tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/heaven-39038/articlesHeaven – The Conversation2022-12-21T19:11:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1949982022-12-21T19:11:46Z2022-12-21T19:11:46ZAre Christian souls gendered?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502025/original/file-20221220-26-yqs7ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=67%2C0%2C2901%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Within Christianity, the question of the nature of human identity has been a messy and complex one.</p>
<p>For its first 200 years, Christianity adopted the Hebrew understanding of human identity as a unity of physical and spiritual parts, not divided into body and soul. There is no concept of the immortal soul in the Hebrew Old Testament nor in the Christian New Testament. </p>
<p>But in the late second century, Christianity happily absorbed the doctrine of the soul from the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/">Greek Platonic tradition</a>. From that time on, humans were thought of as hybrids – consisting of an immortal soul united with a mortal body. </p>
<p>How body and soul related to each other has been, in Western thought, a never ending matter for philosophical speculation.</p>
<p>Clearly, bodies were gendered male or female. But souls were not. They were, after all, non-corporeal, spiritual entities. And thus, there was nothing to differentiate the sexes. As <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Catechetical-Lectures-St-Cyril-Jerusalem-ebook/dp/B00BRNGGXO#:%7E:text=The%20famous%20Catechetical%20Lectures%20of,for%20their%20first%20Holy%20Communion.">Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (c. 315-86), put it</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the soul is immortal, and all souls are alike both of men and women; for only the members of the body are distinguishable. </p>
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<p>In this way souls were rather like angels who were also, as spiritual creatures, non-gendered. </p>
<p>Angels, however, could assume virtual, ethereal bodies. But, even then, they were generally imagined as assuming male bodies. For this reason, angels have traditionally had men’s names – Gabriel, Michael, Raphael. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-what-do-the-5-great-religions-say-about-the-existence-of-the-soul-156205">Friday essay: what do the 5 great religions say about the existence of the soul?</a>
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<p>Then, in the 19th century in the Romantic movement especially, angels became less attached to the Christian tradition. They shifted from supporting kings and enabling sorcerers to benign beings whose activities remained in heaven. They were feminised and ethereal, less based on their representation in the Bible and more on classical Greek sources, They began to assume female, even androgynous, bodies. From then on, women (but no longer men) could be and would be called (metaphorically, at least) “angels”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502020/original/file-20221219-14-7ifews.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502020/original/file-20221219-14-7ifews.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502020/original/file-20221219-14-7ifews.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502020/original/file-20221219-14-7ifews.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502020/original/file-20221219-14-7ifews.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502020/original/file-20221219-14-7ifews.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502020/original/file-20221219-14-7ifews.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502020/original/file-20221219-14-7ifews.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bernhard Plockhorst (1825-1907) Guardian Angel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Generally speaking, the Christian tradition at that time held that, in life immediately after death, as immortal souls that had left our gendered mortal bodies, we would no longer be <em>essentially</em> male or female. </p>
<p>That said, souls had a kind of quasi-bodily nature – they were depicted as leaving the body, were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purgatory#Popular_notion_of_purgatory_as_a_place">spatially located</a> in heaven, hell, or purgatory, and could experience rewards and punishments after death. </p>
<p>But the situation was complicated by the fact that we would be eventually re-united with our bodies when they arose from the dead on the Day of Judgement. </p>
<p>We would then go forward into eternity as non-gendered souls re-united with gendered bodies, and with all our imperfections removed.</p>
<p>Of course, the issue of gender in Christianity was further complicated by the statement in the book of Genesis that both men and women were made in the image of God. This was never (well, hardly ever) read as meaning that God had a physical body (either male or female). Rather, the image of God was located in the spiritual qualities of humans.</p>
<p>That said, there was a general belief that women were made less in the image of God than men. There was a key biblical precedent for this. Man “is the image and glory of God,” <a href="https://www.bibleref.com/1-Corinthians/11/1-Corinthians-11-7.html#:%7E:text=1%20Corinthians%2011%3A7%2C%20NASB,And%20woman%20reflects%20man%27s%20glory.">declared Saint Paul</a>, “but the woman is the glory of the man”.</p>
<p>And the woman, he went on to say, was created for the man and not vice versa. So, while the Biblical texts were used, on occasions, to justify the least assertive of feminisms, they more often justified the most aggressive of misogynies.</p>
<p>Generally, up until the 18th century, female bodies were thought of theologically as a part of the male body as in <a href="https://www.bible.com/bible/1/GEN.2.22-24.KJV">the Genesis 2.22 account</a> of Eve being made from a rib of Adam; or philosophically as in Aristotle’s dismissal of the female as <a href="http://www.esp.org/books/aristotle/generation-of-animals/">a defective male</a>.</p>
<h2>The rise of biology</h2>
<p>In the 18th and 19th centuries, when the idea of “gender” came to be dominated by the biology of sex, along with an increasing social differentiation between men and women, the “one-sex” model with the male as human “prototype” (with a non-gendered soul) came to be dominated by the “two-sex” model with which we are familiar. </p>
<p>In this modern version, male and female bodies are seen as fundamentally different. Biology came to dominate theology and philosophy.</p>
<p>As biological understandings of human identity came to dominate, so the traditional understanding of the non-gendered soul began to disappear. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502023/original/file-20221220-18-22b6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502023/original/file-20221220-18-22b6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502023/original/file-20221220-18-22b6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502023/original/file-20221220-18-22b6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502023/original/file-20221220-18-22b6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502023/original/file-20221220-18-22b6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502023/original/file-20221220-18-22b6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502023/original/file-20221220-18-22b6qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905): Depiction of a soul being carried to heaven by two angels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Life immediately after death came to be thought of as occurring in spiritual bodies that matched our gendered physical bodies as they had been at their best in this life. We would become rather like angels. </p>
<p>By the middle of the 19th century, the idea of the afterlife as an eternity spent worshipping God was replaced in popular culture by an eternity where we would spend time with former friends, families, and even pets. Heaven became a place of companionship, of amiable conversation, of spiritual progress, and intellectual development. </p>
<p>So, the modern heaven is a secular one in which God, and for that matter souls, play little role. It is no longer one of “embodied” souls but of “spiritual” bodies, enjoying for eternity the best of this world in the next. And, in this vision of the afterlife, we essentially and eternally are gendered in spiritual bodies in a way that reflects our physical bodies in this life, whatever form that may have taken. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-what-might-heaven-be-like-95939">Friday essay: what might heaven be like?</a>
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<p>All this should remind us that our understanding of what counts as male and female is a very recent one. Rather, in the history of Western thought, notions of human identity have been much more fluid and unstable than we currently realise. </p>
<p>In the history of the idea of “human identity”, the meanings of “man” and “woman” have been as much socially constructed as biologically determined.</p>
<p>Granted the weird and wonderful history of the debate around human identity within Western civilisation, we would do well not to stake too much of a claim about the essence of the human as grounded in the modern biological understanding of male and female as binary opposites.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194998/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip C. Almond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the history of Western thought, notions of human identity were more fluid and unstable than many realise. And for a long time, the souls of men and women were seen as identical.Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1775132022-05-25T13:46:19Z2022-05-25T13:46:19ZWhat the Voyager space probes can teach humanity about immortality and legacy as they sail through space for trillions of years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464877/original/file-20220523-11-z3t5y6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C799%2C589&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scientists expect the Voyager spacecraft to outlive Earth by at least a trillion years.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PIA17036_Voyager_the_Explorer.jpg#/media/File:PIA17036_Voyager_the_Explorer.jpg">NASA/JPL-CalTech</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made object from Earth. After sweeping by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, it is now almost <a href="https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/">15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth</a> in interstellar space. Both Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, carry little pieces of humanity in the form of their <a href="https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/">Golden Records</a>. These messages in a bottle include spoken greetings in 55 languages, sounds and images from nature, an album of recordings and images from numerous cultures, and a written message of welcome from Jimmy Carter, who was U.S. president <a href="https://theconversation.com/voyager-golden-records-40-years-later-real-audience-was-always-here-on-earth-79886">when the spacecraft left Earth in 1977</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464881/original/file-20220523-23-zyjgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A golden colored record with 'The Sounds of Earth' written in the center." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464881/original/file-20220523-23-zyjgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464881/original/file-20220523-23-zyjgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464881/original/file-20220523-23-zyjgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464881/original/file-20220523-23-zyjgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464881/original/file-20220523-23-zyjgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464881/original/file-20220523-23-zyjgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464881/original/file-20220523-23-zyjgnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Each Voyager spacecraft carries a Golden Record containing two hours of sounds, music and greetings from around the world. Carl Sagan and other scientists assumed that any civilization advanced enough to detect and capture the record in space could figure out how to play it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Sounds_of_Earth_-_GPN-2000-001976.jpg">NASA/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>The Golden Records were built to last a billion years in the environment of space, but in a recent analysis of the paths and perils these explorers may face, astronomers calculated that they <a href="https://www.space.com/predicting-voyager-golden-records-distant-future">could exist for trillions of years</a> without coming remotely close to any stars.</p>
<p>Having spent my career in the field of <a href="https://sipa.fiu.edu/people/faculty/religious-studies/hurchingson.james.html">religion and science</a>, I’ve thought a lot about how spiritual ideas intersect with technological achievements. The incredible longevity of the Voyager spacecraft presents a uniquely tangible entry point into exploring ideas of immortality.</p>
<p>For many people, immortality is the everlasting existence of a soul or spirit that follows death. It can also mean the continuation of one’s legacy in memory and records. With its Golden Record, each Voyager provides such a legacy, but only if it is discovered and appreciated by an alien civilization in the distant future. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464879/original/file-20220523-15-ck32f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People in black standing around a coffin at a gravesite." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464879/original/file-20220523-15-ck32f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464879/original/file-20220523-15-ck32f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464879/original/file-20220523-15-ck32f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464879/original/file-20220523-15-ck32f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464879/original/file-20220523-15-ck32f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464879/original/file-20220523-15-ck32f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464879/original/file-20220523-15-ck32f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Many religions espouse some form of life after death.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/outdoor-shot-of-funeral-royalty-free-image/104305070?adppopup=true">RubberBall Productions/Brand X Pictures via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Life after death</h2>
<p>Religious beliefs about immortality are numerous and diverse. Most religions foresee a postmortem career for a personal soul or spirit, and these range from everlasting residence among the stars to reincarnation. </p>
<p>The ideal eternal life for many Christians and Muslims is to abide forever in God’s presence in heaven or paradise. Judaism’s teachings about what happens after death are less clear. In the Hebrew Bible, the dead are mere “shades” in a darkened place called Sheol. Some rabbinical authorities <a href="https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12697-resurrection">give credence to the resurrection of the righteous</a> and even to the eternal status of souls.</p>
<p>Immortality is not limited to the individual. It can be collective as well. For many Jews, the <a href="https://library.yctorah.org/2016/05/the-importance-of-the-land-of-israel/">final destiny of the nation of Israel or its people</a> is of paramount importance. Many Christians anticipate a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kingdom-of-God">future general resurrection</a> of all who have died and the coming of the kingdom of God for the faithful.</p>
<p>Jimmy Carter, whose message and autograph are immortalized in the Golden Records, is a progressive Southern Baptist and a living example of religious hope for immortality. Now <a href="https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/postings/2015/08/082015_jimmy.carter.php">battling brain cancer</a> and approaching centenarian status, he has thought about dying. Following his diagnosis, Carter <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/04/jimmy-carter-says-he-is-completely-ease-with-death/">concluded in a sermon</a>: “It didn’t matter to me whether I died or lived. … My Christian faith includes complete confidence in life after death. So I’m going to live again after I die.”</p>
<p>It is plausible to conclude that the potential of an alien witnessing the Golden Record and becoming aware of Carter’s identity billions of years in the future would offer only marginal additional consolation for him. Carter’s knowledge in his ultimate destiny is a measure of his deep faith in the immortality of his soul. In this sense, he likely represents people of numerous faiths. </p>
<h2>Secular immortality</h2>
<p>For people who are secular or nonreligious there is little solace to be found in an appeal to the continuing existence of a soul or spirit following one’s death. Carl Sagan, who came up with the idea for the Golden Records and led their development, wrote of the afterlife: “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1221453-i-would-love-to-believe-that-when-i-die-i">I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than just wishful thinking</a>.” He was more saddened by thoughts of missing important life experiences – like seeing his children grow up – than fearful about the expected annihilation of his conscious self with the death of his brain.</p>
<p>For those like Sagan there are other possible options for immortality. They include <a href="https://gizmodo.com/why-freezing-yourself-is-a-terrible-way-to-achieve-immo-1552142674">freezing and preserving the body for future physical resurrection</a> or <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/will-your-uploaded-mind-still-be-you-11568386410">uploading one’s consciousness and turning it into a digital form</a> that would long outlast the brain. Neither of these potential paths to physical immortality has proved to be feasible yet.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cEzcFXRKHUw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Golden Records contain a snapshot of Earth and humanity.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The Voyagers and legacy</h2>
