I am no longer a young man. Occasionally, when I haven’t been dulling my reason sufficiently, I think about death. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that it’s not being dead that bothers me (especially as I believe in Heaven), but rather the actual process of dying that I find daunting. Seems like a pretty stressful exercise to put an old person through.

So when I found a deal on a Christian book called Real Near Death Experience Stories (by Randy Kay and Shaun Tabatt), I figured there might be some comfort in it.

It was comforting, for a Christian reader. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it awfully convincing.

The book consists of transcriptions of interviews conducted on the authors’ podcast, plus an introductory chapter about near death experiences in general. Everybody involved, the authors and their guests alike, seem sincere and seem to be people of good will. They tell lovely stories about how they’ve experienced death or near-death, and the wonderful (occasionally frightening) things they saw in Heaven (and in one case, in Hell).

Let me be clear. I absolutely believe in Heaven and Hell. I believe that Heaven is a place of eternal bliss, in the presence of the Triune God. I believe that Hell is a place where the unredeemed will suffer for eternity. So I don’t doubt that part.

It’s the extras. Having described their “go toward the light” experiences and the joys and beauties of Heaven, in several cases the interviewees go on to proclaim spiritual secrets (claiming in some cases that they have new revelations for the church in the end times). Tips on how to make it easier for miracles to happen in your life. That sort of thing.

It all sounded familiar to me. I used to hear this kind of thing a lot back in the ‘70s, during the Jesus Movement. All these stories were going around about miracles and visions and prophecies – which always happened somewhere else, never here. And the big message of it all was that Jesus was coming soon – certainly before the end of ‘80s or thereabouts.

For a lot of people, I think, the failure of these prophecies was an important element in their complete loss of faith. I got the idea, when I was reading science fiction, that 70% of the SiFi writers of my generation were embittered former Jesus Freaks. I was blessed to have a better scriptural grounding than these people, and I held onto my faith.

But when the interviewees in this book tell me, for instance, that Jesus in Heaven has blue eyes, or when another tells me that we have to let our “spirits” rule our “brains,” and that contemporary praise music is an essential weapon against demons, I am dubious.

I don’t really endorse the book Near Death Experience Stories. I have no doubt the authors (and the interviewees) are sincere. They’re probably even doing some good. But I don’t have confidence in them. “Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 23:28, ESV)