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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Mention the word heaven and you probably see images of paradise, bliss, perhaps with fluffy white clouds or, maybe, as victims of successful advertising campaigns, ice-cream or a holiday in New Zealand.
Whatever heaven might be in our imagination, it is sure to trigger a strong response. So it has been throughout Christian history—and thus is the subject of a new book from Oxford University– based historical theologian Alister McGrath. But rather than a history of heaven itself—as might be suggested by the title—McGrath’s A Brief History of Heaven provides a history of Christian-based ideas about heaven and how these ideas have captured our cultural imagination.
It is another instalment in what promises to be an intriguing series—the Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion by Oxford’s Blackwell Publishing. A Brief History of Heaven is also another addition to the burgeoning bookshelf of Alister McGrath’s historical, religious and theological publications. Having published volumes ranging from deep theological studies to more popularist religious and even devotional works, McGrath must be one of the most prolific of contemporary writers in religion and theology. And it isn’t just quantity; each of his books is a worthwhile examination of their respective topics.
And A Brief History of Heaven is another useful overview. Instead of a step-by-step historical survey of ideas and beliefs, McGrath groups the different understandings of heaven into six themes: heaven as a city; heaven as a garden paradise; heaven as the end-point of personal faith; heaven as transcendence; heaven as consolation; and heaven as the goal of Christianity. Of course, there is significant overlap, but this structure allows the various themes to be followed to their points of religious, social and personal significance.
The book’s focus on representations of heaven in art and literature gives A Brief History of a Heaven more the feel of a cultural history than an in-depth theological survey. However, McGrath does give some attention to the theological implications of these different formulations.
In providing such a cultural examination, A Brief History of Heaven employs an eclectic mix of writers, poets, philosophers, painters and others artists. He references such diverse sources as Augustine, Dante, C S Lewis, Freud, James Joyce, Martin Luther King, John Milton, Chaucer, Emerson and (or so it seems) almost everyone falling in between.
But it is this breadth of focus that perhaps provides the greatest difficulty. The brief history takes the “brief” too seriously, flitting over 2000 years of Christian thinking in little more than 180 pages. As such, A Brief History of Heaven may work as an introduction to some of these themes, but one arrives at its end feeling like having been on a whirlwind tour through a lot of big ideas. It is likely readers will emerge with a large “To Read” list inspired by McGrath’s summary.
Despite the breadth of McGrath’s literary and artistic sampling, A Brief History of Heaven draws out a central theme from the many disparate strands: seeing God. McGrath begins with the assertion that “to speak of heaven is to affirm that the human longing to see God will one day be fulfilled—that we shall finally be able to gaze upon the face of what Christianity affirms to be the most wondrous sight anyone can hope to behold.”
And it is to the importance of God in an understanding of heaven that McGrath returns at his conclusion, quoting John Donne: “No man ever saw God and lived. And yet, I shall not live till I see God; and when I have seen him I shall never die.”
Heaven is an important component of Christian hope as presented in the Bible but it is one of those biblical concepts not fully detailed. In this way, it’s a belief that sees a wide variety of human responses. By surveying some of the these responses in art and literature, McGrath’s A Brief History of Heaven alerts us to other people’s concepts of heaven, prompts our own thinking and reminds us of the centrality of God to these—and all—aspects of Christian faith.
Alister E McGrath, A Brief History of Heaven, Blackwell Publishing, 2003, 203 pages.
Extract from Signs of the Times, November 2003.
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