<p>Most people, whether secular or religious, want the actions they do while alive to bear <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2004.08.002">continuing meaning into the future as their fruitful legacy</a>. People want to be remembered and appreciated, even cherished. Sagan summed it up nicely: “To live in the hearts we leave behind <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1029590-to-live-in-the-hearts-we-leave-behind-is-to">is to live forever</a>.” </p>
<p>With Voyagers 1 and 2 estimated to exist for more than a trillion years, they are about as immortal as it gets for human artifacts. Even before the Sun’s expected demise when it runs out of fuel in about 5 billion years, all living species, mountains, seas and forests <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-sun-wont-die-for-5-billion-years-so-why-do-humans-have-only-1-billion-years-left-on-earth-37379">will have long been obliterated</a>. It will be as if we and all the marvelous and extravagant beauty of planet Earth never existed – a devastating thought to me.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464878/original/file-20220523-21-ofwph8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A chart showing the path of Voyager 1 spiraling off into the distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464878/original/file-20220523-21-ofwph8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464878/original/file-20220523-21-ofwph8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=199&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464878/original/file-20220523-21-ofwph8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=199&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464878/original/file-20220523-21-ofwph8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=199&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464878/original/file-20220523-21-ofwph8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464878/original/file-20220523-21-ofwph8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464878/original/file-20220523-21-ofwph8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Voyager 1’s path, in white, has taken the craft well past the orbits of the outer planets into interstellar space, where aliens may someday come across the relic of humanity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Voyager_1_skypath_1977-2030.png#/media/File:Voyager_1_skypath_1977-2030.png">NASA/JPL via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But in the distant future, the two Voyager spacecraft will still be floating in space, awaiting discovery by an advanced alien civilization for whom the messages on the Golden Records were intended. Only those records will likely remain as testimony and legacy of Earth, a kind of objective immortality.</p>
<p>Religious and spiritual people can find solace in the belief that God or an afterlife waits for them after death. For the secular, hoping that someone or something will remember humanity, any wakeful and appreciative aliens will have to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Edward Huchingson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A professor of religion and science explains different views on immortality, from the religious perspective of President Jimmy Carter to the scientific, secular take of Carl Sagan.James Edward Huchingson, Professor Emeritus and Lecturer in Religion and Science, Florida International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1274102019-12-19T13:51:45Z2019-12-19T13:51:45ZHow old would you want to be in heaven?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306884/original/file-20191213-85428-1xi0cgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Our cult of youth continues into the afterlife.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/3d-illustration-soul-ascension-ghost-man-1345704401?src=-1-20">Denis Simonov/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many religious faiths propose different versions of heaven as a location: There are <a href="https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-heaven-depicted-as-a-walled-garden-with-the-virgin-mary-reading-a-105283341.html">walled gardens</a> with streams, flowers, pleasing scents, <a href="http://blogs.harvard.edu/olumakindeislamicart/files/2014/03/miraj-mohammed-buraq.jpg">pretty angels</a>, rapturous music or delicious accessible food.</p>
<p>But what about us – the once-mortal – who will go on to inhabit the heavenly real estate? What form will our bodies take? Not all religions posit bodily resurrection. But those that do tend to depict them as young. </p>
<p>As the author of <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ending_Ageism_or_How_Not_to_Shoot_Old_Pe/YG8kDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Ending+ageism+or+how+not+to+shoot+old+people&printsec=frontcover">prize-winning</a> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Aged_by_Culture/Qh_3UhFfM9kC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=aged+by+culture&printsec=frontcover">books</a> on age and culture, I tend to notice unseen forms of ageism. </p>
<p>I wonder: Is the cult of youth what we really want trailing us into the afterlife?</p>
<h2>The righteous are young</h2>
<p><a href="https://biblehub.com/luke/20-35.htm">According to Christian orthodoxy</a>, if you’re worthy of being raised from the dead, you’ll be resurrected in the flesh, not merely as spirit, with a body restored like that of Christ, who died at 33. </p>
<p>In heaven there will be no whip marks, no scars from thorns, no bodily wounds. If eaten by cannibals or bereft of limbs from battle – some medieval people worried about wholeness in such conditions – people would regain their missing parts. The body would be perfected, as the Apostle Matthew <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/matthew/11-5.html">promised in the New Testament</a> when he wrote, “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear.” </p>
<p>In Islam, in the traditional <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hadith">Hadiths</a> – the commentaries that succeeded the Quran – the righteous are also youthful, and apparently male. “The people of Paradise will enter Paradise hairless (in their body), beardless, white colored, curly haired, with their eyes anointed with kohl, aged thirty-three years,” <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Garden_and_the_Fire/ASEG9cFAkjMC?hl=en">according to Abu Harayra</a>, one of Mohammed’s companions.</p>
<p>The afterlife isn’t all based on sacred text. Folklore, cultural traditions and audience demand also shape its images. </p>
<p>Western art has, over the centuries, located the promise of posthumous perfection in bodies that are youthful. British historian Roy Porter <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/i329131">writes</a> that the art of the Renaissance (in which bodies were first portrayed with muscles and motion) showed “rosy-fleshed and even lithe bodies rising elegantly from the earth, in an almost balletic movement.” Think of the muscular naked bodies in Luca Signorelli’s “Resurrection and the Crowning of the Blessed” in Orvieto cathedral. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A section of Luca Signorelli’s fresco ‘Resurrection of the Flesh.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luca_Signorelli_-_Resurrection_of_the_Flesh_-_WGA21214.jpg">Cappella di San Brizio</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Throughout history, some people died in their 90s, as they do now. But the luck of having lived a long life on Earth, with its wisdom and experience symbolically etched on the face and signaled by the august whiteness of hair, apparently did not cross over onto the other side.</p>
<p>In such visions of heaven, there would be no signs of our ordinary mortal passage. No wrinkles. No disability. No old age. “Perfected” means never having grown up even into the middle years. </p>
<p>Ageist and ableist, these traditions promote cults of youth. The New Testament, the Quran, the Italian Renaissance, the Romantic era – all sing the same decline-oriented, exclusionary song.</p>
<h2>On our screens, forever young</h2>
<p>Jump to the myths of the modern world, and the aftercare of the fit juvenile body remains precious. In vampire stories, for example, the undead bloodsuckers appear young and attractive. When their true age is revealed, it turns out that they’re often thousands of years old. </p>
<p>“Who wants to see old ghosts?” critic Martha Smilgis wrote <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601910603,00.html">in a 1991 Time feature</a> about a recent spate of films that featured young, lithe actors populating the afterlife. “Hollywood wants to remain forever young,” she continued, “and what better way than to extend yourself into another life?”</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/emmys-2017-winners-black-mirror-san-junipero-charlie-brooker-outstanding-writing-tv-movie-a7952266.html">award-winning</a> “Black Mirror” episode “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4538072/">San Junipero</a>,” the fantasy of forever young becomes a reality: The dead can upload themselves into a simulation to live out their afterlives as their younger selves.</p>
<p>In other television shows about the afterlife, one way to avoid old ghosts is to simply have the characters all die young. And so in series like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0348913/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Dead Like Me</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7720790/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8">Forever</a>,” freak accidents on Earth ensure the resurrected are fit and attractive. </p>
<h2>The best version of you</h2>
<p>Because we now live in <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Age_of_Longevity/sTWNDAAAQBAJ?hl=en">an age of longer, healthier lifespans</a> – and because I’m in my 70s – I’m nonplussed by seeing the cult of youth persist. </p>
<p>People I know in later life are healthy. Some are handsome. Unlike the great unwashed of previous epochs, old people too now bathe. We brush our teeth, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160229-how-our-ancestors-drilled-rotten-teeth">so we don’t lose them before 40</a>. Syphilis, in the rare event that we contract it, can be cured. If we have partners, <a href="https://womensenews.org/2011/08/sex-can-also-get-better-not-worse-age/">we enjoy sex</a>.</p>
<p>I can understand idealizing youth in this life, but only by considering the ageism that people endure in the workplace. Sure, a midlife job seeker, desperately unemployed, tweaks his date of birth on his resume because he is considered “too old” at too young an age. A woman dyes her hair and gets a little Botox for the same reason. </p>
<p>But in heaven too, where capitalism is gratefully left behind? Surely part of the Rapture is not having to depend on a boss and a paycheck. You can’t be fired, downsized or made redundant. If heaven means nothing else, it works like a good labor union, assuring blessed tenure.</p>
<p>So might we disrupt the ancient adolescent fantasies that, translated to our contemporary era, seem so anachronistic? I am no longer a teenager. I have put away on Earth – as it should be in heaven – the peer pressures, the showy embarrassing décolletage, shaving my legs, the comical hair styles and the beach-blanket boozy fantasies of <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/body/how-to-get-an-hourglass-figure">the hourglass figure</a>.</p>
<p>My earlier face would look weird to me were it suddenly to appear tomorrow over the bathroom sink. If heaven were furnished with mirrors – an unlikely scenario – I am certain I would want to behold the face I have now. Whatever its earthly faults in the eyes of Hollywood plastic surgeons and the tiresome fashion magazines, it has the virtue of familiarity. </p>
<p>Heaven is supposed to be the entrance to a fuller, or better, future life – what mortals fail to obtain in the real world. Does that now mean Club Med for young people? Fort Lauderdale at spring break? With more clothing? Or perhaps less? </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1305&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1305&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Blake’s ‘The Meeting of the Family in Heaven’ (1805).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/William_Blake_-_The_Meeting_of_the_Family_in_Heaven.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2005.00239.x">Mormons are promised</a> that they will spend eternity with their kin. For many people now, paradise is, more than anything, a place where we will meet loved ones. Often a beloved parent. I would have no interest in a heaven in which my mother appeared to be 33, when I scarcely knew her as a six-year-old. Nor would I want her to look six decades younger than I do, were I to arrive in my 90s. </p>
<p>She died at 96, and I want her to have the face I loved in her very old age. There she would be, still smiling at me benignly, as she does in a photograph I see every day of my aging-into-old-age life.</p>
<p>Heaven can keep the pleasant streams, the divine choirs and the luscious apricots. It can heal us of pain. We can be loved for who we are. If all that, who needs to be younger as well? I believe our dreams of the afterlife need to challenge the idée fixe that only the appearance of youth is valuable. </p>
<p>Some of us with longer lives don’t think it perfection to have the signs of who we are now, erased for eternity. We have a finer dream of human solidarity. </p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127410/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Morganroth Gullette does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our dreams of the afterlife need to challenge the idea that only the appearance of youth is worthy.Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Resident Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1123912019-10-10T12:46:10Z2019-10-10T12:46:10ZWhy ending the secrecy of ‘confession’ is so controversial for the Catholic Church<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296086/original/file-20191008-128661-m7huk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Catholic understanding, Jesus gave his disciples the power to forgive sins.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hernanpc/7454895152/in/photolist-cmLhB3-akXCE-ac2GYN-MMKwYn-njAJ1g-koCH3t-JBSquT-2cGWwkp-8dsxFa-nMkMTp-24hi6MX-o7jBJF-UAsNW9-6HVrWA-rmXab4-5HpQFb-5HpNK9-2tYVGw-ebeKyh-23E9wBw-4qn14h-2dJzSLL-CET7TW-9e3RK-9e3S3-vb8MX-3DAosV-xYEa4x-3DAzuV-ebeNGN-eb9bkZ-4AXPd-3DEYFS-ebePM3-eb99qv-ebeMUm-amVisU-eb98GP-488xQd-3JMJUr-484wv2-bC2GCt-3DATWe-bp7MXq-cZCD93-atcga-SRCx1C-fEUCKJ-5Lz8V-3GcyG">Hernán Piñera</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, there is a worldwide push to end the guarantee of secrecy of confession – called “<a href="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/catholic-faith/the-seal-of-the-confessional.html">the seal of the confessional</a>.”</p>
<p>On Sept. 11, 2019, two Australian states, Victoria and Tasmania, passed <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/laws-forcing-priests-to-report-child-abuse-passed-in-victorian-parliament-20190911-p52q1m.html">bills</a> requiring priests to report any child abuse revealed in the confessional. </p>
<p>Australia has been at the center of the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis. In December 2018, influential Australian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/17/cardinal-george-pell-to-appeal-to-high-court-over-child-sexual-abuse-conviction">Cardinal George Pell</a> was <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-cardinal-pells-conviction-can-a-tradition-bound-church-become-more-accountable-112593">convicted</a> of sexually abusing an altar boy.</p>
<p>Australian bishops have, however, made it <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/church-digs-in-as-victoria-forces-disclosure-of-abuse-revealed-in-confession-20190813-p52gqd.html">clear</a> that the seal of confession is “<a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/australian-bishops-religious-say-seal-confession-sacred">sacred</a>,” regardless of the sin confessed. With regard to Tasmania’s new law, <a href="https://hobart.catholic.org.au/archbishop/biography/julian-c-porteous-biography">Archbishop Julian Porteous</a> argued that removing confession’s protection of confidentiality would stop pedophiles from coming forward. That would prevent <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-12/catholic-church-in-tasmania-to-snub-mandatary-sex-abuse-laws/11503024">priests from encouraging them to surrender to authorities</a>. </p>
<p>In the U.S., a California bill proposing ending priestly confidentiality regarding the abuse of minors was withdrawn in July 2019 after a <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2019/07/09/dangerous-california-bill-seal-confession-withdrawn-key-hearing">campaign</a> by Catholics and other religious freedom advocates. </p>
<p>Catholic confession has been <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/922/priest-penitent-privilege">formally safeguarded by the U.S. Supreme Court</a> since 1818. But therapists, doctors and a few other professionals are required to break confidentiality when there is an <a href="https://www.apa.org/ethics/code/">immediate threat of harm</a>. Priests are not.</p>
<p>Why is confession so important in the Catholic Church? </p>
