Curated by Dallas Willard's long-time colleague and friend Gary Moon, this medley of images, snapshots and "Dallas-isms" moves readers toward deeper experiences of God. Whether influenced by him as a family member, friend, professor, philosopher or reformer, contributors bring refreshing insight into his ideas, what shaped him and also his contagious theology of grace and joy.
In this deeply personal and daring meditation, eminent theologian Jürgen Moltmann challenges many closely held beliefs about the experience of dying, the nature of death, and the hope of eternal life. Moving deftly between biblical, theological, and existential domains, Moltmann argues that while we know intimately the experience of dying--both our loved ones' dying and, ultimately, our own--death itself is a mystery. Are those who have died in fact dead? If the dead are alive, how or in what respect? When the dead awaken to eternal life, who wakes? Moltmann's interrogations yield surprising and beautiful fruits. The living soul that awakens to eternal life is not a ghost in a machine, but the Lebensgestalt, the shape and story of a life, its human and divine contexts, its whole. Drawing on themes from his oeuvre's entire arc, Resurrected to Eternal Life testifies to the inner unity of Moltmann's theology: the cross, the Spirit, the kingdom, the end, and the hope that makes the end present here and now. Seasoned readers of Moltmann will find in these pages a capstone of a lifetime of theological exploration, while those new to his complex thought will find a concise and elegant entry point into his voluminous work.
"The Lutheran Church commemorates three influential hymnwriters every October: Philipp Nicolai, Johann Heermann, and Paul Gerhardt. The Joy of Eternal Life sheds light on why Philipp Nicolai is still remembered over four hundred years after his death. During Nicolai's time as a pastor, he and his parishioners witnessed a horrendous plague claim the lives of four thousand people in five months. To comfort his people and counteract the belief at the time that death, loss, and despair rob human beings of God's goodness, presence, and love, he wrote this book. In it, he proclaims the glory of eternal life, God's love for His people, and our future resurrection in heaven. This books also includes two of his beloved hymns, "Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying" and "O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright." Pastors, musicians, and those interested in Church history will appreciate reading Nicolai's popular work in English for the first time. Additionally, laity will appreciate the devotional nature of this work, which offers the comfort and consolation of Christ to those who are in despair"--
Dead and Loving Every Minute of it! Eternal Life and How to Enjoy It is a real-life tour of what awaits us in the afterlife, as told by a guide Henry, who just happens to be dead. Author Gordon Phinn has been in communication with Henry for many years and brings us the tragicomic tale in his own inimitable style. Henry, a so-called "boring accountant," relates how--immediately after being killed in a car crash--he is welcomed by the affable Jack, who guides him on his first day dead. We see this new world through Henry's eyes and feel his amazement at every turn. Even better, we witness this stuffy "bean counter" let go of his suffering and guilt and turn into the fun-loving, carefree soul he truly is. After Henry gets used to the place, he becomes an afterlife guide himself, indulging the newly deceased in any whim or fantasy that will help them to "wake up and realize they're dead." Henry explains that most people have the afterlife experience their cultural and religious belief systems set them up for--including all the heavens, all the hells, and all the purgatories in between. When really, he says, we can view the afterlife as a constant progression towards the reunion with the god consciousness that we put aside to practice the art of being human.
The dark, romantic sequel to Dead Beautiful from Yvonne Woon. Renée Winters has changed. When she looks in the mirror, a beautiful girl with an older, sadder face stares back. Her condition has doctors mystified, but Renée can never reveal the truth: she died last May, and was brought back to life by the kiss of her Undead soul mate, Dante Berlin. Now, her separation from Dante becomes almost unbearable. His second life is close to an end, and each passing day means one less that she will spend with the boy who shares her soul. Just when Renée has almost given up hope, she learns of the Nine Sisters—brilliant scholars who, according to legend, found a way to cheat death. She can’t shake the feeling that they are somehow connected to her dreams, strange visions that hint at a discovery so powerful, and so dangerous, that some will stop at nothing to protect it. Renée thought she knew the truth about life and death. But there is a secret woven through history that holds the only hope for Dante and Renée. Unless they find answers soon, their time together is doomed to be cut short....
In this cross-cultural, interdisciplinary study, John Hick draws upon major world religions, as well as biology, psychology, parapsychology, anthropology, and philosophy, to explore the mystery of death. He argues that scientific and philosophical objections to the idea of survival after death can be challenged, and he claims that human inadequacy in facing suffering supports the basic religious argument for immortality.
