Donald,
I assume you are referring to Inclusivism:
Which many Christians adhere to.
Some of your recent posts remind me of a very interesting & excellent poster from Christianforums.com.
I also noticed that on your summary page it says that you were invited by Alex Smith.
(6) Our small city’s former school superintendent shared with me this ADC involving his niece Tami… Tami died at age 19 from an unspecified illness while a student at Washington State U. Then she often appeared in full-bodied ADCs to her Mom until one day she appeared only from the waist up and lamented, “I’m sorry Mom. I’m about to progress beyond the range in which I can communicate with you in this way. So this is the last time I will appear to you.” That Christmas a family reunion, including Tami’s Mom, gathered at this superintendent’s local home. His wife asked him to drive to a local mini-mart to buy some eggs and milk. His change included a dollar bill and some coins.
He was astounded by what he saw on the dollar bill. Written on it by a black marker was a smiley face signed, “Tami!” The far more common spelling of this name is “Tammy.” This miracle greatly inspired the faith of this Christian family and assured them that Tami was alive and was just dramatically saying “Goodbye” with this paranormal Christmas present.
As everyone probably knows…I subscribe to the Patheos weekly Catholic and Evangelical newsletters. There is a Catholic article today…that has some interesting stuff - relevant here:
Let me quote a bit:
The most famous philosophers in our history have claimed that the way one thinks about death and what happens afterwards reflects the way one thinks about everything else.
I’ve seen this in my study of the ancient mystics, who lived close to death and often focused on it to an alarming degree. Catherine of Siena longed for martyrdom with nearly every prayer on her lips.
St. Francis—who had seen so much death from war and disease—wrote a prayer of praise near the end of his life to his beloved “Sister Death.”
And then there’s Julian of Norwich, an anchorite and mystic in fourteenth century England. Many scholars believe Julian probably lost a husband and at least one child in the Black Death epidemics. The plague likely decimated not only her family but her community as well.
(7) On the subject of Shared Death Experience, George Noory’s recent interview first with Dr. Raymond Moody and then with Dr. Sharon Prentice is “must listening:”
Sharon joined her husband in an interim locale as he died. My only quibble with her new belief system is her cavalier dismissal of hellish planes. She draws this inference from her experience of how loving and compassionate she experiences God to be…
(8) I also should mention what Mike told my prayer partner Gary the other day. I don’t know Mike. He is not a religious man and lives in a town just south of me. He told Gary that, while sitting in his parked car, a man staggered towards him and then fell, hitting his head on the pavement. Mike cried out for someone to call 911 and then saw the man’s spirit leave his body. Oddly, he suddenly knew some basic facts about his stranger’s life like how many children he had and facts about his wife. The man died. Mike is troubled because this unexpected encounter introduced him to a spiritual dimension that he did not believe existed.
In what way are ADC & NDE accounts effective in “evangelistic witnessing”? In convincing people that there is a God, life after death & postmortem consequences (good or bad depending on their premortem life & or beliefs)?
BTW, there is a member at the following forum who posts about NDEs. Such as, for example, the following thread he created. He says:
“I personally believed so firmly in the Soul Sleep Theory
until reading about near death experiences like this.”
“Does his description of a hell…
fit with what you were taught?”
I posted a Topic (Listening to Angels) about two weeks ago which described a NDE/OBE experience I had in the late 1970s. It has been responded to by the magnificent three. I placed it in the Essays category since that was what it was. I guess nobody loves me… sob. So, I’ll never know if my experience will ever have any evidential value for Apologetics.
It’s OK, I’ll try and handle it.
I have just read your essay and have 2 reactions:
(1) A well written piece of work to which I have one disagreement: you claim that only God knows the exact day of our death. My Dad’s friend Helmut always said he would die on his 90th birthday. When the day came, he had breakfast, lay down again, and died peaceably, ust as he always predicted! Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg was invited to a meeting with Methodist founder John Wesley after Wesley’s extended tour of America. Swedenborg expressed regret because he foreknew that exact day of his death and that day would come before Wesley’s return to England.