<h2>The act of confession</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295896/original/file-20191007-121071-li5e3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295896/original/file-20191007-121071-li5e3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295896/original/file-20191007-121071-li5e3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295896/original/file-20191007-121071-li5e3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295896/original/file-20191007-121071-li5e3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295896/original/file-20191007-121071-li5e3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295896/original/file-20191007-121071-li5e3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The guarantee of confidentiality of a confession in the Catholic Church cannot be easily broken.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-confessing-her-sins-confessor-kneeling-1300887244?src=MGxlZ5h1WrCnj9Exp4YOBA-1-7">GoneWithTheWind/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Catholics believe Jesus gave his disciples the power to forgive sins. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://biblehub.com/john/20-23.htm">John 20: 23</a>, Jesus says to his apostles, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” </p>
<p>This belief extends to priests in “<a href="http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/catechesis/catechetical-sunday/sacramental-forgiveness/teaching-aid-hilgartner.cfm">the rite of penance and reconciliation</a>.” </p>
<p>This ritual usually occurs in a “<a href="https://www.liturgybrisbane.net.au/learn/liturgy-lines/from-confession-box-to-reconciliation-room-2/">reconciliation room</a>.” It is in this private place that the priest, in his role as “confessor,” meets face to face with the “penitents” who will confess their sins. </p>
<p>After making <a href="https://www.loyolapress.com/our-catholic-faith/prayer/traditional-catholic-prayers/prayers-every-catholic-should-know/sign-of-the-cross">the sign of the cross</a> and welcoming the penitent, the priest reads a passage from the Bible that speaks of God’s mercy. The penitent then says, “Bless me Father for I have sinned” and recounts – out loud – the specific sins committed.</p>
<p>Afterwards, the priest may ask questions to make sure that the confession is thorough. He then gives “absolution” – a “release” from the guilt of sin. </p>
<p>Absolution is not automatic. The penitent must perform “<a href="https://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=43">an act of contrition</a>,” in which they say that they are “contrite” or sorry for their sins. The penitent also promises to do their best not to sin again. </p>
<p>Before dismissing the penitent, the priest gives a “penance” – usually in the form of prayers – that the penitent needs to perform to “reconcile” with God. </p>
<h2>History of penance and confession</h2>
<p>The present rite of penance and reconciliation dates from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/07/archives/vatican-revises-sacrament-of-penance-vatican-revises-sacrament-of.html">1974</a>. This was almost a decade after a worldwide gathering of bishops at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-church-resists-change-but-vatican-ii-shows-its-possible-102543">Second Vatican Council</a> that reformed many traditional Catholic practices. </p>
<p>In the centuries before the change, penance and confession were much more demanding.</p>
<p>In early Christianity, those who committed serious sins – like murder – publicly entered the “order of penitents.” These penitents underwent years of public prayer and fasting before rejoining the community. </p>
<p>Because it was so difficult to repeat the process for serious sins if committed again, many Christians waited until old age to perform penance and be assured their place in <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-heaven-97670">heaven</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295894/original/file-20191007-121060-1isen2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295894/original/file-20191007-121060-1isen2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295894/original/file-20191007-121060-1isen2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295894/original/file-20191007-121060-1isen2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295894/original/file-20191007-121060-1isen2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295894/original/file-20191007-121060-1isen2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295894/original/file-20191007-121060-1isen2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In early Christianity those who committed serious sins entered the ‘order of penitents.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/6915989767/in/photolist-9g2T72-bx9fNT-btbGoZ-2ed3MTe-akUamc-2fDYYfg-dZKp8u-5j2e8B-83ejL7-ntkKuf-26nswW2-8sRZ6Y-8sP9SV-7HWefG-374jRx-akXCE-QByB6R-8ZzkHx-jExkgX-hgR1iz-vb59F-ehyNCK-J94b3-pCHTLq-qvV5cc-oWQF1b-PQJNfp-rmXab4-9g4m7p-74tfRV-2eDb6p1-7hob2i-89UBFL-5HwZ1W-qHJ1fF-6nZsvX-JVJefB-hgRk37-aTg9Wp-7CpQZS-obXeeV-569wMG-AwmGsB-b4wQfM-6asAw8-5WqD1G-4nB1YA-2aioVzy-27ad44R-eh6iMm/">Lawrence OP</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Later, around the seventh century A.D., <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00062278.1982.10554351">confession became private</a>. “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/penitential-book">Penitential manuals</a>” were developed that listed penalties, or “tariffs,” to match the severity of the sin. </p>
<p>Some of the penances were severe, such as making a barefoot <a href="http://www.internationalschooltoulouse.net/vs/pilgrims/motive.htm">pilgrimage</a> to a distant holy place or walking to church on one’s knees. From the 11th century onward, going on Crusade to the Middle East – the Holy Land – was also considered a <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300101287/crusades">penance</a> that could erase a person’s sins.</p>
<p>Some of the penances given in the manuals were so strict that local bishops <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00062278.1982.10554351">often lessened</a> the penalties. Sinners also had the option to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=k85JKr1OXcQC&pg=PA1135&lpg=PA1135&dq=tariff+penance&source=bl&ots=34J5SPLap9&sig=ACfU3U2b0QCy4u1y_jIOj-12pvHqnuB39g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi9gqm69vnkAhVP0KwKHRfMDiEQ6AEwDXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=tariff%20penance&f=false">pay someone else</a> to do their penance. </p>
<p>For these reasons, penance gradually emphasized the basic act of confession itself, and prayers took the place of harsher penalties.</p>
<h2>The importance of confession</h2>
<p>Today, confession is still associated with the older process of going to a confession box and listing one’s sins anonymously from behind a screen. </p>
<p>That was my first experience of penance in the 1970s as a seven-year-old Catholic boy. I was also taught that I could not receive the bread and wine of <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm">communion</a> without confessing my sins. This teaching still remains in force.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://cara.georgetown.edu/reconciliation.pdf">recent years</a>, though, <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2015/09/02/chapter-2-participation-in-catholic-rites-and-observances/">confession has declined</a>. Fewer American Catholics are going to confess their sins. Some commentators have even argued that confession has “<a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/02/16/catholic-confession-steep-price/NbMVFfYljv26Gcphu17yPJ/story.html">collapsed</a>” and should be rethought. </p>
<p>But regardless of how frequently Catholics go to confession, the freedom to confess – in confidence – is central to the Catholic worldview. And all Catholics of my generation have a confession story – a story that can be either comforting or traumatic.</p>
<p>The debate over confession isn’t just an abstract issue for Catholics. It’s something very personal.</p>
<p>But for me, as well as for many Catholics, confession is not simply a way of avoiding <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-hell-94560">hell</a> in the hereafter – it’s a way experiencing <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-true-meaning-of-mercy-72461">God’s merciful love</a> in the here and now.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112391/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mathew Schmalz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Following the sexual abuse scandals, there is a push to force the Catholic Church to compromise the confidentiality of the confessional. A Catholic scholar explains why confession is so important.Mathew Schmalz, Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1193802019-06-25T05:54:55Z2019-06-25T05:54:55Z5 things to know about the traditional Christian doctrine of hell<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281086/original/file-20190625-81780-1ls3cof.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Luca Signorelli, The Damned Cast into Hell, 1499-1504, a, fresco in Orvieto Cathedral, Italy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Martyn Iles, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, dodged the question this week <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/current-affairs/do-you-believe-homosexuals-go-to-hell-australian-christian-lobby-boss-grilled-on-the-sunday-project/news-story/658fa138683b792a2715bf240425895a">when asked by Lisa Wilkinson on The Sunday Project</a> if he believed that homosexuals go to hell. Apparently we are all going there, he suggested, unless we find salvation through Jesus.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.acl.org.au/#splash-signup">Australian Christian Lobby</a> is <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-25/israel-folau-gofundme-appeal-could-spark-changes-to-crowdfunding/11242558">now hosting an online crowd-funding appeal</a> for Israel Folau’s legal battle against Rugby Australia, after Folau was sacked over an Instagram post warning that homosexuals will go to hell. It <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-25/israel-folau-gofundme-appeal-could-spark-changes-to-crowdfunding/11242558">has donated $100,000</a> to his cause.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281062/original/file-20190625-97766-9qsuuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281062/original/file-20190625-97766-9qsuuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281062/original/file-20190625-97766-9qsuuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281062/original/file-20190625-97766-9qsuuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281062/original/file-20190625-97766-9qsuuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281062/original/file-20190625-97766-9qsuuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281062/original/file-20190625-97766-9qsuuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281062/original/file-20190625-97766-9qsuuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israel Folau in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jan Touzeau/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The churches that belong to the Australian Christian Lobby (mostly Pentecostal and Baptist), along with conservative Catholic and Protestant churches <a href="https://www.acl.org.au/mr_nat_israelfolau#splash-signup">continue to follow the traditional Christian view of hell</a>. </p>
<p>It is not a doctrine for the fainthearted. So what is this hell like? Here are five things about it worth knowing.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-israel-folau-case-could-set-an-important-precedent-for-employment-law-and-religious-freedom-118455">Why the Israel Folau case could set an important precedent for employment law and religious freedom</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Most of us are going there</h2>
<p>“We’re all doomed!” St. Paul, as Folau has reminded us, believed that homosexuals, the immoral, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers and robbers would not inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6.9).</p>
<p>Jesus said nothing about homosexuals. But he clearly indicated that most of us enter hell through the wide gate that leads to destruction and few through the narrow gate that leads to life (Matthew 7.13-14). In short, the vast majority are doomed to hell. For centuries, this was the default position for both Catholics and Protestants.</p>
<p>Responding to Wilkinson, Iles said rather blandly that the “mainstream Christian belief on this is that all of us are born going to hell” and we will end up there if “we decline the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross”. </p>
<p>For modern conservative Protestants, while in principle, God has the final say on who is saved and who is damned, the clear expectation is that only those who are “born again” have any sort of a chance. </p>
<h2>Eternal torments</h2>
<p>In traditional Christian doctrine, hell was conceived as a place, generally beneath the earth, where the wicked would be punished for eternity. There would be both psychological torment – at our knowing we had lost the opportunity for salvation – and physical ones inflicted by the Devil and his demons. There were gnawing worms and unquenchable fires. No escape from hell or mitigation of eternal torment was possible.</p>
<p>God would laugh at the sufferings of the damned, said the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Baxter">English puritan Richard Baxter</a>. “Is it not a terrible thing,” he asked, “to a wretched soul, when it shall lie roaring perpetually … in the flames of Hell, and the God of mercy himself shall laugh at them?”</p>
<h2>The judgement</h2>
<p>The decision as to whether we went to heaven or hell was made by God at the time of our deaths. (The general judgement of all the resurrected dead on the final Day of Judgement merely confirmed God’s previous one.) As the greatest Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas rather elegantly put it, “the soul will remain perpetually in whatever last end it is found to have set for itself at the time of death, desiring that state as the most suitable, whether it is good or evil”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-what-might-heaven-be-like-95939">Friday essay: what might heaven be like?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281064/original/file-20190625-97785-62z8bn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281064/original/file-20190625-97785-62z8bn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281064/original/file-20190625-97785-62z8bn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281064/original/file-20190625-97785-62z8bn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281064/original/file-20190625-97785-62z8bn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281064/original/file-20190625-97785-62z8bn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281064/original/file-20190625-97785-62z8bn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281064/original/file-20190625-97785-62z8bn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Blake, The Day of Judgment, 1805.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Still, Christianity has never quite worked out whether heaven or hell is the consequence of righteous or wicked lives, or whether God is completely arbitrary in his decision making about our final destination. </p>
<p>The Australian Christian Lobby, however, follows the conservative Protestant tradition: so infected are we with the original sin of Adam and Eve, we are all doomed to hell from the moment of our birth and only Jesus can save us from it. </p>
<h2>Purgatory</h2>
<p>Amidst the gloom, there was one bright spot in the traditional Christian doctrine of hell. Our punishment there would be proportionate to our sins just as our rewards in heaven would be proportionate to our virtues.</p>
<p>This sense of proportionality led around the year 1000 CE to the invention of another place between heaven and hell – a place of purification of our sins. It arose from the recognition that while most of us were not sufficiently meritorious to deserve heaven instantly after death, most of us were also not sufficiently wicked to deserve eternal punishment.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281063/original/file-20190625-97799-16h6scv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281063/original/file-20190625-97799-16h6scv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281063/original/file-20190625-97799-16h6scv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281063/original/file-20190625-97799-16h6scv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281063/original/file-20190625-97799-16h6scv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281063/original/file-20190625-97799-16h6scv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281063/original/file-20190625-97799-16h6scv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281063/original/file-20190625-97799-16h6scv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gabriel von Max, Purgatory, circa 1885.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Purgatory was the place where those who were judged worthy of heaven eventually were purged, purified and punished for their sins before going on to their heavenly reward. </p>
<p>Purgatory thus became the default destination after death. Divine justice and mercy were better served by a place where souls, who, like most of us, were not really all that good at being really bad, could be both punished and perfected. Hell then was reserved only for the most incorrigible.</p>
<p>Even so, Purgatory was no holiday resort. The inhabitants were purified by fire. The heat was at times so intense, Dante tells us in his Purgatory, that “I could have flung myself … for coolness, in a vat of boiling glass.”</p>
<h2>Purgatory purged</h2>
<p>The Protestant reformers of the 16th century hated the idea of Purgatory and threw it out. They saw it as the root cause of corruption within the Church as people paid money on earth to the Church to try to lessen their time there.</p>
<p>Protestant Christianity therefore returned to the harsh either/or of heaven or hell, determined by God at the time of death (or birth). Humanity was again classified into only two classes – the saved and the damned. </p>
<p>Some Protestants from the 17th to 19th centuries attempted to mitigate this harsh idea of hell. Some argued that, after a period of time in hell, all souls would eventually be saved. Others suggested that souls would be annihilated after having done their time of punishment in hell.</p>
<p>By the 20th century, liberal Christians, Protestant and Catholic, were finding it difficult to square away belief in a God of love with the doctrine of eternal torments in the fires of hell. For them, “hell” has been rethought as a state (but no longer a place) of life after death in which we freely choose to stay alienated from God and from which we can eventually be saved if we so wish. </p>
