To Be Continued...

After over a year of blogging here about my book, I'm going to idle, though I'll keep tweaking the chapter resources and other links (and will add things under Comments). I'll also be adding an essay on the word heaven in the new year (update: now posted). And I'll keep thinking, reflecting, and nourishing my ever-prone-to-falter hope.

Thanks for all your comments and feedback so far, and keep 'em coming!

Update: Yes, that was the guy from my book cover at the Yahoo.com home page recently, but no, the article wasn't about my book. Apparently, the company that supplied the cover photo for my book (given as Stockbyte Premium/Getty) supplied a similar shot for an article about the job market. Whoever that guy is, he sure is versatile -- he can contemplate heaven and worry about the job market with the same facial expression!

December Discussions

I've been privileged to share in some enriching discussions about heaven and my book this past month:

- Last week I met with a book group of local CRC pastors. One of the themes that emerged in our discussion is that everyone--even or especially in the church--lives with alternate eschatologies or at least mobilizing hopes (to condense Moltmann's phrase on page 5 of my book), whether it be political ideologies, career advancement, materialist prosperity, "family values," social justice, ethnic pride, etc. The preacher's task, then, is to speak the true eschatology, the true mobilizing hope, against those who are living Monday through Saturday according to different mobilizing hopes.

- Earlier this month I met for one final time with my Covenant Group at Eastern Ave. CRC, which has met every other week since September. We all said that we still had so many daunting unanswered questions about heaven, so we were all moved when one member invited us to end on this verse from 1 Corinthians 2, and to be assured that what is unknown is known by God:

No eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him.

Mentions in Christianity Today and the Calvin Spark

The Importance of Knowing What's Important
by Andy Crouch
Christianity Today

And then I ran across this piquant phrase in Nathan Bierma's book Bringing Heaven Down to Earth, in which he quotes a play by (coincidentally) Daniel Jurman ...

Bookshelf: Bringing Heaven Down To Earth
Calvin College Spark

Relevant Revolutionary Readings on Revelation ...

... and heaven, and hell:

Christ Among the Candlesticks
Sermon on Revelation 1:9-20
Leonard J. Vander Zee
South Bend Christian Reformed Church
November 26, 2006

Knocking on Heaven’s Door
Sermon at Duke Chapel
Samuel Wells
Dec. 3, 2006

Refiner's Fire
Sermon at Duke Chapel
Samuel Wells
Dec. 10, 2006

Preaching Hell in a Tolerant Age
by Tim Keller