heaven

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A hard truth: Most American Catholics no longer worry about saving souls

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A hard truth: Most American Catholics no longer worry about saving souls

As a rule, evangelists from Texas don't go shopping for bourbon before a speech.

But that's what Marcel LeJeune and some friends did when the Catholic Missionary Disciples leader spoke at a Franciscan University conference last summer in Steubenville, Ohio. Things turned serious, while chatting with a saleswoman, when he asked how she was doing and she bluntly replied, "I wish I wasn't on this earth."

There was no easy response. The woman was angry, LeJeune said, "because something was hurting." He offered to pray, and she fired back, "Oh, don't do that. You're talking to a rabid atheist, and I don't want your prayers."

LeJeune returned to discussing bourbon options and, as he left, the woman smiled and laughed when he said, "Look, I'm going to pray for you, but you just pretend I'm not. OK?"

That's really all that could happen in that setting, stressed LeJeune, a veteran of years of campus ministry near Texas A&M University. The saleswoman was candid, and he tried to show sincere concern.

Truth is, the woman he met "when I was buying bourbon was … easier to evangelize than the people who go to my parish who don't know Jesus Christ."

Catholic leaders need to understand that, a decade ago, Pew Research Center numbers were already warning that 13% of American adults are ex-Catholics, with 6.5 former Catholics for every Catholic convert. Waves of "nones," the religiously unaffiliated, cannot be ignored.

Meanwhile, LeJeune has stressed another sobering reality -- that nearly half of church-going Millennials think it's morally wrong to seek converts. Among Catholics, many assume that "evangelism" is a Protestant concept and the same thing as "proselytism" that pressures people to convert.

The reality is that more and more churchgoers are, at the practical level, "universalists" who assume people go to heaven, no matter what, he noted.

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Pets in heaven? Concerning the ministry of Marius Aurelius Spartanicus, the priest's dog

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Pets in heaven? Concerning the ministry of Marius Aurelius Spartanicus, the priest's dog

Catholic priests are not used to hearing penitents laughing while lined up for confession.

When Father Joseph Krupp peered out of the booth one day, he saw that his broad-chested, 72-pound Boxer was in a chair and, when the line moved, the dog took the next chair.

Everyone knew this hound had sins to confess, after raiding wedding receptions, opening church fridges and, on one occasion, scarfing down a three-pound roast. Krupp laughs when describing how the latest of his rescue dogs "absolutely murdered" a rabbit -- next to a statue of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of all creatures great and small.

The priest said he has intentionally adopted old dogs, hoping to "give them a few happy years. … I always thought that I was trying to heal the dogs. This time, God sent the dog to heal me."

This canine parable began during a tough stretch of the priest's work in a number of Michigan parishes. Krupp has served as chaplain for the Michigan State University football team, led the university Catholic campus ministry and now supervises the state's Northeastern deanery, with 12 parishes and four schools.

The priest went to the Hillsdale Humane Society eight years ago to donate a bed, toys and food after his latest dog died. Then he saw a battered, "broken-hearted" Boxer no one wanted.

"He was found tied to a tree, along with another dog. The other dog had died of starvation, and he was close to it. He had been shot with numerous pellets, his tail was broken, and a lot of his teeth were missing," wrote Krupp, to his many @JoeInBlack readers on X (formerly Twitter).

The dog was hours from death, but shelter workers saved him.

As Krupp arrived, a former student "sent me a message. She told me she was praying for me, and God told her that He was going to give me a remarkable gift that day. I walked in just as they were walking a dog out," he wrote. "He lifted his head, saw me and ran at me so hard and fast that the leash came out of the volunteer's hand. I sat on the floor, and he jumped on me, licking me and pushing me to the ground. I just couldn't quit laughing."

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Where is heaven? Ancient believers have answers for that modern Sam Harris question

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Where is heaven? Ancient believers have answers for that modern Sam Harris question

When cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin returned to earth in 1961, after the first manned spaceflight, Soviet leaders claimed he said: "I went up to space, but I didn't encounter God."

Venturing into similar territory, superstar atheist Sam Harris rocked cyberspace during a recent Triggernometry YouTube appearance in which he discussed Donald Trump, faith elements in "wokeness" and the flocks of Americans who insist on believing in heaven.

Political Twitter screamed when he said there was "a left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump. … Absolutely, but I think it was warranted."