<p>Today’s conservative Christians, however, remain unmoved by the possibility of eventual salvation from hell for everyone. The doctrine of eternal torments in hell has stayed on their theological agenda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119380/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip C. Almond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This doctrine is not for the fainthearted.Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1154512019-04-18T05:59:27Z2019-04-18T05:59:27ZWhat and where is heaven? The answers are at the heart of the Easter story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269931/original/file-20190418-28103-j94p5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=778%2C0%2C2712%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is the second in a two-part series on heaven and hell by Bible scholar Robyn Whitaker. You can read her piece on hell <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-hell-exactly-we-might-joke-its-other-people-but-the-bible-has-a-more-complicated-answer-113732">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>My pious Baptist grandmother once shockingly confessed, at the ripe old age of 93, that she didn’t want to go to heaven. “Why,” we asked? “Well, I think it will be rather boring just sitting around on clouds and singing hymns all day” she answered. She had a point.</p>
<p>Mark Twain might have agreed with her assessment. He once famously quipped that one should choose “heaven for the climate, hell for the company”.</p>
<p>Most of us have some concept of heaven, even if it is one formed by movies like What Dreams May Come, The Lovely Bones, or think it involves meeting <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FngXOUxklR4">Morgan Freeman in a white room</a>. And while not as complicated as biblical <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-hell-exactly-we-might-joke-its-other-people-but-the-bible-has-a-more-complicated-answer-113732">ideas about hell</a>, the biblical concept of heaven is not particularly simple either.</p>
<p>As New Testament scholar <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13090519-heaven">Paula Gooder writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is impossible to state categorically what the Bible as a whole says about heaven… Biblical beliefs about heaven are varied, complex and fluid.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the Christian tradition, heaven and paradise have been conflated as an answer to the question “where do I go when I die?” The idea of the dead being in heaven or enjoying paradise often brings enormous comfort to the bereaved and hope to those suffering or dying. Yet heaven and paradise were originally more about where God lived, not about us or our ultimate destination.</p>
<p>The words for heaven or heavens in both Hebrew (<em>shamayim</em>) and Greek (<em>ouranos</em>) can also be translated as sky. It is not something that exists eternally but rather part of creation.</p>
<p>The first line of the Bible states that heaven is created along with the creation of the earth (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=NRSV">Genesis 1</a>). It is primarily God’s dwelling place in the biblical tradition: a parallel realm where everything operates according to God’s will. Heaven is a place of peace, love, community, and worship, where God is surrounded by a heavenly court and other heavenly beings.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269724/original/file-20190417-139107-tmv4f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269724/original/file-20190417-139107-tmv4f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269724/original/file-20190417-139107-tmv4f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269724/original/file-20190417-139107-tmv4f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269724/original/file-20190417-139107-tmv4f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269724/original/file-20190417-139107-tmv4f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269724/original/file-20190417-139107-tmv4f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Disputation of the Sacrament at the Vatican Museum (c1509) depicts heaven as a realm in the skies above earth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Biblical authors imagined the earth as a flat place with Sheol below (the realm of the dead) and a dome over the earth that separates it from the heavens or sky above. Of course, we know the earth is not flat, and this three-tiered universe makes no sense to a modern mind. Even so, the concept of heaven (wherever it is located) continues in Christian theology as the place where God dwells and a theological claim that this world is not all that there is.</p>
<p>The other main metaphor for God’s dwelling place in the Bible is paradise. According <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+23%3A39-43&version=NRSV">to Luke’s version of the crucifixion</a>, Jesus converses with the men on either side of him while waiting to die and promises the man on a neighbouring cross “today you will be with me in paradise”. </p>
<p>References to paradise in the Bible are likely due to the influence of Persian culture and particularly <a href="https://dailyhistory.org/How_did_the_concept_of_paradise_develop%3F">Persian Royal gardens</a> (paridaida). Persian walled gardens were known for their beautiful layout, diversity of plant life, walled enclosures, and being a place where the royal family might safely walk. They were effectively a paradise on earth.</p>
<p>The garden of Eden in Genesis 2 is strikingly similar to a Persian Royal garden or paradise. It has abundant water sources in the rivers that run through it, fruit and plants of every kind for food, and it is “pleasing to the eye”. God dwells there, or at least visits, and talks with Adam and Eve like a King might in a royal garden.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-what-might-heaven-be-like-95939">Friday essay: what might heaven be like?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the grand mythic stories that make up the Bible, humans are thrown out of Eden due to their disobedience. And so begins a narrative about human separation from the divine and how humans find their way back to God and God’s dwelling (paradise). In the Christian tradition, Jesus is the means of return. </p>
<p>The Easter event that Christians celebrate around the globe at this time of year is about the resurrection of Jesus after his violent death on the cross three days earlier. Jesus’ resurrection is seen as the promise, the “first-fruits” of what is possible for all humans – resurrection to an eternal life with God. This is, of course, a matter of faith not something that can be proven. But reconciliation with God lies at the heart of the Easter story.</p>
<p>The last book of the Bible, Revelation, conflates the idea of heaven and paradise. The author describes a vision of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+21&version=NRSV">a new, re-created heaven</a> coming down to earth. It is not escapism from this planet but rather an affirmation of all that is created, material, and earthly but now healed and renewed.</p>
<p>This final biblical vision of heaven is a lot like the garden of Eden – complete with the Tree of Life, rivers, plants and God – although this time it is also an urban, multicultural city. In what is essentially a return to Eden, humans are reconciled with God and, of course, with one another. </p>
<p>Heaven or paradise in the Bible is a utopian vision, designed not only to inspire faith in God but also in the hope that people might embody the values of love and reconciliation in this world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robyn J. Whitaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the Bible, heaven is where God resides, rather than a place of eternal life. But over time it has become conflated with ideas of paradise and eternal salvation.Robyn J. Whitaker, Senior Lecturer in New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of DivinityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1135352019-04-01T10:39:42Z2019-04-01T10:39:42ZAtheism has been part of many Asian traditions for millennia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266396/original/file-20190328-139361-138qhpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Atheism is not a modern concept.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/girlwithaonetrackmind/3173619607/in/photolist-5QrCxr-b99RYc-dzn5Ya-9mhNr5-2zFsMg-2zL2gL-EraLNe-5JNCym-b99RQn-P4q1TV-2a9wvFJ-dzhPs7-b99VVk-2zKYYb-oDmTxt-dzcoD8-wNC1m6-6BybB9-78Kjna-6eQxYq-6YuuAL-9aL4yR-9GKE1N-4oRkki-2zFjWF-dzcojt-2zL3Hf-5ZsmRb-b99V5k-9mhNAy-4SRy7J-2zKFhd-9meHLB-2zL2Vw-b99SPZ-b99Vdr-6MjSJ2-VRAKdS-6kcugT-dzcnYn-7UYXxY-6HpDPw-5Q6JuR-2duf5t7-iBsyL9-fh8rUx-2acPKBU-9WVZ2d-3FGtWy-2cYhJZP">Zoe Margolis</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A group of atheists and secularists recently gathered in Southern California to talk about social and political issues. This was the first of three summits planned by the <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/03/08/atheist-summits-aim-to-find-community-and-power-in-networking-nonbelievers/">Secular Coalition for America</a>, an advocacy group based in Washington D.C.</p>
<p>To many, atheism – the lack of belief in a personal god or gods - may appear an entirely modern concept. After all, it would seem that it is religious traditions that have dominated the world since the beginning of recorded history. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://religiousstudies.missouri.edu/people/cohen-0">scholar of Asian religions</a>, however, I’m often struck by the prevalence of atheism and agnosticism - the view that it is impossible to know whether a god exists - in ancient Asian texts. Atheistic traditions have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1397540.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Af6c9ea961dc75c255f56d74051b49118">played a significant part in Asian cultures</a> for millennia. </p>
<h2>Atheism in Buddhism, Jainism</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266397/original/file-20190328-139364-1ya0kot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266397/original/file-20190328-139364-1ya0kot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266397/original/file-20190328-139364-1ya0kot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266397/original/file-20190328-139364-1ya0kot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266397/original/file-20190328-139364-1ya0kot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266397/original/file-20190328-139364-1ya0kot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266397/original/file-20190328-139364-1ya0kot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Buddhists do not believe in a creator God.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/in2photos/6657417203/in/photolist-b9i1ce-boZ2fj-2wdufD-Ta9PM-miFWtp-7VBJxS-62hFvB-5H8HUd-5sZM6n-39GKqJ-5H4rdP-5BTpt3-kkPwj-F2LFi-ooAKm-5yn3-2xjEZd-7dWZr5-6hyasC-naTuwk-7FndNQ-FcyqR-7dMBd-3F16mL-3nNs4-5Wv5tQ-9TVLbj-DJSbQ4-cH2f81-miHnAf-2EAkRM-6MZME7-wfkaB-7sS7HB-C6DFM-nskQHV-2WMqz-o8vG8S-pfc2n2-DGy4Xq-a2pjd-E7RmH-pZwEmF-49XPos-M3xr3C-7wTSyv-nzfH88-Jn1Kf-U4Y6ao-aBqHKw">Keith Cuddeback</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Buddhism is a tradition focused on spiritual liberation, it is <a href="http://www.unm.edu/%7Erhayes/atheism.pdf">not a theistic religion</a>. </p>
<p>The Buddha himself rejected the idea of a creator god, and Buddhist philosophers have even argued that belief in an eternal god is nothing but a distraction for humans seeking enlightenment.</p>
<p>While Buddhism does not argue that gods don’t exist, gods are seen as completely irrelevant to those who strive for enlightenment. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266399/original/file-20190328-139380-nnmdx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266399/original/file-20190328-139380-nnmdx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266399/original/file-20190328-139380-nnmdx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266399/original/file-20190328-139380-nnmdx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266399/original/file-20190328-139380-nnmdx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266399/original/file-20190328-139380-nnmdx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266399/original/file-20190328-139380-nnmdx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jains do not believe in a divine creator.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gandalfsgallery/8372961076/in/photolist-dKTBBS-azhVTL-dEVaLe-BDMrJW-cBpQGJ-qWE1Ft-8ra5BK-2fdDjYa-9vTYvt-pYZ8HK-qTtyZS-azg7c6-pFkvwv-9wUW3N-ePUnZV-7EoSok-9r1jNR-QWoErF-4wKzCn-kJX2b7-5akqfK-SSTaxg-QRviPV-rmEcd7-Y5GZm3-JWYYh4-pZNFEN-DYhKQo-azi2pd-azjbzs-az9VHt-qEmtc4-siFBvB-ePVb7t-Dmuony-3wvcxe-aFkFez-aFkFUa-2bpfdL6-26PAhUE-2KoV9N-eam2p5-hBAetG-21PEE5b-Cr2Nv-WNsg85-GBw7Gh-Y4bPx5-cJKbum-S2RLJG">Gandalf's Gallery</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A similar form of functional atheism can also be found in the ancient Asian religion of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=oEATAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA186&dq=jain+atheism&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiX3IeR4v_gAhVB-6wKHTV1CiEQ6AEIUDAH#v=onepage&q=jain%20atheism&f=false">Jainism</a>, a tradition that emphasizes non-violence toward all living beings, non-attachment to worldly possessions and ascetic practice. While Jains believe in an eternal soul or jiva, that can be reborn, they do not believe in a divine creator. </p>
<p>According to Jainism, the universe is eternal, and while gods may exist, they too must be reborn, just like humans are. The gods play no role in spiritual liberation and enlightenment; humans must find their own path to enlightenment with the help of wise human teachers. </p>
<h2>Other atheistic philosophies</h2>
<p>Around the same time when Buddhism and Jainism arose in the sixth century B.C., there was also an explicitly atheist school of thought in India called the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Charvaka_philosophy.html?id=ATw1AAAAIAAJ">Carvaka</a> school. Although none of their original texts have survived, Buddhist and Hindu authors describe the Carvakas as firm atheists who believed that nothing existed beyond the material world.</p>
<p>To the Carvakas, there was no life after death, no soul apart from the body, no gods and no world other than this one. </p>
<p>Another school of thought, <a href="https://books.google.com.np/books?id=BiGQzc5lRGYC">Ajivika</a>, which flourished around the same time, similarly argued that gods didn’t exist, although its followers did believe in a soul and in rebirth. </p>
<p>The Ajivikas claimed that the fate of the soul was determined by fate alone, and not by a god, or even by free will. The Ajivikas taught that everything was made up of atoms, but that these atoms were moving and combining with each other in predestined ways. </p>
<p>Like the Carvaka school, the Ajivika school is today only known from texts composed by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. It is therefore difficult to determine exactly what the Ajivikas themselves thought. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=BiGQzc5lRGYC&pg=PA224&dq=ajivika+no+good+or+evil&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjj6trwyqXhAhUIDq0KHTUzAjsQ6AEIQzAE#v=onepage&q=ajivika%20no%20good%20or%20evil&f=false">Buddhist texts</a>, the Ajivikas argued that there was no distinction between good and evil and there was no such thing as sin. The school may have existed around the same time as early Buddhism, in the fifth century B.C. </p>
<h2>Atheism in Hinduism</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266400/original/file-20190328-139352-1fxh9d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266400/original/file-20190328-139352-1fxh9d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266400/original/file-20190328-139352-1fxh9d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266400/original/file-20190328-139352-1fxh9d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266400/original/file-20190328-139352-1fxh9d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266400/original/file-20190328-139352-1fxh9d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266400/original/file-20190328-139352-1fxh9d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are many gods in Hinduism, but there are also atheistic beliefs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/129038687@N07/15951040995/in/photolist-qixfLc-qSvHhZ-27cvqT6-7GRa1R-7HFw1q-9GGV9p-5KQfn2-5KQg3R-5NtGxg-TCLwL1-vktRi-2abXXer-SDaAYy-SDjswV-78C8gX-hZXqA6-o42yw5-hZWKxY-9f6oBR-qimC7B-qitfKf-97GLgR-634LZ4-638CpL-5GkdL7-2VwWMJ-7kADDo-hZX3kq-9gByRE-2SnjVu-hbDUQb-28ha3bk-81CsTQ-m46a97-qfFNK5-SnVEBd-9f6oVr-hZXgvH-5NxY1S-RmPfsf-Zma4r5-RHAaBJ-5NxYmu-5Ps484-hZWw4z-RDu43A-i527mb-hZWPJJ-hZXvck-4BMkGd">Religious Studies Unisa</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the Hindu tradition of India embraces the belief in many gods and goddesses – 330 million of them, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kaxOBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">according to some sources</a> – there are also atheistic strands of thought found within Hinduism. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Encyclopedia_of_Indian_Philosophies.html?id=bqr_AwAAQBAJ">Samkhya school</a> of Hindu philosophy is one such example. It believes that humans can achieve liberation for themselves by freeing their own spirit from the realm of matter. </p>
