Heaven?

Something which perplexes and infuriates many atheists about their adversaries, the legions of faithful, is their ability (and right) to revise the tenets of their religion. What many religionists don't get, however, is the fact that you cannot argue your way out of every theological dispute with an ad hoc, undebatable solution. Jon Meacham's recent article in Time magazine, "Rethinking Heaven," describes a new development in Christian thought that is neither ad hoc, nor perplexing, though it may rankle with those who think differently. The new proposition: heaven is not a place where one goes after death, but a culmination of human love and effort to restore the material world--heaven as a resurrected earth.

This new idea has gained currency in certain Christian circles, amounting to a real paradigm shift with startling implications. Call it a downgrading, but a radical one. If heaven is no longer a celestial paradise, a utopian otherworld in which suffering has been banished and all creation lives in harmony with God, then man's earthly existence assumes new meaning. What was once considered an elaborate way station en route to the Great Beyond, or "just passing through," becomes the real ground and field for fulfillment.

Young people today seem to understand this point without actually acknowledging it. Members of an activist generation, they live out this new theology in their concerted effort to make the earth a better place for everyone. And the internet has become their prime vehicle for social justice, enabling sites like Change.org and public information campaigns on YouTube and social networking services to inspire mass movements. Witness the galvanizing effect of an online petition for justice in the Trayvon Martin case, or the power of Twitter and Facebook in launching the Arab Spring a year earlier.

Although the new vision of heaven is a welcome change, signifying Christians' willingness to rethink fundamentals in light of modern-day circumstances and advanced knowledge, it suffers from a case of false hope. Is it really possible to redress all the social ills of the world? A cynic and an optimist will each answer differently, but one answer will probably be more realistic than the other. How can the multiplicity of human interests, desires, and preoccupations converge on a future without strife? It would seem to require some tremendous feat of social engineering, or mass delusion--or, and this is the likeliest answer, an unthinkable evolutionary advance.

In the end, as with other verdicts on utopian visions, the new conception of heaven calls into question our conception of humanity. Man, as an existent among existents, may not have the special talent to fully overcome his selfishness, his meanness, his darker nature. But he can certainly imagine it. It is a curiosity of human existence that, in rethinking where one is going, one must first rethink who one is, and why.