But comedians Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster pushed back, asking if Harris was justifying moral relativism. Perhaps today's truth wars, the Triggernometry team suggested, were linked to a famous G.K. Chesterton quip: "When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything."

During the ensuing discussion, Harris offered another viral soundbite: "Where is heaven, exactly, given that we have multiple telescopes up there beaming back tens of billions of years' worth of information?" Yet millions of Americans still embrace the supernatural claims of an ancient faith, including that Jesus will return to "raise the living and the dead."

"You'd be surprised by the number of percent of sober, non-Bible-thumping people who would say 'yes' to that question," he said. "They might be Christian, they might be, listen, 'I love the Bible. It gives me a great moral framework. It gives my kids a great moral framework. This is the tradition I'm identified with. This is all super important to me' -- but that's kind of as far as it goes. Right? Like, I'm not going to make magical claims about flying saviors who are literally going to come down from … heaven."

While the Twitter masses raged, the French-Canadian iconographer and writer Jonathan Pageau recorded a video essay on his "The Symbolic World" channel about why materialists and religious believers keep debating the meaning of terms such as "heaven" and "earth."

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Vast cloud of gods featured in 'Thor: Blood and Thunder,' including 'God of Carpentry'?

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Vast cloud of gods featured in 'Thor: Blood and Thunder,' including 'God of Carpentry'?

Greek mythology makes it clear that the great god Zeus loved to party.

So wild things were happening when the Norse demigod Thor and a pack of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) superheroes entered Omnipotence City in "Thor: Love and Thunder." The Greek gods are out in force, with Zeus serving as king, but so were many other deities from other cultures.

Valkyrie, the female queer king of New Asgard noted, while calling roll, the off-screen presence of another deity -- the "God of Carpentry."

Inquiring minds want to know if, to quote WhatCulture.com, the film's director Taika Waititi had "confirmed the actual existence of Jesus in the MCU? … Without showing Jesus, Waititi has plausible deniability: Valkyrie could've been talking about the Greek God of Carpenters Hephaestus, or even Lu-Ban, the God of Carpentry from Chinese mythology."

The cosmology of the Marvel super-movies has become so complex that it's hard to know precisely what is being said, noted Thom Parham, a screenwriter who teaches at Palm Beach Atlantic University. Early on, the superheroes were simply aliens, instead of gods or demigods.

"But now we've got sub-deities. They want to have their cake and eat it, too," said Parham, after returning from Comic-Con 2022 in San Diego. "We have gods, and we have demigods. We have Greek gods, and we have Egyptian gods. We have the Eternals, and we have the Celestials."

When Parham heard the "God of Carpentry" reference, he felt that "a dangerous line had been crossed. …What are they saying? I don't think they know, yet."

With "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" poised for November release, the "Avengers" series will reach 30 movies and a dozen or more sequels are planned. The franchise has grossed more than $27 billion at the global box office.

In terms of religious messages, the MCU has come a long way since Captain America, after hearing Loki described as a god, said: "There's only one God … and I'm pretty sure He doesn't dress like that." The New Rockstars YouTube channel counted 50-plus gods in "Thor: Love and Thunder" alone.

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The gospel according to post-theist Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong

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The gospel according to post-theist Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong

Newark Bishop John Shelby Spong never stuck "Why Christianity Must Change or Die" on the doors of Canterbury Cathedral, since it was easier to post a talking-points version of his manifesto on the Internet.

"Theism, as a way of defining God is dead," he proclaimed, in 1998. "Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity."

Lacking a personal God, he added, it was logical to add: "Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way."

Spong's 12-point take on post-theism faith emerged after spending years on the road, giving hundreds of speeches and appearing on broadcasts such as "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and "Larry King Live." While leading the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, within shouting range of New York City, he did everything he could to become the news-media face of liberal Christianity.

By the time of his death at the age of 90, on Sept. 12 at his home in Richmond, Va., Spong had seen many of his once-heretical beliefs -- especially on sex and marriage -- normalized in most Episcopal pulpits and institutions. However, his doctrinal approach was too blunt for many in the mainline establishment, where a quieter "spiritual but not religious" approach has become the norm.

Spong called himself a "doubting believer" and said he had no problem reciting traditional rites and creeds because, in his own mind, he had already redefined the words and images to fit his own doctrines. He also knew when to be cautious, such as during Denver visit in the late 1980s -- an era in which the Diocese of Colorado remained a center for evangelical and charismatic Episcopalians.