<p>Another example is the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Introduction_to_the_Purva_Mimamsa.html?id=UoIRAAAAMAAJ">Mimamsa school</a>. This school also rejects the idea of a creator God. The Mimamsa philosopher Kumarila said that if a god had created the world by himself in the beginning, how could anyone else possibly confirm it? Kumarila further argued that if a merciful god had created the world, it could not have been as full of suffering as it is. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://scroll.in/article/753475/people-without-religion-have-risen-in-census-2011-but-atheists-have-nothing-to-cheer-about">2011 census</a>, there were approximately 2.9 million atheists in India. Atheism is still a significant cultural force in India, as well as in other Asian countries influenced by Indian religions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113535/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Signe Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It might appear to many that atheism is a modern idea. However, in parts of Asia, particularly in India, atheism has been part of beliefs for thousands of years.Signe Cohen, Associate Professor and Department Chair, University of Missouri-ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1078732018-12-07T17:55:22Z2018-12-07T17:55:22ZJohn Chau may have been influenced by past evangelical missions and their belief in power of faith<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249077/original/file-20181205-186052-12yeqdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What might have motivated the young missionary killed on a remote island in India?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-American-Killed/66be8c95c7644152a996f1c63783eaed/1/0">AP Photo/Sarah Prince</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent killing of a 26-year-old U.S. missionary, John Allen Chau, on a remote island in India has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/world/asia/john-chau-missionary-evangelical.html">raised many questions</a> about <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/john-allen-chau-missionary-death-christian-north-sentinel-island.html">global evangelical Protestant missions</a>. </p>
<p>Chau was on a personal mission to convert the Sentinelese, a protected tribe who have avoided contact with the rest of the world. Indian ships monitor the waters to stop outsiders from approaching them. Chau, however, is reported to have asked fishermen to take him illegally to the island where the Sentinelese live. The Sentinelese are reported to have shot and killed him with arrows.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/New-Vision-for-Missions,168.aspx">my research on missionaries</a> shows, this often unwise haste to evangelize the world was the founding characteristic of evangelical missions in the late 19th century.</p>
<h2>Faith missions</h2>
<p>From the beginning of the 19th century, Protestants sent missionaries abroad under mission boards that required seminary education and full funding for prospective recruits. By the end of the 19th century, however, some mission leaders believed that the established missions were evangelizing the world at much too slow a pace.</p>
<p>Evangelicals <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/hell-bible-verses/">believe in a hell</a> where the souls of those who don’t convert to Christianity will burn forever. </p>
<p>Missionaries are motivated by Christ’s words in the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28%3A16-20&version=NIV">“Great Commission”</a> to “make disciples of all nations.” In these biblical verses, the risen Christ commands his disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel. This command has <a href="https://www.tmai.org/understanding-the-motivation-for-missions/">motivated the missionary enterprise</a> for centuries. </p>
<p>These leaders founded what became known as <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/New-Vision-for-Missions,168.aspx">“faith” missions</a> to greatly expand the missionary force. As I write in my book, the new missions began sending out highly committed but lightly educated and ill-prepared missionaries. Many had not even finished high school. Just a bit of Bible training was considered enough.</p>
<p>There were dozens of such missions by the early 20th century, each founded to Christianize a specific section of the globe, such as the China Inland Mission, the Sudan Interior Mission and the Central American Mission. </p>
<p>Hundreds of young men and women, often with families, were sent overseas with little to no training in anything beyond the Bible and no promise of funding. </p>
<p>While doing archival research for my book, I also found evidence of the conversations between the missionary leaders and their young recruits. The first question, for example, R. D. Smith, a leader of the Central American Mission, <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/New-Vision-for-Missions,168.aspx">posed to new recruits</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Do you understand that you are to trust the Lord for the supply of all your needs and not rely upon the Central American Mission or any other human agency?” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He did not want new recruits to even have one year’s funding in place. “I am not exercising faith,” Smith groused, “if I have a year’s supply in hand.” </p>
<p>In digging into records in the Townsend archives in Waxhaw, North Carolina, I also found that recruits were told simply to pray, and God would provide the necessary funds: hence the name “faith missions.” </p>
<p><a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/New-Vision-for-Missions,168.aspx">These records show</a> that mission leaders believed such a plan would result in a more “spiritual” missionary force, as missionaries were forced to rely only on God for their needs. Cameron Townsend, a Central American Mission recruit, wrote in 1927: “We want entire dependence on God, and not on anyone’s bank account.” </p>
<h2>Missionary zeal</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249363/original/file-20181206-128190-1xtlf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249363/original/file-20181206-128190-1xtlf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249363/original/file-20181206-128190-1xtlf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249363/original/file-20181206-128190-1xtlf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249363/original/file-20181206-128190-1xtlf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249363/original/file-20181206-128190-1xtlf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249363/original/file-20181206-128190-1xtlf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A missionary visits village women in the 1900s and is playing a small accordion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_missionary_visits_village_women;_she_seems_to_be_playing_a_small_accordion.jpg">Unknown photographer via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hundreds of untrained, unfunded, largely unsupervised young people got on boats to Africa or Asia knowing little about where they were going and with no language training other than what they might pick up from the missionary in the cabin next door.</p>
<p>That tragedy often resulted should come as no surprise. A. T. Pierson, an early promoter of faith missions, <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006018758">argued to the leaders of the Africa Inland Mission</a> in the late 1890s, after all of the initial 16 recruits the mission sent to Africa either died or quit, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The hallmark of God on any work is death. God has given us that hallmark. Now is the time to go forward.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While no official estimates are available, the death of missionaries was accepted as a common occurrence. The board of directors of an evangelical mission, the Nazarene Missions International, once sent a letter to two of its sick missionaries saying “we presume you will already be dead,” to explain why no funds were sent for the month – perhaps referring to funds that came through family or friends.</p>
<p>In this case, the missionaries recovered. But how long they survived afterwards is not clear. </p>
<h2>Linguistic training</h2>
<p>By the 1930s some mission leaders were recognizing that such a plan was untenable. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.wycliffe.org/">Wycliffe Bible Translators</a>, the largest and most influential faith mission in the 20th century, founded by Cameron Townsend, who had earlier advocated for dependence on God, began providing its recruits with much more thorough training and support. This included linguistic training through its Summer Institute of Linguistics. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/New-Vision-for-Missions,168.aspx">goal was to teach missionaries</a> how to, first, learn languages that had never been written down and second, create a written language. The ultimate goal was to translate the Bible into every language in the world. By midcentury these linguistic training institutes were recognized on secular university campuses as ranking with the best in the world. My own parents spent 30 years with Wycliffe translating the Bible into the Mansaka language in the jungles of the Philippines, where I grew up.</p>
<p>At the same time, many of the Bible institutes, which had sent many graduates to the faith missions, were becoming Bible colleges and universities, and missionary training was becoming more thorough and academic. </p>
<p>The discipline of anthropology made inroads into evangelical colleges by the 1960s and dramatically changed missionary education. </p>
<h2>Today’s evangelizing</h2>
<p>Most evangelical missionaries today are at least college-educated, and many have graduate degrees in anthropology or linguistics. John Allen Chau was a college graduate who had briefly attended a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/world/asia/john-chau-andaman-missionary.html">Canadian linguistic institute</a> affiliated with Wycliffe’s Summer Institute of Linguistics, but he was not trained to be a missionary. He had majored in sports medicine. </p>
<p>And while evangelicals continue to send missionaries as educators or business people to places where proselytizing is not welcome, such as China, <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2018/december/john-chau-wisdom-and-lessons-learned-missionary-sentinelese.html">few established missions today would sponsor</a> Chau’s amateurish and obviously illegal approach. </p>
<p>Today’s missions understand that passionate faith like Chau’s is not enough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107873/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Svelmoe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In their zeal to evangelize the world, at the end of 19th century, young families were sent overseas with little to no training in anything beyond the Bible and no promise of funding.William Svelmoe, Professor of History, Saint Mary's CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1035052018-10-23T10:43:58Z2018-10-23T10:43:58ZWhy the Christian idea of hell no longer persuades people to care for the poor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241693/original/file-20181022-105754-921ihj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What was behind early depictions of hell?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/zabowski/15465394027">Erica Zabowski/Flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s that time of the year when hell is used as a common theme for entertainment and <a href="http://www.7floorsofhell.com/">hell-themed haunted houses</a> and <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/hell-fest-review-1202961010">horror movies</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/10/30/these-evangelical-haunted-houses-are-designed-to-show-sinners-that-theyre-going-to-hell/?utm_term=.868a196a5002">pop up all over</a> the country. </p>
<p>Although many of us now associate hell with Christianity, the idea of an afterlife existed much earlier. Greeks and Romans, for example, used the concept of Hades, an underworld where the dead lived, both as a way of understanding death and as a moral tool.</p>
<p>However, in the present times, the use of this rhetoric has radically changed. </p>
<h2>Rhetoric in ancient Greece and Rome</h2>
<p>The earliest Greek and Roman depictions of Hades in the epics did not focus on punishment, but described a <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D11%3Acard%3D1">dark shadowy place</a> of dead people.</p>
<p>In Book 11 of the Greek epic the <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D11%3Acard%3D1">“Odyssey</a>,” Odysseus travels to the realm of the dead, encountering countless familiar faces, including his own mother. </p>
<p>Near the end of Odysseus’ tour, he encounters a few souls being punished for their misdeeds, including Tantalus, who was sentenced eternally to have food and drink just out of reach. It is this punishment from which the word “tantalize” originated.</p>
<p>Hundreds of years later, the Roman poet Virgil, in his epic poem “Aeneid,” describes a similar <a href="http://www.theoi.com/Text/VirgilAeneid6.html">journey of a Trojan, Aeneas</a>, to an underworld, where many individuals receive rewards and punishments. </p>
<p>This ancient curriculum was used for <a href="https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/educating-early-christians-through-the-rhetoric-of-hell-9783161529634">teaching</a> everything from politics to economics to virtue, to students across the Roman empire, for hundreds of years. </p>
<p>In later literature, these early traditions around punishment persuaded readers to behave ethically in life so that they could avoid punishment after death. For example, Plato <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D10">describes the journey of a man named Er</a>, who watches as souls ascend to a place of reward, and descend to a place of punishment. Lucian, an ancient second century A.D. satirist takes this one step further in depicting Hades as a place where the <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/lucian-menippus_descent_hades/1925/pb_LCL162.71.xml">rich turned into donkeys</a> and had to bear the burdens of the poor on their backs for 250 years. </p>
<p>For Lucian this comedic depiction of the rich in hell was a way to critique excess and economic inequality in his own world. </p>
<h2>Early Christians</h2>
<p>By the time the New Testament gospels were written in the first century A.D., Jews and early Christians were moving away from the idea that all of the dead go to the same place. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241698/original/file-20181022-105770-1slmx4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241698/original/file-20181022-105770-1slmx4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241698/original/file-20181022-105770-1slmx4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241698/original/file-20181022-105770-1slmx4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241698/original/file-20181022-105770-1slmx4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241698/original/file-20181022-105770-1slmx4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241698/original/file-20181022-105770-1slmx4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Early Christians portrayed hell through different terms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/paukrus/17069609286">paukrus/Flickr.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the Gospel of Matthew, the story of Jesus is told with <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+8%3A12&version=NRSV">frequent mentions</a> of “the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.” As I describe in my <a href="https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/educating-early-christians-through-the-rhetoric-of-hell-9783161529634">book</a>, many of the images of judgment and punishment that Matthew uses represent the early development of a Christian notion of hell. </p>
<p>The Gospel of Luke does not discuss final judgment as frequently, but it does contain a memorable representation of hell. The <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+16%3A19-31&version=NRSV">Gospel describes Lazarus</a>, a poor man who had lived his life hungry and covered with sores, at the gate of a rich man, who disregards his pleas. After death, however, the poor man is taken to heaven. Meanwhile, it is the turn of the rich man to be in agony as he suffers in the flames of hell and cries out for Lazarus to give him some water. </p>
<h2>For the marginalized other</h2>
<p>Matthew and Luke are not simply offering audiences a fright fest. Like Plato and later Lucian, these New Testament authors recognized that images of damnation would capture the attention of their audience and persuade them to behave according to the ethical norms of each gospel. </p>
<p>Later Christian reflections on hell picked up and expanded this emphasis. Examples can be seen in the later apocalypses of <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/apocalypsepeter-roberts.html">Peter</a> and <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/apocalypsepaul.html">Paul</a> – stories that use strange imagery to depict future times and otherworldly spaces. These apocalypses included punishments for those who did not prepare meals for others, care for the poor or care for the widows in their midst. </p>
<p>Although these stories about hell were not ultimately included in the Bible, they were extremely <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27793794?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">popular</a> in the ancient church, and were used regularly in worship.</p>
<p>A major idea in Matthew was that love for one’s neighbor was central to following Jesus. Later depictions of hell built upon <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A30-46&version=NRSV">this emphasis</a>, inspiring people to care for the “least of these” in their community.</p>
<h2>Damnation then and now</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241697/original/file-20181022-105782-1y3xl6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241697/original/file-20181022-105782-1y3xl6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241697/original/file-20181022-105782-1y3xl6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241697/original/file-20181022-105782-1y3xl6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241697/original/file-20181022-105782-1y3xl6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241697/original/file-20181022-105782-1y3xl6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241697/original/file-20181022-105782-1y3xl6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The idea of hell is used to bring about conversions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=114461&picture=repent-or-burn">William Morris</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the contemporary world, the notion of hell is used to scare people into becoming Christians, with an emphasis on personal sins rather than a failure to care for the poor or hungry.</p>
