90 Minutes in Heaven is a 90 Minutes Heaven of narrow Christian interpretation where author Don Piper uses his personal near death experience and extraordinary experience of heaven to support religious fundamentalism and a very narrow understanding of the Bible.

   Millions of people all over the world have near death experiences and the experience of heaven is common to be found in all cultures and religions. While some people in a Christian culture will have an experience of heaven that resembles a Biblical heaven, people from other cultures, e.g. near death experiences in Thailand, will have an experience of a Buddhist heaven where they meet the Lord Buddha.

   From over 30 years of research into thousands of cases of near death experiences the International Association for Near Death Studies concludes that experiences of heaven happen equally across all cultures and religious affiliations, and we also find that even atheists have experience of heaven.     

   In the 90 Minutes in Heaven book, Piper admits in chapter two that he “didn’t see Jesus” and in chapter three he also tells us that “I did not see God” – he only saw a “bright iridescence.” Yet, based on this Piper concludes that what he did not see must have been the exclusive God of the Bible from his religious background, which leads him to interpret his experience of heaven in a very narrow way.

   Don Piper Ministries, which like the book concludes that we “must profess Christ” as our Lord and Savior in order to go to heaven, explains that it is: “With great love and respect for those of other faiths and religions, we point people to Jesus. We believe there is a heaven, and we believe Jesus is the way.”

   The issue here is not the inconsistency in the meaning of “love and respect” but the hidden danger behind this mask of fundamentalism. When you believe people are lost and that their belief is wrong, it is more difficult to treat people with equal respect because human nature tends to make us care for our own first at the expense of the other.

   We can see this through the difference in the kind of love for our neighbor that Piper here talks about and the kind of love most people experience in their near death experience. It is most common for people who have near death experience to conclude that both God and heaven is inclusive, and they do so based on the experience of God as a profound love beyond human comprehension.

   The infinite love of God that people experience is a testimony to what the Bible talks about when it tells us that “God is greater than our hearts” and what people experience is truly an unearthly and divine form of love.

   If we listen closely with an open heart we can almost feel the deeper level of love and respect that these people give testimony about. One person who also had a near death experience (NDE), Jacqui, tells us it’s an “amazing love and beauty that is hard to explain…light, love, beauty, clarity, warmth, a higher meaning.” The higher meaning of this love makes it of another world, and as an unearthly love it is much more strong or powerful than the love we feel here on earth.

    Another person, Mary also reveals that this “love of God” was an “unearthly unconditional Love,” and that it was “a million times stronger than any earthly experience and was different in that it was total and unconditional.” 

   Being unearthly and unconditional also makes people describe this as a love that is pure in its form, and in my study I found that 87 percent agreed to call the Light “pure love.” Here Paul tells us that: “All was light; All was Love,” and he gives us an explanation about the nature of the light, where he describes his experience of pure love and what he calls “True love.”

   Paul explains further:    

I saw the beautiful and strong light. It was more beautiful than our words; it was brighter than anything I had ever seen but did not ‘blind’ me; the Love was greater than anything I had ever experienced…It was pure light and pure LOVE…True Love; True Reality.

   Along with this strong sense of pure or true love people who have NDEs also generally note upon a strong sensation of oneness. I found that 93 percent said that they had the “experience of oneness,” and 80 percent said that they agreed with the statement: “All is one.”

   This oneness is usually described as the interconnectedness of all things. Dave explains that, “I felt a connection to everything. That would include anything that has ever been, is, or ever will be…everything.”

   To confirm Dave’s testimony, in my study I found total consensus with 100 percent agreeing to the statement: “We are all interconnected; all life shares the same essence.”

   Also David marks upon this sense of interconnectedness as he tells us that the core of his experience was “LOVE and interconnectedness,” and that this love was: “Acceptance, Tolerance, Truth, Infinite knowing, Home and Welcoming.”

   David also gives this longer explanation of just how powerful the sense of love is in the NDE:

I experienced incredible Love and knowledge beyond my true being while in the light. The Love was so powerful that you cannot compare it to this physical world. If we were to experience it while in this body it would overwhelm our senses to a point of incapacitation.

   When Piper says that it is “with great love and respect for those of other faiths and religions” that his ministry point people to Jesus, it is a very different kind of love he is talking about when he condemns them to hell if they do not accept Christ.

   Religious fundamentalism is neither accepting nor tolerant of other people and their beliefs. Having compassion for other people and wanting to help them is good, but tying Jesus Christ to this compassion as a condition is conditional love. The NDE tells us that God’s love is inclusive and that God does not deny us his unconditional love based on a name. 

   When we are told to love our neighbor it is not very kind or compassionate to condemn people to hell. And when Jesus tells us to; “Love each other as I have loved you,” does that really mean that the deeply inspirational love of Christ is limited to the literal interpretation of one line in the Bible? And just because John tells us: “No one comes to the Father expect through me,” could that really be the limit of God’s infinite love?

   Most people who have NDEs and the research disagree with this fundamentalist interpretation of God, as people experience a love far greater than we humans can comprehend. And this love leads to a much deeper understand of the Golden Rule through a very strong sense of interconnectedness.

   David reveals further that:

The core of the experience I had was LOVE and Interconnection. I believe the Light permeates throughout everything. All of our physical reality has a component and a connection to the Light. Our physical presence is a manifestation from the Light, giving us the perception of separateness…Everyone and everything has this connection to the light.

   The Bible tells us something similar in 1 John 4:20-21, where we are told that, "If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love this brother…cannot love God…he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother."

   Piper’s ministry, which concludes that we “must profess Christ” as our Lord and Savior in order to go to heaven, explains that it is: “With great love and respect for those of other faiths and religions, we point people to Jesus. We believe there is a heaven, and we believe Jesus is the way.”

   The issue here is not the inconsistency in the meaning of “love and respect” but the hidden danger behind this mask of fundamentalism. When you believe people are lost and that their belief is wrong, it is more difficult to treat people with equal respect because human nature tends to make us care for our own first at the expense of the other.