“Going to heaven that January morning wasn’t my
choice. The only choice in all of this is that day I turned to Jesus Christ and
accepted him as my Savior. Unworthy as I am, he allowed me to go to heaven.”
Here in 90 Minutes in Heaven Don Piper tells us
that it was the choice of accepting Jesus Christ as his savior that allowed him
to go to heaven. Also on his website under “How to go to Heaven” we are told
about his important experience of heaven through his accident,
But the most important
decision in Don's life occurred NOT on his drive home but when he accepted
Christ as Lord at the age of sixteen. Deciding to accept Christ meant Don had
an eternal home in Heaven no matter when he died. Acknowledging Christ as
Savior guarantees that you will spend eternity with Him.
Piper also
tells us that Jesus “died in our place or for our sins” which together with the
above paragraph leads to the Christian doctrine that accepting Christ alone
equals automatic acceptance into heaven.
Piper’s
interpretation of his experience of heaven based on his Christian background my
please some Christians, but this narrow and dogmatic interpretation is not
supported by the objective research of thousands of near death experiences.
A quick look on the internet at the
International Association for Near Death Studies’ website tells us that,
As with the pleasurable NDE, distressing NDEs seem
to occur about equally to people of both genders and of all ages, educational
levels, socioeconomic levels, sexual orientations, spiritual beliefs, religious
affiliations, and life experiences.
Here the
group of pleasurable NDEs contains heaven-like experiences like Piper’s NDE and
distressing NDEs contain so-called hell-like or hellish experiences, which in
religious terms would mean the people going to hell. But as we here find in NDE
research, there is no mention of Jesus as experiences of both heaven and hell
seem to happen equally to people of all walks of life and religious beliefs.
In my own
research I found that 92 percent of the people in my study who had an NDE
disagreed with the statement: “Eternal life is only possible through a
particular religion.” Nearly eight in ten said that they strongly disagreed
with this statement based on their NDE. Also 92 percent said that, “No one has
a patent on Salvation or Heaven,” and to the statement: “You need to believe in
a particular religion to go to Heaven,” I found that 100 percent said that they
“strongly disagreed.”
The
conclusion of the International Association for Near Death Studies, which is
based on over 30 years of research, and my own findings clearly suggest that
Piper’s claim that you need to believe in Jesus to go to heaven is wrong. In
fact, weather you believe in a particular religion or no religion at all does
not seem to be the determining factor as also atheists have heaven-like
NDEs.
Here is
one account from Chris S., who was an atheist before his NDE and he explains
that,
Keeping in mind that I was an atheist going into
this event [NDE], I found it fascinating, based on Christianity which claims
only believers will be saved, that there was absolutely zero negative comments
made to me by the voice describing my importance to others in my life, and no
sense of negative judgment based on my earlier belief. In fact, the warmth and
joy sensed while just starting to go to the light was so intense that it was
with some hesitation that I decided to attempt to snap out of my altered state
to become lucid and try to free myself to surface and continue my physical
life.
As we find in NDE
research that even atheists have heaven-like experiences and are allowed to
experience heaven, we also find that many people experience heaven and God as
something spiritually neutral. While some people do meet a specific religious
figure, more common is it for people to meet a spiritual authority that is
neutral.
Jayne
tells us that, “I did not think to myself; this must be Jesus…or Peter, or
anybody. I just simply recognized that he was a spiritual authority and I could
trust this person.” Even though some people personify this spiritual authority,
it is even more common that this spiritual authority is expressed neutrally as
a “being of light,” or simply a “being.”
In his
book The Truth in the Light, Dr.
Peter Fenwick explains that,
Although the ‘being of
light’ always has a spiritual significance, it is only seldom that people
describe seeing a particular religious figure such as Christ. Even those people
whose Christian faith is strong don’t always see Christ. Much more often there
is a feeling of ‘coming before one’s maker’: the being is felt as ‘God’ in a
very broad sense.
To
understand what “God in a very broad sense” means Fenwick explains that the
most common experience of the “being of light” is to be understood in a manner
that is spiritually neutral. He says: “Perhaps ‘neutrally spiritual’ is the
nearest one can get to the feeling the being evokes.”
In my own
study, I found that this spiritually neutral experience of coming before one’s
maker was indeed experienced in a very broad sense and much broader than a
conventional understanding of God. I found that 93 percent would say that God is
“non-physical” and experienced as a “form of energy.”
I also
tried to put a name on this form of energy by providing alternative answers to
what God is and found that 73 percent would say “the Light,” 66 percent “the
Light of God,” 60 percent “the essence of existence,” and 53 percent said:
“pure being.”
Not only
is the experience of God in the NDE to be understood in a broader sense, but
also heaven is to be understood in a very broad sense as a non-physical place.
To the statement: “Heaven is a physical place,” I found that 69 percent said
that they disagreed and instead 79 percent said that, “Heaven is an unearthly
dimension of energy.”
Fenwick
tells us about the core of heaven that,
Although many of these
visions of Paradise include strong well-formed, visual images, sometimes the
imagery is much less pictorial, at times almost losing its form completely. And
yet it still remains intensely emotional, and still gives this very strong
impression of heightened awareness.
Piper
describes in the second chapter of his book that this intensely emotional state
is experienced as perfect love and that “human words can’t express the feelings
of awe.” Identical to this experience of Piper most people who have NDEs
experience an intensely emotional state of love, peace and joy.
While this
feeling state together with a strong sense of heightened awareness is regarded
as the core, or heart, of heaven, Fenwick makes an important point about NDE
research. Visions of paradise are not considered the core of heaven. In fact,
while the emotional state is universal, experienced by 88 percent of people in
his study, the music heard or the visual images seen in heaven are not.
NDE
research concludes that each individual will try to make sense of the
experience by integrating their pre-existing belief system into their
experience. Because the NDE is a very powerful experience that takes the
understanding of most people far beyond their comprehension, many people will
use their pre-existing belief system to try to make sense of it.