(2) I’m deeply hurt that you exclude me from “the magnificent three.” Now I know how the other 9 disciples felt about Jesus’ special attention to “the inner circle”–Peter, James, and John! 
OTOH, the Topic was viewed 59 times; not small potatoes by any means!
(9) I shared with my friend Kathy Mike the skeptic’s report of seeing a stranger die and then watching his spirit ascend from his body, including Mike’s inexplicable awareness of details of the stranger’s life that were later confirmed. Kathy was reminded of her analogous experience during her father’s death. Her Dad was terrified by the prospect of dying; So Kathy’s deathbed vigil was painful for both of them. Then something happened that she identified as a pivotal moment of her spiritual journey: she heard an audible voice calling her father by name and then saw his spirit ascent, ostensibly to join the caller in his takeaway mission. But then she saw her Dad’s spirit dive back into his body to escape death. But this return was only momentary; shortly thereafter she saw his spirit ascend from his body again, this time permanently, and her father was now dead.
“Near Death Experiences” are exactly that—near death experiences. They are not after death experiences. And there are no after death communications, since no one has yet been raised from death except Jesus.
My maternal grandparents were both Christians; they believed Christians went directly to heaven after death. When Grandfather was about to die, he said to Grandmother, “I will try to contact you after I die—if I am allowed to do so.” Grandmother lived 26 years after Grandfather’s death, and never received any communication from him during all those years.
Either he wasn’t “allowed to do so” or else he couldn’t because he was dead and had not yet been raised from death.
PIaidion: “Near Death Experiences” are exactly that—near death experiences. They are not after death experiences."
Well, the precise moment when one physically dies is scientifically elusive, but there are many cases in which the heart has stopped beating and the brain displays no activity. In those cases, the NDE elements still resemble the standard form.
Paidion: “And there are no after death communications, since no one has yet been raised from death except Jesus.”
First, the issue is not bodily resurrection, but postmortem survival. Indeed, NT scholars widely reject the bodily resurrection of Jesus on the grounds that the Romans likely followed their standard practice of removing Jesus’ corpse (on Saturday night) to dump it in a common pit with the other 2 crucified victims. Remember, no follower of Jesus monitored the tomb after Jesus’ burial was completed until early Easter Sunday morning. The historicity of the Matthean account of Roman guards at the tomb is widely dismissed as a later apologetic lengend because (1) it is unlikely that the Romans would be aware of claims that Jesus would arise from the dead, (2) the Romans would more likely simply dump the corpse in a common pit with the other 2 crucified corpses, and, (3) in any case, none of the other 3 Gospels is aware of this legend. Indeed, Christians would have no way of knowing the details of the conversation between the supposed guards and Roman authorities.
My point is not to side with the modern scholarly consensus, but rather to point out that the rational basis for resurrection claims encounters a rat’s nest of academic hurdles.
Second, the evidence for postmortem survival from ADCs and NDEs is superior to that for Jesus’ bodily resurrection, but precisely for that reason, this modern evidence lends credibility to the Gospel resurrection appearance narratives. There are many apparent inconsistencies in the Gospel resurrection narratives and none of our 4 Gospels can confidently be credited to an eyewitness of any of those appearances. For many reasons, the modern scholarly consensus rejects the claim that Matthew or John the son of Zebedee wrote the Gospels that now apparently bear their names.
Paidion: “My maternal grandparents were both Christians; they believed Christians went directly to heaven after death. When Grandfather was about to die, he said to Grandmother, “I will try to contact you after I die—if I am allowed to do so.” Grandmother lived 26 years after Grandfather’s death, and never received any communication from him during all those years.” Either he wasn’t “allowed to do so” or else he couldn’t because he was dead and had not yet been raised from death."
This is the only important point in your post. I recall a study in the 1970s that found that 50% of Americans and 48% of the British reported contact from their beloved deceased within the first year after their passing. But you rightly raise the question of why so many of the bereaved receive no such contact. I have spent much time researching this question and will post the results of my search in a future post.