<p>In the United States, as religion scholar <a href="https://religiousstudies.stanford.edu/people/kathryn-gin-lum">Katherine Gin Lum</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/damned-nation-9780199843114?cc=us&lang=en&">has argued</a>, the threat of hell was a powerful tool in the age of nation-building. In the early Republic, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/damned-nation-9780199843114?cc=us&lang=en&">as she explains</a>, “fear of the sovereign could be replaced by fear of God.” </p>
<p>As the ideology of republicanism developed, with its emphasis on individual rights and political choice, the way that the rhetoric of hell worked also shifted. Instead of motivating people to choose behaviors that promoted social cohesion, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/damned-nation-9780199843114?cc=us&lang=en&">hell was used by evangelical preachers</a> to get individuals to repent for their sins.</p>
<p>Even though people still read Matthew and Luke, it is this individualistic emphasis, I argue, that continues to inform our modern understanding of hell. It is evident in the hell-themed Halloween attractions with their focus on gore and personal shortcomings. </p>
<p>These depictions are unlikely to portray the consequences for people who have neglected to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, cloth the naked, care for the sick or visit those in prison. </p>
<p>The fears around hell, in the current times, play only on the ancient rhetoric of eternal punishment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103505/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meghan Henning received funding from the Jacob K. Javitts fellowship (U.S. department of education). </span></em></p>Hell-themed Halloween attractions play on people’s fears. The early depictions of hell were meant to use fear as a moral guide to help others.Meghan Henning, Assistant Professor of Christian Origins, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/976702018-07-19T10:40:57Z2018-07-19T10:40:57ZWhat is heaven?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228255/original/file-20180718-142411-frvoey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Illustration of Dante's Paradiso.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dante_Pd10_BL_Yates_Thompson_36_f147.jpg">Giovanni di Paolo </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a family member or a friend passes away, we often find ourselves reflecting on the question “where are they now?” As mortal beings, it is a question of ultimate significance to each of us. </p>
<p>Different cultural groups, and different individuals within them, respond with numerous, often conflicting, answers to questions about life after death. For many, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heaven-hell/">these questions are rooted </a> in the idea of reward for the good (a heaven) and punishment for the wicked (a hell), where earthly injustices are finally righted.</p>
<p>However, these common roots do not guarantee contemporary agreement on the nature, or even the existence, of hell and heaven. Pope Francis himself has raised Catholic eyebrows over some of his <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/pope-francis-hugs-comforts-little-boy-who-asked-atheist-dad-was-heaven-891113">comments on heaven</a>, recently telling a young boy that his deceased father, an atheist, was with God in heaven because, by his careful parenting, “he had a good heart.” </p>
<p>So, what is the Christian idea of “heaven”? </p>
<h2>Beliefs about what happens at death</h2>
<p>The earliest Christians believed that Jesus Christ, risen from the dead after his crucifixion, would soon return, to complete what he had begun by his preaching: the establishment of the <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1L.HTM">Kingdom of God</a>. This Second Coming of Christ would bring an end to the effort of unification of all humanity in Christ and result in a final resurrection of the dead and moral judgment of all human beings.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christians believe, when Christ returns, the dead too will rise in renewed bodies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/waitingfortheword/5589922997">Waiting For The Word</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the middle of the first century A.D., Christians became concerned about the fate of members of their churches who had already died before this Second Coming. </p>
<p>Some of the earliest documents in the Christian New Testament, <a href="http://andrewjacobs.org/newtest/paulparts.htm">epistles</a> or letters written by the apostle Paul, offered an answer. The dead have simply fallen <a href="http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/15-20.htm">asleep</a>, they explained. When Christ <a href="http://biblehub.com/1_thessalonians/4-16.htm">returns</a>, the dead, too, would rise in renewed bodies, and be judged by Christ himself. Afterwards, they would be united with him forever.</p>
<p>A few <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/athenagoras-resurrection.html">theologians</a> in the early centuries of Christianity agreed. But a growing consensus developed that the souls of the dead were held in a kind of <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103531.htm">waiting state</a> until the end of the world, when they would be once again reunited with their bodies, resurrected in a more perfected form.</p>
<h2>Promise of eternal life</h2>
<p>After <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Constantine_I/">Roman Emperor Constantine</a> legalized Christianity in the early fourth century, the number of Christians grew enormously. Millions converted across the Empire, and by the century’s end, the old Roman state religion was prohibited. </p>
<p>Based on the <a href="http://biblehub.com/john/3-5.htm">Gospels</a>, bishops and theologians emphasized that the promise of eternal life in heaven was open only to the baptized – that is, those who had undergone the ritual immersion in water which cleansed the soul from sin and marked one’s entrance into the church. All others were damned to eternal separation from God and punishment for sin.</p>
<p>In this new Christian empire, baptism was increasingly administered to infants. Some theologians challenged this practice, since infants could not yet commit sins. But in the Christian west, the belief in “<a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15011.htm">original sin</a>” – the sin of Adam and Eve when they disobeyed God’s command in the Garden of Eden (the “Fall”) – predominated.</p>
<p>Following the teachings of the fourth century saint <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/theologians/augustine-of-hippo.html">Augustine</a>, Western theologians in the fifth century A.D. believed that even infants were born with the sin of Adam and Eve marring their spirit and will. </p>
<p>But this doctrine raised a troubling question: What of those infants who died before baptism could be administered? </p>
<p>At first, theologians taught that their souls went to Hell, but suffered very little if at all. </p>
<p>The concept of <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm">Limbo</a> developed from this idea. Popes and <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/6001.htm">theologians</a> in the 13th century taught that the souls of unbaptized babies or young children enjoyed a state of natural happiness on the “<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DL%3Aentry+group%3D24%3Aentry%3Dlimbus">edge</a>” of Hell, but, like those punished more severely in Hell itself, were denied the bliss of the presence of God.</p>
<h2>Time of judgment</h2>
<p>During times of war or plague in antiquity and the Middle Ages, Western Christians often interpreted the social chaos as a sign of the end of the world. However, as the centuries passed, the Second Coming of Christ generally became a more remote event for most Christians, still awaited but relegated to an indeterminate future. Instead, Christian theology focused more on the moment of individual death. </p>
<p>Judgment, the evaluation of the moral state of each human being, was no longer postponed until the end of the world. Each soul was first judged individually by Christ immediately after death (the “Particular” Judgment), as well as at the Second Coming (the Final or General Judgment). </p>
<p>Deathbed rituals or “Last Rites” developed from earlier rites for the sick and penitent, and most had the opportunity to confess their sins to a priest, be anointed, and receive a “final” communion before breathing their last.</p>
<p>Medieval Christians prayed to be protected from a sudden or unexpected death, because they feared baptism alone was not enough to enter heaven directly without these Last Rites. </p>
<p>Another doctrine had developed. Some died still guilty of lesser or <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P6C.HTM">venial sins</a>, like common gossip, petty theft, or minor lies that did not completely deplete one’s soul of God’s grace. After death, these souls would first be “purged” of any remaining sin or guilt in a spiritual state called Purgatory. After this spiritual cleansing, usually visualized as fire, they would be pure enough to enter heaven. </p>
<p>Only those who were extraordinarily virtuous, such as the saints, or those who had received the Last Rites, could enter directly into heaven and the presence of God.</p>
<h2>Images of heaven</h2>
<p>In antiquity, the first centuries of the Common Era, Christian heaven shared certain characteristics with both Judaism and Hellenistic religious thought on the afterlife of the virtuous. One was that of an almost physical rest and refreshment as after a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ltZBUW_F9ogC&pg=PA177&lpg=PA177&dq=new+testament+damned+thirst&source=bl&ots=4CRCLTnLiz&sig=X0xkGiLY935HTFsVOKOIWtA53u4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwid8bPi9JXcAhUvc98KHbwdADsQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=new%20testament%20damned%20thirst&f=false">desert</a> journey, often accompanied by descriptions of banquets, fountains or rivers. In the Bible’s <a href="http://biblehub.com/revelation/22-1.htm">Book of Revelation</a>, a symbolic description of the end of the world, the river running through God’s New Jerusalem was called the river “of the water of life.” However, in the <a href="http://biblehub.com/luke/16-24.htm">Gospel of Luke</a>, the damned were tormented by thirst. </p>
<p>Another was the image of light. Romans and Jews thought of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-hell-94560">abode of the wicked</a> as a place of darkness and shadows, but the divine dwelling place was filled with bright light. Heaven was also charged with positive emotions: peace, joy, love, and the bliss of spiritual fulfillment that Christians came to refer to as the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=o1AnBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT467&lpg=PT467&dq=new+catholic+encyclopedia+heaven&source=bl&ots=4_H8BPDrB3&sig=R5SXCaIMWkh3WGYXMvKvj3wTaac&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjB1b-g_srbAhWi44MKHXO-ASo4ChDoAQgoMAA#v=snippet&q=medieval&f=false">Beatific Vision</a>, the presence of God. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beato_angelico,_predella_della_pala_di_fiesole_01.jpg">Fra Angelico</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Visionaries and poets used a variety of additional images: flowering meadows, colors beyond description, trees filled with fruit, company and <a href="http://www.italianrenaissance.org/bellinis-san-zaccaria-altarpiece/">conversation</a> with family or <a href="http://www.italianrenaissance.org/bellinis-san-zaccaria-altarpiece/">white-robed others among the blessed</a>. Bright angels stood behind the dazzling throne of God and sang praise in exquisite melodies.</p>
<p>The Protestant Reformation, begun in 1517, would break sharply with the Roman Catholic Church in Western Europe in the 16th century. While both sides would argue about the existence of Purgatory, or whether only some were predestined by God to enter heaven, the existence and general nature of heaven itself was not an issue. </p>
<h2>Heaven as the place of God</h2>
<p>Today, theologians offer a variety of opinions about the nature of heaven. The Anglican C. S. Lewis wrote that even one’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vMI2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA116&dq=lewis+animals+heaven&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIu4n-65XcAhWjTd8KHYPIBjsQ6AEINTAC#v=onepage&q=lewis%20animals%20immortality&f=false">pets</a> might be admitted, united in love with their owners as the owners are united in Christ through baptism. </p>
<p>Following the nineteenth-century <a href="http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9quanto.htm">Pope Pius IX</a>, Jesuit Karl Rahner taught that even <a href="http://www.philosopherkings.co.uk/Rahner.html">non-Christians</a> and non-believers could still be saved through Christ if they lived according to similar values, an idea now found in the <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3M.HTM">Catholic Catechism</a>. </p>
<p>The Catholic Church itself has dropped the idea of Limbo, leaving the fate of unbaptized infants to “<a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3M.HTM">the mercy of God</a>.” One theme remains constant, however: Heaven is the presence of God, in the company of others who have responded to God’s call in their own lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanne M. Pierce is a Roman Catholic member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation in the USA, a national ecumenical dialogue group sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and The Episcopal Church.</span></em></p>Different cultural groups respond with numerous, often conflicting, answers to questions about life after death. An expert explains the Christian idea of heaven.Joanne M. Pierce, Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/959392018-06-07T20:28:25Z2018-06-07T20:28:25ZFriday essay: what might heaven be like?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218739/original/file-20180514-133577-veomva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Surrounded by Angels, by Carl Schweninger der Jungere, 1912</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What will Heaven be like? Perhaps not surprisingly, competing images abound. Until around the end of the 17th century, Heaven was primarily about the Beatific Vision. The perfect happiness of eternity in Heaven consisted in the worship, praise and adoration of God along with the angels, saints, martyrs, Old Testament worthies and even some noble pagans like Plato and Aristotle. </p>
<p>This was seeing God “face to face”, and not through “a glass darkly”. It was an eternity centred on God or the heavenly Christ. Thus, The Last Judgement (1425-30) by Fra Angelico shows Christ seated on a throne surrounded by the angels, Mary and the saints. His right hand points up to Heaven, his left towards Hell. On Christ’s right, angels are taking the saved through a paradisal garden to a heavenly walled city, while on his left, demons are driving the wicked into Hell.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218730/original/file-20180514-178746-yi8371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218730/original/file-20180514-178746-yi8371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218730/original/file-20180514-178746-yi8371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218730/original/file-20180514-178746-yi8371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218730/original/file-20180514-178746-yi8371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218730/original/file-20180514-178746-yi8371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218730/original/file-20180514-178746-yi8371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218730/original/file-20180514-178746-yi8371.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fra Angelico’s The Last Judgement, with Christ seated at the centre on the throne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Traditional Judaism was somewhat reticent about the life to come. But when it was spoken of, it was primarily in terms of the spiritual vision of God. As one third-century rabbi explained it,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the world-to-come there is no eating, no drinking, no mating, no trading, no jealousy, no hatred, and no enmity; instead, the righteous sit with crowns on their heads and enjoy the splendor of the divine Presence. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Islam too has the idea of a Beatific Vision. But Heaven is also very much a place of sensual delights. In the Islamic Paradise, the blessed will reside in gardens of bliss, on couches facing one another. A delicious cup of wine from a flowing stream will be passed around from which none will suffer ill effects. Fruit and meat will be available. And there will be maidens, “with dark, wide eyes like hidden pearls - a reward for what they have done” (Quran 56.22-4).</p>
<p>Within Christianity, the image of a God-centred Heaven was to last well into the 19th century. As Bishop Reginald Heber (1783-1826) put it in his hymn Holy, Holy, Holy: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>all the saints adore thee, Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea; Cherubim and Seraphim falling down before thee, Which wert and art and evermore shalt be.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-spite-of-their-differences-jews-christians-and-muslims-worship-the-same-god-83102">In spite of their differences, Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Human activities</h2>
