A scientist's experience of heaven

While many see compatibilities between science and religion, many others see conflict. An Oct. 15 article in Newsweek, “My Proof of Heaven” by Eben Alexander, tries to bridge that conflict in a dramatic way.

Alexander is a neurosurgeon who has taught at Harvard Medical School and other universities. He tells of an experience he had four years ago when he awoke with an intense headache. “Within hours,” he writes, “my entire cortex—the part of the brain that controls thought and emotion and that in essence makes us human—had shut down.” Doctors at the local hospital determined that he had contracted a rare bacterial meningitis that had penetrated his cerebrospinal fluid, and the bacteria were eating his brain.

For seven days he lay in a deep coma, and his higher-order brain functions were totally offline. Then, as his doctors weighed whether or not to discontinue treatment, his eyes popped open.

Alexander writes about his experience as a scientist because he knows how stories like his sound to skeptics. He notes that while he considered himself a Christian before this happened, it was “more in name than in actual belief.”

But his experience changed that. He writes: “There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well.” He describes “a larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, precoma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility.”

Alexander is not the first to describe such an experience, but he is one of the few who does so as a scientist, and a neurosurgeon at that. And, as far as he knows, no one before him ever traveled to this dimension “(a) while their cortex was completely shut down, and (b) while their body was under minute medical observation.”

This is important because the chief arguments against near-death experiences “suggest that these experiences are the results of minimal, transient or partial malfunctioning of the cortex.”

His cortex wasn’t malfunctioning; it wasn’t even functioning. “According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind,” Alexander writes, “there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent.”

He goes on to describe his experience, with frequent disclaimers about language not being able to adequately capture what happened.

The message that “went through [him] like a wind” had three parts. He summarizes them thus:

“You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.”

“You have nothing to fear.”

“There is nothing you can do wrong.”

Regardless of Alexander’s science credentials, most nonbelievers, I imagine, will simply deny the truthfulness of his experience, believing (yes, having faith) that some nondivine explanation will eventually emerge.

Many Christians, I imagine, will also deny his message because it’s too inclusive. It lets people off the hook. It doesn’t punish evildoers.

Alexander writes that the universe he experienced in his coma is “the same one that both Einstein and Jesus were speaking of in their (very) different ways.”

I’ve read (and heard) other accounts like Alexander’s, and each time I feel encouraged. But I also know it comes down belief. While science feeds our knowledge, what we decide about the universe and our place in it comes down to faith.

The cult of the individual--part 3

For decades the mainstream media generally ignored religion. Now we see articles on religion, which is a major factor in American society, with some regularity. For example, the April 9 issue of Newsweek proclaimed on its cover, “Forget the Church: Follow Jesus,” while the April 16 cover of Time ran the headline “Rethinking Heaven.” Even more notable than the prevalence of articles on religion is that many are written with some understanding of religion.

 

Even though I don’t agree with everything in the two articles I’ve mentioned, they are worth reading and discussing.

Andrew Sullivan, a Catholic, writes in Newsweek about “The Forgotten Jesus.” He laments how in America faith has become too politicized. Early in the article he asks two questions: “What does it matter how strictly you proclaim your belief in various doctrines if you do not live as these doctrines demand? What is politics if not a dangerous temptation toward controlling others rather than reforming oneself?”

He refers to Thomas Jefferson’s Bible, from which he removed all but those passages he thought reflected the actual teachings of Jesus. Jefferson (and Sullivan, apparently) considered this “a simpler, purer, apolitical Christianity.” That’s naïve, to say the least.

Sullivan assumes a certain framework for "politics." In Chapter 4 of my book Present Tense I use the word in a different sense, that of a community making decisions together. Jesus had plenty to say about politics (see John Howard Yoder's The Politics of Jesus, for example), but he wasn't talking about American politics. 

Sullivan goes on to point out that organized religion is in decline, largely because churches have pursued power rather than faithfulness to Jesus’ teachings. He notes the Catholic hierarchy being exposed as “enabling, and then covering up, an international conspiracy to abuse and rape countless youths and children.” Mainline Protestant churches have declined rapidly, he writes, while Evangelical Protestants, to give one example, is the group that American pollsters have found to be most supportive of torturing terror suspects. He writes: “This version of Christianity could not contrast more strongly with Jesus’ constant refrain: ‘Be not afraid.’ ”

Sullivan claims that Christianity (and he means in America; he ignores Christianity in other parts of the globe) is in crisis. He notes that “many Christians now embrace materialist self-help rather than ascetic self-denial,” that “the fastest-growing segment of belief among the young is atheism” and that “many have turned away from organized Christianity and toward ‘spirituality.’ ”

His solution? Christianity needs to go back to Jesus by emulating Francis of Assisi, who did not seek power but lived nonviolently.

Sullivan makes an important point when he says this does not imply a privatization of faith, which has been a typical American response to religion. He writes that great injustices, such as slavery, imperialism, totalitarianism and segregation, “require spiritual mobilization and public witness.” But the greatest examples of such movements renounce power and embrace nonviolence.

The cult of the individual enters when we pit "Jesus" against the "the church" without designating what those words mean. The church becomes a monolithic bogey man that is the locus of all evil, while Jesus generally represents a nice person who embraces all my beliefs. We end up with an unspecific, simplistic "church" and thousands of Jesuses, all made in our image. 

Thomas Jefferson, a deist, exemplified this individualistic approach when he made a Bible that included only Jesus' teachings. Where did he think those teachings came from? Did he—do we—not recognize that Jesus was a Jew, a member of his religious community who loved Israel (the people, not the country) and criticized it from within?

There's no doubt churches and other religious groups have done horrible things, but they have also done wonderful things. And who made each of us arbiter or judge of those entities?

Generally I like Sullivan's article. But I don't like the cover title. It sets up a false dichotomy.

In the Time article, “Heaven Can’t Wait,” Jon Meacham, also a Christian, notes that while 85 percent of Americans believe in heaven, “we don’t necessarily agree on what heaven is.” 

Meacham explores the history of the afterlife and shows how understandings of heaven have evolved. He points out the difference between the New Testament's view of heaven and the way many Christians view it today. He quotes New Testament scholar N.T. Wright: "When first-century Jews spoke about eternal life, they weren't thinking of going to heaven in the way we normally imagine it." Instead, "eternal life meant the age to come, the time when God would bring heaven and earth together, the time when God's kingdom would come and his will would be done on earth as in heaven."

Today, Americans have different understandings of heaven. "Many Christians," writes Meacham, "often focus more on accepting Jesus as their personal savior and the subsequent enforcement of biblical laws in preparation for the world to come."

Others, Meacham writes, argue that “the alleviation of the evident pain and injustice of the world is the ongoing work that Jesus began and the means of bringing into being what the New Testament authors meant when they spoke of heaven.”

But Erik Thoennes, chair of biblical and theological studies at Biola University and a pastor, thinks this focus “tends to come from white dudes wearing skinny jeans who live in the suburbs and not poor, suffering people.”

Meacham seems to agree more with Wright, who is white but as far as I know doesn't wear skinny jeans, that this as the work of religion: “bringing reality closer to conformity with theocentric aspirations in a world in which loving one another as we would be loved is a sacred act and a way of expanding the dominion of God—or heaven—in the world.”

I also fall more on Wright's side, though I understand the need for comfort and encouragement in the midst of suffering, and I do believe God embraces us in life or death. One thing I like about this view Meacham describes is that it focuses on God's bringing justice to the entire creation. It's not just about my soul.

Both these articles are worth reading and pondering. They are also worth talking about with others as we do politics, discern together how we should act in our faith community.