Paradise Mislaid How We Lost Heaven--and How We Can Regain It

by Russell, Jeffrey Burton

• ISBN13: 9780195160062
• ISBN10: 0195160061
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-05-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Christian concept of heaven flourished for almost two millennia, but it has lost much of its power in the last hundred years. Indeed today even theologians tend to avoid the topic. But heaven has always been a central tenet of the Christian faith, writes Jeffrey Burton Russell. If there isno heaven, no resurrection of the dead, the entire Christian story makes no sense. In this stimulating book, Russell sets out to rehabilitate heaven by forcefully attacking a series of ideas that have made belief in heaven, not to mention belief in God, increasingly difficult for modern people. Russell provides elegant and persuasive refutations of arguments ranging fromthe idea that science has disproved the existence of the supernatural, to the notion that biblical criticism has emptied the scripture of meaning. Along the way, as Russell looks at the ideas of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, Mark Twain and Alfred Lord Tennyson, Marx and Freud, and a host ofothers, he sheds light not only on the history of Christian thought, but on the process of secularization in the West. One by one, Russell refutes these anti-religious ideologies, pinpointing the deficiencies of their reasoning. Throughout the book, Russell invites the reader, whatever his or her beliefs, to take the concept of heaven seriously both as a worldview in itself and as one with enormous influence on the world. It is a book that will be welcomed by thinking Christians, who often feel beleaguered by theforces of modernity and sometimes find it hard to defend their own beliefs.

Author Biography

Jeffrey Burton Russell is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is well known for a series of books on the history of Satan and evil, as well as A History of Heaven--a book that was favorably reviewed in media as diverse as Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and Christianity Today.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
CHAPTER 1 Shut and Open	1	(16)
CHAPTER 2 Up	17	(26)
CHAPTER 3 Enchantment	43	(26)
CHAPTER 4 Ahead	69	(14)
CHAPTER 5 Back	83	(22)
CHAPTER 6 In and Out	105	(28)
CHAPTER 7 Forward	133	(24)
CHAPTER 8 Here	157	(6)
Notes	163	(22)
Bibliography	185	(10)
Index	195