perfection, for humans, though, is change in the right direction.  Perfection is right change.  It’s always change.  It’s never static.  And as God relates with us, so His perfection changes.

Purgatory might be closer to the real heaven than we’ve thought.  Eternal life could in fact be like purgatory in so much as it’s a not a place where all of a sudden we’re doing, thinking, feeling everything, in every way, right.  Eternal life might just be that place where God is closer … a place where the tears are more readily wiped away.  A place where we all grow together.

Maybe eternal life is another way of saying forever growth?

*****

And is it possible that the growth that we’ll experience in heaven isn’t JUST moral growth?  Maybe it’s relational growth, growth in life and abundance, and … maybe its growth in our knowledge?

Is it possible that a person could, by the grace of God, enter heaven with little redeemable moral qualities?  Is it also possible that a person could, by the grace of God, enter heaven with little redeemable understanding about God?

Take Steve Jobs for instance.  Steve wasn’t morally perfect.  Nor, (assuming Christians have a little more revelation than other religions), was his knowledge of God perfect.

But, if there’s purgatory in heaven, where we all change for the better, than maybe, just maybe an imperfect guy like me could enter.  And maybe the last words of Steve Jobs were inspired by the greatest vision of the future he had ever seen.

Steve Jobs will be remember for being an innovative visionary.  His vision, in fact, was so expansive that we’ll be enjoying his technological legacy for possible decades into the future.

And yet, there’s part of me that wants to speculate that Jobs innovation and vision extended past the technological realm and touched religion and maybe even theology.

Apple developed an almost otherworldly, religious mystic that I think Jobs consciously enjoyed and even planned.

He seemed to weave biblical imagery into his very brand image.

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.  The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Nobody knows what kind of tree it was, but many assume — for a reason that escapes my six years of theological education — it was an apple tree.

I don’t know why church history has assumed an Apple tree … but we have.  The story continues:

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

They ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil … the “tree of wisdom.”

*****

Now look at Jobs’ brand image.

I’m just speculating, but I think Steve Jobs was a visionary.   Okay.  That’s no speculation.

But this is:  I think he was a theological visionary.

I think he was re-narrating Genesis.  He was attempting to cast an alternate vision.

Maybe I’m reading into the symbol too much, but I don’t think I am.

Could the same knowledge that lead us out of Eden bring us back into it?

What is the end of technology?  The ultimate endgame of our tech?

Isn’t it Eden?  Was that Jobs vision?  Did he think that maybe we could find Eden with the knowledge we obtained from Eden? Is that what the Apple logo evoked in his mind?

Like I said.  All speculation.

And speculation or not, it does raise some visionary/futurist questions that I’m sure Mr. Jobs would have loved to talk about.  Here are some of those questions:

What are the limitations of technology?

What is the future of technology?

Is it possible to recreate Eden apart from God?

Or, maybe the only way to recreate Eden is without a God?

After all, isn’t God the source of all the tension, all the strife and hatred in this world?

Maybe the only way back to Eden is to march into it and kick God out?

Or, maybe God was gracious enough to give us knowledge in our rebellion, so as to create a path back to Eden?

Maybe technology is part of God’s attempt to bring us back to the garden?

*****

Maybe.

The Jews couldn’t accept Jesus because he didn’t fit their understanding of “Messiah.”  They expected strength of armies, he brought a strength of peace.  They expected a political kingdom, and he did something entirely different.

Their eschatology was so wrong, so off the mark of what God was actually doing that many of them literally walked right by their Messiah and didn’t notice Him (of course, they would still disagree to this day).

And so, as Christians, we like to think we know the future.  We like to think God has told us how the future works.

But, let’s not forget that God’s people have been oblivious before.  Maybe we’re looking for the kingdom to come from the sky … from the heavens; but maybe it will come from earth?  Maybe Eden will be here, again, after all; and maybe technology will play a part. Maybe in 20 or 30 years the iRise offering eternal life is on sale down at the Apple store.

It could be.

I don’t know much about the future.  I deal with the dead.  That’s my job.  I’m nothing like the visionary Steve was.  His was a rare gift (CNN put out a great short doc on his tech advances [And, he was adopted ... something that I'll be sure to tell my children]).  And the world will miss him as we continue to enjoy the benefits of his vision well into the future.

If there’s a heritage Jobs left behind, it’s that it’s okay to dream.  It’s okay to see alternate futures.

And if Jobs was a sort of theologian, he might be right: there’s a place for technology in the Kingdom come.  I know there’s no Eden apart from Jesus, but maybe, just maybe, in the history books of the future, Steve Jobs will not only be remembered for what he gave to the world, but maybe he’ll be remember for what he gave to the people of God.