Whoa! Condescending, much?
Over time, that consensus has varied wildly as to its ‘findings’ and as to who we consider to be the ‘consensus-makers’. The weight of evidence is for the bodily resurrection of the son of God.
In any case, your OP is kind of interesting.
qaz: " Berserk, it sounds like you’ve made a case for not believing the resurrection story. In light of the reasons you’ve given for questioning it, what are your reasons FOR believing in the resurrection of Christ? Can you recommend any persuasive books?"
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A theology professor who got saved and went forward to respond to a church altar call told me that he now rejects the Gospel resurrection narratives because of its internal contradictions. These difficulties can’t be dismissed on the simplistic grounds that different witnesses have different perspectives that produce small inconsistences in conflicting reports. I should probably start a new thread in which my OP outlines the apparent inconsistencies and challenges the readers to produce a sequence of events that harmonizes these problems in a coherent sequence of events from the dawn of Easter Sunday to the end of the resurrection narratives in a way that can be reconciled with Paul’s own list of resurrection appearances in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, As a believer in Jesus’ resurrection, I would of course eventually provide my own rationale for reconciling all the apparent inconsistences.
Paul’s list of resurrection appearances in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 is the earliest and most evidential report of resurrection appearances. Paul introduces these appearances with the tradition formula, “I hand down what I received,” thus raising the question, “Received from whom?” The most logical answer is that he received this list of resurrection appearances during his 2 trips to Jerusalem where his Gospel message was checked out and confirmed by Peter, James (Jesus’ brother), and John, among others (see Galatians ).19-19: 2:1-10).
In an very general way, Paul of course twice refers to his own encounters with the risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 9:1; Galatians 1:12-14). But in Luke’s 2 more detailed accounts of Jesus’ appearance to Paul on the Damascus road (Acts 9:1-9; cp. 22:6-11) Paul’s companions hear the heavenly voice, but see no one in 9:7 and, on the contrary, see the light but don’t hear the heavenly voice in 22:9.
The bottom line is that many intelligent people are grateful for the evidence from ADCs and NDEs in favor of postmortem survival and indirectly in support of the possibility that the Gospel resurrection reports may involve more than mere hallucinations fueled by wishful thinking. In the final analysis, we all embrace our beliefs by faith rather than by proof.
Let me dedicate, a song to this!
Well said!!
qaz,
I guess you didn’t bother to read my response to your last post in which I provide reasons for the connection of Paul’s list of resurrection appearances with eyewitness testimony. In my anticipated new thread on the sequence of Gospel resurrection appearances, I will also make a fresh case for connecting those appearance narratives with eyewitness testimony. So stay tuned, You are probably confused because I’m arguing for how helpful NDEs and ADCs can be for this issue and I insist on considering both sides of the question on Gospel resurrection stories.
According to the apostle Paul, wthout bodily resurrection, there is no postmortem survival. We might as well eat, drink, and be merry—enjoy this life as much a possible because there would be nothing more.
…If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. (1 Cor 15:32)
And clearly Paul was not talking about some ethereal “postmortem survival.”
For immediately afterward, he discusses the details of bodily resurrection:
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”
36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.
38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.
40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.
41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.
43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Paul teaches here that the bodily resurrection does not consist of our present perishable bodies, but will be resurrected bodies.These will be different and yet the “same” in the sense that it will be the same person. Paul compares it with a grain of wheat and the plant into which it grows. Though the plant is much different from the grain which was planted, yet in one sense it is the same wheat.
For a different interpretation of that verse i’ll suggest:
It’s complicated.
First, there is a complicated process - to determine if someone is “brain dead”.
Secondly, there are cases of the Lazarus syndrome
But if someone has survived, the complicated process - of determining brain death. And still has a Lazarus syndrome, will take some research. Even with research folks, having both M.D. and PhD degrees.
But in the second article, they do pronounce them dead. I still have a big issue, determining if any of the zombies - form the Zombie Apocalypse - are really “brain dead” or not.