Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Will there be roller coasters, or will we just be able to fly?

If you've glanced at my side bar, you've noticed the link for the "Strange Maps" blog. I love maps. No apologies. I'm the kid who spent the family road trip in the back seat with the atlas open on my lap, tracing our route and noting all the oxymoronically named towns in the U.S.

The latest entry on the Strange Maps roll certainly deserves to be there . . . but I want to note in passing that I find this theologically appalling. As far as I can tell, the only thing to recommend this Heaven is that it's better than the other place (and perhaps a step up from the horrible Victorian white-robes-clouds-and-harps version of heaven). The actual scriptural New Heavens and New Earth, New Jeruselum, City of God is an incredibly rich invitation for us to imagine the very best, most fulfilling, us-being-everything-we-were-meant-to-be sort of existence we can come up with . . . and then God promises that it will be even better.

But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”— (1 Cor. 2:9)

(I view this as a challenge from God: "How much can you imagine? Watch me top it.")

Nothing that will fit on a map.

Update (7-3-15)  Find the map image here

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