After a lecture at the liberal St. Thomas Episcopal Church, I asked Spong if he believed the resurrection of Jesus was an "historic event that took place in real time."

"I don't think that I can say what the disciples believed they experienced. I'll have to think about that some more," he said, moving on to another question.

The bishop answered a decade later, in his memo calling for a new Reformation:

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Jeffrey Epstein meets Dante: Eternal questions about hell that refuse to fade away

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Jeffrey Epstein meets Dante: Eternal questions about hell that refuse to fade away

So, what is Jeffrey Epstein up to these days?

When beloved public figures pass away, cartoonists picture them sitting on clouds playing harps or chatting up St. Peter at heaven's Pearly Gates. The deaths of notorious individuals like Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh, Osama bin Laden and Epstein tend to inspire a different kind of response.

"The world is now a safer place," one victim of the disgraced New York financier and convicted sex offender told The Daily Mirror. "Jeffrey lived his life on his terms and now he's ended it on his terms too. Justice was not served before, and it will not be served now. I hope he rots in hell."

Social-media judgments were frequent and fiery. After all, this man's personal-contacts file -- politicians, entertainers, Ivy League intellectuals and others -- was both famous and infamous. Epstein knew people who knew people.

"That Jeffrey Epstein was allowed to take the coward's way out & deny justice to his victims is a DISGRACE," tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. "Pedophiles deserve the Ninth Circle of Hell, but not before a full accounting."

The rush to consign Epstein to hell is interesting, since many Americans no longer believe in a place of eternal damnation -- a trend seen in polls in recent decades.

In 1990, a Gallup poll found that 60% of Americans believed in hell and only 4% of respondents thought there was a chance they would go to hell. In 2014, The Pew Research Center's Religious Landscape Study said 58% of American adults believed in hell, defined as a place where "people who have led bad lives and die without being sorry are eternally punished."

The bottom line: For many Americans, hell is for people who have already been damned in the court of public opinion -- since everyone agrees they are extraordinarily bad. This view of eternal life doesn't point to a reality that has anything to do with how normal people make choices and go about their lives. Hell is a vague, majority-vote concept that applies only to mass murderers and sickos involved in sex-abuse scandals.

Many modern people want eternal justice on their own terms. This desire may have little or nothing to do with God.

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Funerals for Bush 41 pulled strong images of heaven into America's public square

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Funerals for Bush 41 pulled strong images of heaven into America's public square

During 60 years of friendship, George H.W. Bush went on countless trips with James Baker III, his secretary of state and a confidant so close that America's 41st president liked to call him his "little brother."

On the last day of Bush's life, Baker checked on his friend. The result was an exchange Baker shared several times, including on CNN's "State of the Union."

"Hey, Bake, where are we going today?", asked Bush, alert after days of struggle.

"Well, Jefe, we're going to heaven," Baker replied.

"Good. That's where I want to go," said Bush.

Bush died about 12 hours later, surrounded by family and friends, including his pastor, the Rev. Russell J. Levenson Jr. It was a time for prayers and good-byes, and the priest shared some details in sermons during both the state funeral in Washington, D.C., and the final rites at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston, the Bush family's home parish for 50 years.

"It was a beautiful end. It was a beautiful beginning. … The president so loved his church -- he loved the Episcopal Church. He so loved our great nation. He so loved you, his friends. He so loved every member of his family," said Levenson, at Washington National Cathedral.

"But he was so ready to go to heaven. … My hunch is heaven, as perfect as it must be, just got a bit kinder and gentler." The priest turned and addressed the coffin, blending faith with language from Bush's days as a Navy pilot: "Mr. President, mission complete. Well done, good and faithful servant. Welcome to your eternal home, where ceiling and visibility are unlimited and life goes on forever."

There is nothing unusual about priests discussing heaven during funerals. After all, the Pew Research Center's massive "religious landscape" study a few years ago indicated that 72 percent of Americans believe in a place "where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded," and the number is 82 percent for those affiliated with a religious tradition.

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A (liberal) church-growth strategy to save the Episcopal Church

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Once upon a time, the Anglican bishops at the global Lambeth Conference boldly declared the 1990s the "Decade of Evangelism." 