<p>But from the middle of the 18th century until the end of the 19th, there was a gradual transition to a Heaven centred on human activities. The medieval notion that the happiness of those in Heaven would be improved by being able to see the sufferings of the damned in hell disappeared, not least because, as people became more disinclined to see the public sufferings of others in the here and now, the notion of hell as a place of eternal physical punishment was beginning to disappear. There were hints developing that all could eventually be saved, at least if they wanted to be. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218731/original/file-20180514-178757-p01r3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218731/original/file-20180514-178757-p01r3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218731/original/file-20180514-178757-p01r3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218731/original/file-20180514-178757-p01r3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218731/original/file-20180514-178757-p01r3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218731/original/file-20180514-178757-p01r3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1305&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218731/original/file-20180514-178757-p01r3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218731/original/file-20180514-178757-p01r3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1305&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Blake, The Meeting of the Family in Heaven, 1805.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Heaven was now closer than it was earlier – only a thin veil separated the living from the dead. It was also a continuation of material existence, only without the sufferings of this present life. Although Heaven remained a place of rest, the saved were increasingly active, making moral progress in a joy filled environment. Human love replaced the primacy of the divine love. Relationships between people became fundamental to the afterlife, not a distraction from it and families were re-united.</p>
<p>If not often eroticised, as in William Blake, the modern Heaven was romanticised. Lovers too would meet again. </p>
<p>Thus, for example, in the final version of his poem <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/246/719.html">The Blessed Damozel</a> (1881), Dante Gabriel Rossetti has his damsel looking longingly over the bar of Heaven upon the earth beneath hoping for the soul of her lover to come to her while </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Around her, lovers, newly met / ‘Mid deathless love’s acclaims / spoke evermore among themselves / Their heart-remember’d names.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A genteel place</h2>
<p>The Victorian Heaven was very much a domesticated, genteel and well-mannered affair. It was a kind of ethereal Victorian holiday resort with entertainments attached - Moses lecturing on the Ten Commandments at 10am in the main auditorium followed by a performance of Handel’s The Messiah (conducted by the composer) at 2.00 pm. A God-centred Heaven was marginalised. </p>
<p>Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911) in her best seller <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1227030.The_Gates_Ajar_or_Our_Loved_Ones_in_Heaven">The Gates Ajar</a> summed up the passing of the old style Paradise: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There was something about adoration, and the harpers harping with their harps, and the sea of glass, and crying Worthy the Lamb! that bewildered and disheartened me so that I could scarcely listen to it. I do not doubt that we shall glorify God primarily and happily, but can we not do it in some other way than by harping and praying.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All this required the right sorts of bodies. In the modern Heaven, we would have “spiritual bodies”, rather like the angels. But they would not be like those at the time of our deaths. Rather, they would be made perfect and at the perfect age – that of Christ during his ministry on earth, that is, about 30 to 33 years old. Those who had died in infancy or were severely deformed would be made perfect.</p>
<p>Faith in a perfect and loving God was also much tested in the 19th century by the suffering of animals in this present life having no compensation in the next. New companionate relationships between people and their pets led many to wonder how their happiness in Heaven could be complete in the absence of animals who had loved and been loved so much. So the issue of animals in Heaven came on to the agenda for the first time.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218732/original/file-20180514-178746-1sbf4h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218732/original/file-20180514-178746-1sbf4h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218732/original/file-20180514-178746-1sbf4h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218732/original/file-20180514-178746-1sbf4h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218732/original/file-20180514-178746-1sbf4h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218732/original/file-20180514-178746-1sbf4h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218732/original/file-20180514-178746-1sbf4h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218732/original/file-20180514-178746-1sbf4h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander Calder spiritualist, photographed in 1882.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>It was in the middle of the 19th century also that the spirits themselves seemed to decide that, rather than us seeking them out in their heavenly homes, they would seek us out in ours. This was the age of spiritualism when the spirits of the departed manifested themselves in a bewildering variety of ways. The ritual of connecting with the dead in the séance no doubt provided consolation to those who received message from a deceased love one.</p>
<p>But the séance also provided entertainment for the curious, phenomena to be explained for the scientist and provoked frissons of horror for the believer or amusement for the sceptic. For the conservative Christian, to attend a séance was to dabble with the Devil. For the more credulous and adventurous, this was no doubt part of its attraction.</p>
<p>Within spiritualism, as within the modern social Heaven more generally, God played a minimal role. So belief in Heaven remained strong, as it does still, even when belief in God was on the wane. God as a frightening judge and the enforcer of morality was replaced by deceased parents, aunts and uncles looking down upon us from the outer reaches of the universe.</p>
<h2>The secular modern mind</h2>
<p>By the 20th century then, Heaven had become secularised and the modern Heaven part of the secular modern mind. Ironically perhaps, as it did so, in Catholic and Protestant theology, at least on the more liberal side, the afterlife became an afterthought. Within liberal Christian theologies, the meaning of life was not to be found in what came after it, but during it, through radically transformed individuals (in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_existentialism">existentialist theologies</a> or radically transformed societies (in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology">liberation theologies</a>).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-hell-94560">What is hell?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Within a more mystically inclined modern Christianity, the eternal was not to be found in the future but in the present: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour”, as <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence">William Blake put it</a>.</p>
<p>Uncertainty about the afterlife generally is perhaps why modern Christian funerals have become more about celebrating a life that was than rejoicing in a life that is yet to come.</p>
<p>Still, in spite of our present day uncertainties about the existence of a life to come, our contemporary Heaven combines features of both the God-centred Heaven and the social Heaven that replaced it. It is no longer thought to be, as it was in previous times, a geographical place way beyond the stars, although it is still metaphorically “up there”. </p>
<p>Heaven is also still the place where God is thought to live - a state in which we will be closer to a loving father God. “There in my Father’s home, safe and at rest, There in my Saviour’s love, perfectly blest” as the popular hymn Nearer my God to Thee puts it. </p>
<p>It is still believed that angels dwell there, occasionally doing good works on earth. But the highly developed angelology of 1000 years ago has virtually disappeared. </p>
<p>Heaven is widely regarded as a state after death in which we continue to have a consciousness of ourselves and memories of our life on earth. Along with this, there remains the conviction that we will be reunited with those whom we loved on this earth. Life there, as on this earth, will be one in which we laugh, love and grow ethically, intellectually and spiritually. </p>
<p>Although we will no longer be in physical bodies, there remains the hope, if not the certainty for some, that we will be recognisably ourselves. So Eric Clapton wonders, in his 1992 Tears in Heaven, if his deceased son will recognise him when he arrives in Heaven. </p>
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<p>In contrast to earlier times when Heaven was exclusive to Christians or Muslims or Catholics or Protestants only, it is now expected that Heaven is a “place” to which everyone will go or, at least, those who have lived a “good” life.</p>
<p>As in times past, Heaven is seen as a place of supreme happiness, joy and contentment. So, experiences of great joy on this side of the grave are said to be “heavenly”. As Fred Astaire reminds us in the film Top Hat (1935): “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOYzFKizikU">Heaven, I’m in Heaven</a> … when we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek”.</p>
<p>In short, this life, despite all its sorrows and miseries, provides occasional glimpses of the next. The life to come - it is believed - will be this life made perfect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip C. Almond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Notions of heaven have changed through the ages, from an eternity centred on God to a more secular place where loved ones will reunite.Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/858812017-10-30T01:53:11Z2017-10-30T01:53:11ZHow the dead danced with the living in medieval society<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192267/original/file-20171027-13327-i15iaw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail of figures from the Dance Macabre, Meslay-le-Grenet, from late 15th-century France. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ashby Kinch</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the <a href="https://theconversation.com/little-known-facts-about-how-halloween-came-to-be-85720">Halloween season</a>, American culture briefly participates in an ancient tradition of making the world of the dead visible to the living: Children dress as skeletons, teens go to horror movies and adults play the part of ghosts in haunted houses. </p>
<p>But what if the dead played a more active, more participatory role in our daily lives? </p>
<p>It might appear to be a strange question, but as a <a href="http://www.brill.com/imago-mortis">scholar of late medieval literature and art</a>, I have found compelling evidence from our past that shows how the dead were well-integrated into people’s sense of community. </p>
<h2>Ancient practices</h2>
<p>In the medieval period, the dead were considered simply <a href="http://www.brill.com/product/out-of-print/pursuit-holiness-late-medieval-and-renaissance-religion">another age group</a>. The blessed dead who were consecrated as saints <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100748630">became part of daily ritual life</a> and were expected to intervene to support the community. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192261/original/file-20171027-13311-ucakac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A funeral mass, with mourners, from a Book of Hours.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=58982">The British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Families offered commemorative prayers to their ancestors, whose names were written in <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Time_Sanctified.html?id=iK4TAQAAIAAJ">“Books of Hours,”</a> prayer books that guided daily devotion at home. These books included a prayer cycle known as the “Office of the Dead,” which family members could perform to limit the suffering of loved ones after death. </p>
<p>Medieval culture also had its <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo3619514.html">ghosts</a>, which were closely linked with the theological debate concerning purgatory, the space between heaven and hell, where the dead suffered but could be relieved by the prayers of the living. Folk traditions of the dead visiting the living as ghosts were thus explained as <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Birth_of_Purgatory.html?id=4dzynjFfX7kC">souls pleading</a> for the prayerful devotion of the living. </p>
<h2>When, how practices changed</h2>
<p>The Reformation in Europe <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300108286/stripping-altars">radically changed</a> this cultural interface with the dead. In particular, the idea of a purgatory was rejected by Protestant theologians. </p>
<p>While ghosts persisted in folk stories and literature, the dead were pushed from the center of religious life. In England, these changes were intensified in the period after <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=eamon+duffy+stripping+of+the+altars&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8">Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church</a> in the 1530s. Thereafter, the veneration of saints and commemorative prayers associated with purgatory were banned. </p>
<p>The dead were also removed from view in more literal ways: Reformation iconoclasts, who wished to purge churches of any association with Catholic practices, “whitewashed” hundreds of church interiors to cover the bold, colorful murals that decorated the medieval parish churches. </p>
<p>One of the more popular mural subjects that I have studied for many years was the <a href="http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503530635-1">Dance of Death</a>: over 100 mural paintings of the theme, as well as dozens of manuscript illuminations, have been identified in England, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=138&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=138&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=174&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=174&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192291/original/file-20171027-13378-u5naw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=174&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bernt Notke, Danse Macabre, Tallinn, Estonia (late 15th century).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABernt_Notke_Danse_Macabre.jpg">Bernt Notke, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A powerful metaphor</h2>
<p>Dance of Death murals typically depicted decaying corpses dancing amid representative figures of late medieval society, ranked highest to lowest: a pope, an emperor, a bishop, a king, a cardinal, a knight and down to a beggar, all ambling diffidently toward their mortal end while the corpses frolic with lithe movements and gestures. </p>
<p>The visual alternation between dead and living created a rhythm of animation and stillness, of white and color, of life and death, evocative of fundamental human culture, <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo3617929.html">founded on this interplay between the living and the dead</a>. </p>
<p>When modern viewers see images like the Dance of Death, they <a href="http://www.dodedans.com/Epest.htm">might associate them</a> with certain well-known but frequently misunderstood cataclysms of the European Middle Ages, like the terrible plague that swept through England and came to be known as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml">Black Death</a>. </p>
<p>My research on these images, however, reveals a more subtle and nuanced attitude toward death, beginning with the evident beauty of the murals themselves, which <a href="http://www.brill.com/imago-mortis">endow the theme with color and vitality</a>. </p>
<p>The image of group dance powerfully evokes the grace and fluidity of a community’s cohesion, symbolized by the linking of hands and bodies in a chain that crosses the barrier between life and death. Dance was a powerful metaphor in medieval culture. The Dance of Death may be responding to medieval folk practices, when people came at night to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=_fV8xR5n4K8C&q=55#v=snippet&q=55&f=false">dance in churchyards</a>, and perhaps to the “dancing mania” recorded in the <a href="http://history-world.org/Dancing%20In%20The%20Middle%20Ages.htm">late 14th century</a>, when people danced furiously until they fell to the ground. But images of dance also provoked a viewer to participate in a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/2105555/The_danse_macabre_and_the_medieval_community_of_death">“virtual” experience</a> of a community. It <a href="https://www.academia.edu/9523393/_Danse_macabre_and_the_Virtual_Churchyard">depicted</a> a society collectively facing up to human mortality. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192290/original/file-20171027-13311-zczjjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mural of the Danse Macabre from the parish church of Kermaria-en-Isquit, France (late 15th century).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/KERMARIA-AN-ISQUIT_danse_macabre_5.jpg">Fil22plm, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A healthy community</h2>
<p>In analyzing the murals in their broader social context, I found that for medieval cultures, dying was a “transition,” not a rupture, that moved people from the community of the living to the dead in stages. </p>
<p>It was part of a larger spiritual drama that <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/4744/the-hour-of-our-death-by-philipe-aries-translated-from-the-french-by-helen-weaver/9780394751566/">encompassed the family and the broader community</a>.