It has always been my luring ambition to write a book of the most unusual kind or a book of a very unorthodox nature, a book that is void of the glorification of sex and violence, and a book that would be acceptable to God and Man. The book has been in my head all this time but I just didn't know where to begin because the ideas weren't flowing. However, after a phenomenal and electrifying experience, the ideas for such a book came to mind like a bolt of lightning...I was literally struck on the head by a bolt of lightning! The lightning picked me up from the ground and held me in suspension for a little while with a dazzling light round about my head with my body fully electrified. The remarkable thing was that while this was happening, I was not only fully electrified but fully conscious as well. After a while in suspension I was lowered to the ground in complete slow motion on my rear. What was really phenomenal about this shocking experience was the fact that not a single lock of hair on my head was singed or burned... there was no smoke undulating from my head! After this electrifying incident, I was never the same again... I'm convinced that the bolt of lightning that struck me on the head had transformed my mind into the 'Mind of God' and I began to think and speak differently. I became an avid reader of the Bible and it was after my experience with the Bible that the book in my head became very clear to me. I knew there and then I had to write 'The Book Of Life'.It's my solemn hope that every reader will find this book not only enlightening but electrifying as well.
The question of whether life exists beyond death remains one of the most pertinent of our existence, and theologians continue to address what relevance the answer has for our life in the present. In this book, William J. Hoye uses the phenomenon of emergence - the way higher forms of existence arise from a collection of simpler interactions - as a framework for understanding and defending the concept of eternal life, showing how it 'emerges' from our present life, our human longing for fulfilment and happiness, and our striving for knowledge of reality. Hoye uses the work of Karl Rahner and Thomas Aquinas to explore questions concerning suffering, the ultimate relevance of morality, and how the fundamental idea of responsibility changes when viewed eschatologically. Contemporary reasons for denying an afterlife are examined critically and extensively. This book will be of great interest to those studying systematic theology, theological anthropology and Catholic theology.
The Second Coming is about how to transform a closed conscious mind into an open conscious mind. After the consciousness of one's mind has been transformed, it enables one to know and understand an eternally transcended ideal or truth from a logical and rational eternal perspective. Once an eternal intuitive perspective has been achieved, it gives one the ability to identify an immoral ideal or truth that was creatively imagined from an ideal or truth that was eternally transcended from the Eternal Intuitive Reality of Godliness. With this eternal intuitive ability, one can faithfully believe an Eternal Intuitive Essence of Godliness is responsible for everything that has ever become and will become universally and eternally. Through the power of faithfully believing, one can create an eternal personal partnership with God, Godly Being, or Eternal Intuitive Essence of Godliness. Upon this eternal personal partnership, an eternal living reality of heaven will become upon the Blue Jewel while you are still alive. Jesus professed, "If you faithfully believe in what I say, you can have an eternal existence." Jesus did not say upon one's death. To a logical and rational consciousness of mind, it appears once you faithfully believe in what Jesus said, it instantaneously becomes of an eternal living life upon the Blue Jewel. So, as you read The Second Coming, do not be surprised your universal existence is becoming eternal while you are still living life. I hope you enjoy your eternal journey as an eternal living partner with your God, Godly Being, or Eternal Intuitive Essence of Godliness. Blessed is the miraculous becoming of an eternal living life.
The fact cannot be overlooked that we are in the midst of a sociological crisis of orientation on the grand scale. New problems and needs have become insistent, new fears and longings have come to light. Many are looking for a new foothold, a fundamental certainty, a compass for their life and the life of other human beings. The inconsistencies and ambivalence of the phenomena cannot conceal the fact that religion is attracting greater attention: the old religion and many new ones, the Christian religion as well as the Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist religions. In East and West anyway the God Progress seems to have lost rapidly something of its credibility; belief in a continually better life with the aid of science and technology and also through revolution and socialism has been shaken by serious doubts. And, while the elderly have not been able - with all the aids of psychology - to come to terms with the meaning of death, younger people - supposedly a Òno futureÓ generation, apathetic, noncommittal, nervous, and self-destructive - are asking afresh about the missing sense of life. Meanwhile, though science did the most in the last century to destroy belief in immortality and made stupendous efforts to prolong life, it is medicine today that has broken through the taboos in regard to death and with its research into dying has given new life to the question of death and survival. But has medicine - or perhaps parapsychology - proved that there is life after death?
