In the book 90 Minutes in Heaven author Don Piper writes about his person experience of heaven in his near death experience. However, because of his pre-existing belief as a Christian, Don Piper makes a false conclusion that heaven is exclusively for Christians and he goes on to convert others with this false interpretation about heaven.

  There is nothing wrong with helping others find their way with great respect for their individuality, but in chapter fifth teen of his book Piper tells us how he uses his near death experience to covert others.

   He explains about a terminally ill woman that,

 Her friends had tried to talk to her about God, They had given her Bibles, all kinds of books and pamphlets, but nothing affected her. She said, ‘I don’t want to talk about God, religion, or salvation.’ Even though she was terminally ill, she wasn’t open to any message about eternity.

   We can almost hear how this woman was not keen on being converted, but her daughter who was “a believer, desperately wanted” her to hear Piper’s audio tapes about heaven. After listening to the tapes she says: “I’m seriously thinking about becoming a Christian,” and two days later she announces that: ”I have become a Christian. I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and I’m going to heaven.”

   From Piper’s telling of this story we can almost hear that he takes pride in her conversion, but the issue here is that her converted belief is not supported by NDE research. Also Piper’s use of his NDE to convert her is unethical based on the underlying use of fear that fundamentalism uses to convert: if you do not accept Jesus – you will go to hell.

   By using his NDE, which is a powerful story, to validate the Gospels as the only truth and claiming that Jesus is the only path to heaven, he is not only corrupting NDE research but also denying people their freedom of choice. If he had used his NDE to say that this is one story and Jesus is one path to heaven that has worked for me, then his use of the powerful force of his experience would not be an issue.

   So, then why does he do so? I think a very reasonable answer is his background as a Minister and affiliation with the First Baptist Church. As we saw in the beginning of chapter two, in Piper’s talk with his friend Dick they were sure many people are going to hell. But how bad is this and how many people could this be?

   One estimate within Piper’s religious tradition done by a Southern Baptist Home Mission Board study in 1993 calculated that 70 percent of all Americans are going to hell. This estimate was based on the number of people who had not had a “born-again experience.” Since there are about 30 percent of “born again” Christians in America this makes a very easy calculation.

   The strong selfish notion in religious fundamentalism is here evident through the spiritual immature view that says: “I am right and everyone who does not believe like me will go to hell.” But as we have seen NDE research does not support this narrow absolutist perspective. 

   Some NDE researchers have openly admitted an emphasis on pleasant or heaven-like experiences, probably for the above reason, and have come up with lower figures of about 1 percent. However, researchers that have looked at unpleasant and hellish experiences within the NDE have found about 15 percent.

   Researcher Margot Grey found a high rate of 12 percent “hellish experiences” and Peter Fenwick found that 15 percent of the people in his study had “moments of terror.” Most reliable according to statistical certainty would be P. M. H. Atwater’s large sample of 3,000 NDEs. She found that out of 3,000 adult NDEs 15 percent had “unpleasant experiences” where only one third, 5 percent, had a hellish experience where they described it as “truly hellish.”

   There is no evidence to support that 70 percent of Americans and 5.9 billion of the world’s population that has not been “born again” will go to hell. Also another important point from NDE research as we shall see later is that so-called distressing or hell-like experiences are much more complex than a simple deduction.

   The idea that everyone else is going to hell is in itself is rather arrogant and intolerant since these fundamentalist do not have any evidence or direct experience to go by other than a literal interpretation of John 14:6, with the addition of an even narrower understanding of what it means to be born again. 

   As the book Behind 90 Minutes in Heaven reveals, there is absolutely no evidence to support Piper’s conclusion that heaven is exclusively for Christians.