 This effort was supposed to spur church growth and it did, in the already booming Anglican churches of Africa, Asia and across the "Global South." But in the lovely, historic sanctuaries of England and North America? Not so much.

 "There was some lip service given to evangelism at that time," said Ted Mollegen, a businessman with decades of national Episcopal Church leadership experience. Membership totals continued to spiral down and the Decade of Evangelism "basically faded away without much success ... because of a lack of effort and institutional commitment."

 The Episcopal Church then created a "20/20 Vision" task force committed to doubling baptized membership by 2020. The goal was a renewed evangelism emphasis, along with programs for spiritual development, emerging leaders, church planting and improved work with children, teens and college students. Mollegen was the task force's secretary and a founding member of the Episcopal Network for Evangelism.

Episcopalians, however, promptly entered yet another period of doctrinal warfare and schism, symbolized by the departure of many large evangelical parishes following the 2003 election of a noncelibate gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire. Mollegen served on the national church's executive council from 2003-2009.

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The evolving state of Mormon heaven

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It takes lots of praying, preaching and singing to mourn a president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a man called Prophet, Seer and Revelator by his global flock. That was certainly true at President Spencer W. Kimball's funeral in 1985. So when one of the church's most powerful women rose to speak, the leader of its vast Relief Society projects, she simply shared a cherished private memory that pointed far beyond the grave.

While visiting Colorado, recalled the late Barbara B. Smith, "I asked President Kimball a searching question. 'When you create a world of your own, what will you have in it?' He looked around those mountains. ... Then he said, 'I'll have everything just like this world because I love this world and everything in it.' "

She also recalled this Kimball quote urging Latter-day Saints to help those in need: "What is our greatest potential? Is it not to achieve godhood ourselves? Perhaps the most essential godlike quality is compassion."

It was already rare, at that time, to hear such an explicit public reference to the faith's doctrine of "exaltation," the belief that through piety and good works truly devout Mormons can rise to godhood and even create new worlds.

While this doctrine has caused tensions with other faiths, it has been a key source for the Mormon emphasis on marriage and family. As a mid-1980s text for converts stated: "Parenthood is ... an apprenticeship for godhood."

Now, church leaders have published an online essay -- "Becoming Like God" -- in which they have attempted to reframe this doctrine, in part by mixing the unique revelations of Mormon founder Joseph Smith with New Testament references and selected quotes from the writings of early-church saints such as Irenaeus, Justin Martyr and Basil the Great.

The essay repeatedly refers to Mormons becoming "like" God, rather than becoming gods and uses the term "godliness" many times, and "godhood" only once.

It also notes that Latter-day saints have endured mass-media efforts to turn this doctrine into a "cartoonish image of people receiving their own planets." After all, the showstopper "I Believe" in the rowdy Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon" proclaims: "I believe; that God has a plan for all of us. I believe; that plan involves me getting my own planet. ... I believe; that God lives on a planet called Kolob. I believe; that Jesus has his own planet as well. ... Oh, I believe!"

Nevertheless, the online essay does note that Smith did tell his followers: "You have to learn how to be a god yourself." It also bluntly asks a question frequently posed by critics of the church: "Does belief in exaltation make Latter-day Saints polytheists?"

The essay responds: "For some observers, the doctrine that humans should strive for godliness may evoke images of ancient pantheons with competing deities. Such images are incompatible with Latter-day Saint doctrine. Latter-day Saints believe that God's children will always worship Him. Our progression will never change His identity as our Father and our God. Indeed, our exalted, eternal relationship with Him will be part of the 'fullness of joy' He desires for us."

The problem, according to poet and blogger Holly Welker, is that this downplays images Mormons have for generations used to describe their faith. She noted, for example, that the essay edited a key passage from Mormon scripture to avoid powerful words linked to these beliefs.

Doctrine and Covenants proclaims: "Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them."

That doesn't sound like a metaphor, argued the former Mormon, writing at the University of Southern California's "Religion Dispatches" website.

"Having our own planets," she said, is "absolutely a matter-of-fact way Latter-day Saints have discussed this doctrine amongst ourselves, probably because of statements like this one from Brigham Young: 'All those who are counted worthy to be exalted and to become Gods, even the sons of Gods, will go forth and have earths and worlds like those who framed this and millions on millions of others.' ...

"The essay actually deflects rather than answers this question: So, can we get our own planets, or not?"