During the dying process, people gathered in groups to aid in a successful transition by offering supportive prayer. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192270/original/file-20171027-13298-eac5o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scenes of dying, a funeral mass, sewing the shroud, burial and comfort of the widow. In the lower margin, a group of nobles confronts a symbolic figure of death, riding a unicorn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=10968">The British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After death, groups prepared the corpse, sewed its shroud and transported the body to a church and then to a cemetery, where the broader community would participate in the rituals. These activities required a high degree of social cohesion to function properly. They were the metaphorical equivalent of dancing with the dead. </p>
<p>The Dance of Death murals thus depicted not a morbid or sick culture but a healthy community collectively facing their common destiny, even as they faced the challenge to renew by replacing the dead with the living. </p>
<p>Many of the murals are irretrievably lost. However, modern restoration work has <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/medieval-wall-paintings-in-english-and-welsh-churches.html">managed to recover some of them</a>. Perhaps this conservation work can serve as inspiration to recover an older model of death, dying and grief. </p>
<h2>Acknowledging the work of the dead</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192273/original/file-20171027-13378-bwn8hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Constable, bishop, squire and clerk from the Danse Macabre of the Abbey Church of La Chaise-Dieu, France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ashby Kinch</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the modern era entire industries have emerged to whisk the dead from view and alter them to look more like the living. Once buried or cremated, the dead play a <a href="http://scalar.usc.edu/works/the-nature-of-death-in-the-united-states/contemporary-mainstream-american-deathways">much smaller role</a> in our social lives. </p>
<p>Could bringing the dead back into a central role in the community offer a healthier perspective on death for contemporary Western cultures? </p>
<p>That process might begin with acknowledging the dead as an ongoing part of our image of community, which is built on the work of the dead who have come before us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashby Kinch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For medieval cultures, the dying process and death itself was a ‘transition,’ not a rupture.Ashby Kinch, Professor of English, University of MontanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/782722017-05-29T14:01:49Z2017-05-29T14:01:49ZAll dogs go to heaven<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170980/original/file-20170525-23232-13ka93y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lolabelle, the artist and musician Laurie Anderson's dog being taught how to play the piano.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Novelist Franz Kafka <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/171538">wrote</a> in his <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/great-wall-china-and-other-short-works/9780141186467">collection</a>, The Great Wall of China and Other Stories:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All knowledge, the totality of all questions and answers, is contained in the dog.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While this is a sweeping statement, it helped unravel my topic – on animals and death, grief and mourning – for a <a href="http://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/arts/afrikaans-dutch/dogs-conference">recent conference</a> on “Dogs in Southern African Literatures”.</p>
<p>In Marlene van Niekerk’s novel <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/special/newlits/triomfweek1.pdf">“Triomf”</a> (1994) the Benade family want to deal with their grief following the death of the beloved dog Gerty. The Benade family buries her in the backyard and Mol decides to compose a tombstone for her. She writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Here lies Gerty Benade. Mother of Toby Benade/and sweetheart dog of Mol ditto.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She then writes, “Wow she’s in dog heaven” and Treppie contributes the final line “Where the dogs are seven eleven” – signifying lucky numbers in the game of dice.</p>
<p>Pop’s dream of dead dogs as angelic beings and Mol’s reference to “dog heaven” suggest there is belief that like their human counterparts, dogs also go to heaven and become angels as a reward for their good conduct on earth.</p>
<p>In many cultures and religions dogs are more than protection and security. They are also company and companions. In some instances the canines are so close to their humans that people wonder about their animals’ after lives. So, do real life dogs actually go to heaven?</p>
<h2>More about love</h2>
<p>In her essay film <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/heart_of_a_dog/">“Heart of a Dog”</a> (2015) American avant garde performer <a href="http://www.laurieanderson.com/">Laurie Anderson</a> deals with the death in 2011 of her beloved Lolabelle, a rat terrier adopted by Anderson and her husband, the singer <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/lou-reed-mn0000233066/discography/">Lou Reed</a>. In the film Anderson also tries to come to terms with the deaths of her mother and Reed in 2013. According to Anderson dealing with these deaths taught her more about love than anything else.</p>
<p>Lolabelle was deprived of her encounters with others in their New York neighbourhood when she became blind and was afraid to move forward into the dark. Anderson got her a trainer who decided first that Lolabelle should literally paint and then actually learn to play the piano.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v37BnyHefnY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for ‘Heart of a dog’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Initially I thought Anderson was very anthromorphic in her view on dogs when she describes Lolabelle as empathetic, playing the piano, painting pictures and questioning the games played with her.</p>
<p>When asked by film critic Jonathan Romney whether Lolabelle meant more to her than being merely a pet, Anderson <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/mar/27/laurie-anderson-interview-q-and-a-heart-dog-lolabelle-terrier-brighton-festival-lou-reed-o-superman">remarked</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a film about empathy. Lolabelle was a character that was almost pure empathy, so I tried to express that as well as I could.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One could argue that Lolabelle, like the fictitious “Gerty” in “Triomf”, acts as a consoler to Anderson. No wonder film critic Ty Burr <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2015/11/25/heart-dog-ode-lolabelle-and-lou-reed/Elfi3w5SLNfrZholExVnqK/story.html">calls</a> the film,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a unique, exceptionally touching cinematic tone-poem on the subject of mourning. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Afterlife for dogs</h2>
<p>Ensuing from this one could ask: do dogs go to heaven or is there an afterlife for dogs? And as a Buddhist, what does Anderson believe? Her mourning for Lolabelle is grounded in her Buddhist beliefs and there is a long section devoted to the “bardo”, the Buddhist concept of the waiting period between a person’s lives. The spirit of the deceased spends 49 days in the bardo, as is mentioned in the <a href="http://www.near-death.com/religion/buddhism/tibetan-book-of-the-dead.html">Tibetan Book of the Dead</a>. </p>
<p>And other belief systems? There are varied views even within different faith groups. Recently Pope Francis <a href="http://time.com/3631242/pope-francis-dogs-heaven-catholic-church/">told</a> a young boy whose dog has died that paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A deacon blesses a dog at a Catholic Church in the Netherlands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jerry Lampen/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Islam offers no clear answer. In Islam all souls are eternal, including those of animals. But in order to get to heaven, or Jannah, beings must be judged by God on Judgement Day, and some Muslim scholars say animals are not judged as humans are. </p>
<p>Buddhism also sees animals as sentient beings like humans, and says that humans can be reborn as animals and animals can be reborn as humans. So given that, the question of whether or not animals can go to heaven doesn’t really apply to Buddhists. Humans and animals are all interconnected.</p>
<p>Hinduism also outlines a type of reincarnation, in which a being’s eternal soul, or jiva, is reborn on a different plane after death, continuing until the soul is liberated (moksha).</p>
<h2>Popular culture</h2>
<p>In popular culture, the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096787/">“All dogs go to heaven”</a> (1989) focuses on “Charlie B Barkin” a German shepherd dog who is killed by “Carface Caruthers” a violent, sadistic mixed American Pit Bull Terrier/Bulldog gangster. This film was followed by a sequel in 1996. Assessing the movies Hillary Busis (2014) <a href="http://ew.com/article/2014/11/17/all-dogs-go-to-heaven-messed-up/">describes</a> it as,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a horrifying phantasmagoria of murder, demons, drinking, gambling, hellfire, and blue eyeshadow.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Animals (and then dogs in particular) go to heaven as is suggested by the title of the film. However, Christian scholars are quick to remark that the only ticket to heaven and salvation is having a soul and putting that soul into serving some or other higher being. But as Wesley Smith (2012) <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/april/do-pets-go-to-heaven.html">put it</a> in Christian Today: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have come a long way since Descartes claimed that animals are mere automatons without the capacity for pleasure or pain. We now know the contrary is true: They experience. They suffer. They grieve. They love. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">US musician and director Laurie Anderson,poses during a photocall for the movie ‘Heart of a dog’ at the 72nd annual Venice International Film Festival, in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ettore Ferrari/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Anderson situates herself as the narrator in “Heart of a Dog” right from the start and intersperses the tale of Lolabelle with stories about her own childhood and more current events such as the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks">9/11 terror attacks</a>.</p>
<p>The autobiographical nature of her text is foregrounded throughout in an attempt by the artist to deal with Lolabelle’s sickness, pain and death. Anderson echoes several Buddhist teachings on mourning: crying is forbidden because crying is confusing to the dead. One wants to summon the dead back by weeping, even though it is impossible to do so. One should also feel sad without being sad.</p>
<h2>Flying between heaven and earth</h2>
<p>So to return to my initial question: do dogs go to heaven? My contention is that it primarily depends on your belief system but most religions agree that the sentient animals around us also belong in an after death Shangri La or utopia. It suspends our search for certainties and meaning; and in the metaphor of the film, it is our attempt to confuse the dead within the bardo. </p>
<p>We want to call them back. We wish they could be like “Charlie B Barkin” who could fly back and forth between heaven and earth. Or, we want them to be dog angels like Triomf’s “Toby” and “Gerty” who will once again be our companion animals in the otherworld.</p>
<p>The tale of Laurie and Lolabelle is a guideline to grief, a way to deal with death. It is Anderson’s own book of the dead. It dissolves the binary between human and animal but it also acts – albeit indirectly perhaps – as a device to repress grief.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78272/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marius Crous does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In many cultures and religions dogs are more than protection and security. But do they have an after-life?Marius Crous, Associate Professor of Languages and Literature, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.