Heaven: A History, Second EditionWhat do Christians believe they will experience after a virtuous life? What will an eternity in the hereafter be like? In this copiously illustrated, lively book, Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang describe and interpret the ways in which believers—from biblical authors to medieval mystics, from Jesus to present-day religious thinkers—have pictured Heaven, not just in doctrine but also in poetry, art, literature, and popular culture. In so doing, they shed new light on both the private and public dimensions of western culture. This second edition includes a substantial new preface relating the book to changing views of life after death in the new century. Praise for the earlier edition: “[A] fascinating new study. . . . It is a rich and provocative subject and the authors use it as a springboard from which to examine shifting attitudes toward man and God, within the Judeo-Christian tradition.”—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times “The next best thing to going.”—Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer “Heaven: A History offers a whistlestop tour, thoroughly researched and engagingly written, of the extraordinary things Christians and others have believed about life after death. . . . A compendium of fascinating finds from the past.”—John Barton, London Review of Books “A fascinating survey of Western culture and a delightful tour of the histories of art, literature and theology.”—Christian Century “Heaven: A History provides a rich opportunity for theological reflection. This book can help in constructing a language for the hereafter that will encourage the best hopes of the living and, heaven knows, perhaps guide the reader to a vision of eternal bliss.”—St. Anthony Messenger |
Contents
The Dawn of Heaven | 1 |
Communicating with the Dead | 2 |
No Promise for the Dead | 7 |
The Promise of Resurrection | 11 |
The Promise of Heaven | 14 |
Jewish Views of the Afterlife in the First Century | 19 |
Jesus and the Christian Promise | 23 |
No Marriage in Heaven | 24 |
Swedenborg and the Emergence of a Modern Heaven | 181 |
The Immediacy of Life after Death | 184 |
The Material Character of Heaven | 191 |
Matter in Motion | 199 |
Society Friendship and Love | 210 |
Modern Heaven | 224 |
Love in the Heavenly Realm | 228 |
Milton and Swedenborg | 229 |
Spiritual Bodies | 32 |
The Heavenly Liturgy | 37 |
The Christian Promise | 44 |
Irenaeus and Augustine on our Heavenly Bodies | 47 |
The Glorified Material World | 48 |
A Heaven for Souls | 54 |
Physical Beauty Eternalized | 59 |
The Varieties of the Patristic Paradise | 67 |
Medieval Promises | 69 |
Paradise Garden and Heavenly City | 70 |
The Empyrean Heaven as a Place of Light | 80 |
Everlasting Contemplation of the Divine | 88 |
The Promise of Love | 94 |
Medieval Heavens | 108 |
The Pleasures of Renaissance Paradise | 111 |
The Pleasures of a Paradise Garden | 112 |
Lovers and Saints | 124 |
The Geography of Heaven | 142 |
God at the Center Protestant and Catholic Reformers | 145 |
Luther and Calvin | 146 |
The Catholic Reformers | 156 |
The Pious and Ascetic Middle Class | 167 |
Theocentric Heaven | 177 |
Heaven as a Union of Lovers | 233 |
Love and Marriage | 257 |
Life in the Heavenly Home | 264 |
The Triumph of Human Love | 273 |
Eternal Motion Progress in the Other World | 276 |
Kinetic Revolution in Heaven | 277 |
Persisting Theocentric Traditions | 287 |
A Thick Description of Heaven | 292 |
Anthropocentric Heaven | 303 |
Heaven in Contemporary Christianity | 307 |
A Wish | 309 |
and a Theology | 313 |
The Decline of the Modern Heaven | 322 |
The Symbolist Compromise | 326 |
Heaven on Earth | 332 |
Theocentric Minimalism | 335 |
Theology without Promise | 345 |
What Happened to Heaven? | 349 |
Themes and Variations | 353 |
Notes | 359 |
399 | |
403 | |