Katana
31st July 2006, 05:22 PM
Those silly, silly Americans.
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/living/religion/15148155.htm?source=rss&channel=kansas_religion
Belief in hell is going to you-know-where. And belief in heaven is in trouble, too.
That's the concern of some Christian thinkers, including Jeffrey Burton Russell, an emeritus professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of the new book "Paradise Mislaid: How We Lost Heaven and How We Can Regain It" (Oxford, $28).
Russell and other fretters aren't impressed by fads like the sudden popularity of the girl's name Nevaeh (heaven spelled backward) or polls that show most Americans believe in some sort of heaven.
The growing problem, according to Russell and others, is that the way U.S. Christians conceive of both heaven and hell is so feeble and vague that it's almost meaningless -- vague "superstition."
It's "not that heaven is deteriorating," he says. "But we are."
Gallup reported in 2004 that 81 percent of Americans believed in heaven and 70 percent in hell. An earlier Gallup Poll said 77 percent of ever-optimistic Americans rated their odds of making heaven as "good" or "excellent." Few saw themselves as hellbound.
"The percentage who say they believe in heaven has remained pretty constant the past 50 years, but what people mean by it has changed an awful lot," Russell said .
Some people are so confused they believe in heaven but not God --"I suppose a New Age thing," Russell said.
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/living/religion/15148155.htm?source=rss&channel=kansas_religion
Belief in hell is going to you-know-where. And belief in heaven is in trouble, too.
That's the concern of some Christian thinkers, including Jeffrey Burton Russell, an emeritus professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of the new book "Paradise Mislaid: How We Lost Heaven and How We Can Regain It" (Oxford, $28).
Russell and other fretters aren't impressed by fads like the sudden popularity of the girl's name Nevaeh (heaven spelled backward) or polls that show most Americans believe in some sort of heaven.
The growing problem, according to Russell and others, is that the way U.S. Christians conceive of both heaven and hell is so feeble and vague that it's almost meaningless -- vague "superstition."
It's "not that heaven is deteriorating," he says. "But we are."
Gallup reported in 2004 that 81 percent of Americans believed in heaven and 70 percent in hell. An earlier Gallup Poll said 77 percent of ever-optimistic Americans rated their odds of making heaven as "good" or "excellent." Few saw themselves as hellbound.
"The percentage who say they believe in heaven has remained pretty constant the past 50 years, but what people mean by it has changed an awful lot," Russell said .
Some people are so confused they believe in heaven but not God --"I suppose a New Age thing," Russell said.