Life, Death, and Sacrifice: A Christian Explanation of Near-Death Experiences

I find it interesting that books about Near-death experiences (NDE) are consistent best sellers. I suspect the reason for their popularity is that we all have this notion that there is more to life than we can see and NDEs not only confirm that intuition but give us glimpse into what it looks like. 

Premier Unbelievable recently featured a conversation about the religious significance of NDEs between neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander, author of “Proof of Heaven: A neurosurgeon’s journey into the afterlife,” and pastor John Burke, author of “Imagine heaven: near-death experiences, god’s promises, and the exhilarating future that awaits you.” While the titles of both books include “heaven” the religious significance of that term differs significantly between the two men. 

Alexander was raised in a Christian home but lived his life as a scientific materialist until a profound NDE changed not only his perspective on science but also his understanding of the place of religion in everyday life. He now advocates for a divine universal consciousness which is a syncretic blend of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and New Age spirituality. Burke, on the other hand, was an agnostic engineer until he picked up Raymond Moody’s seminal book on near death experiences, “Life After Life,” prompting him to entertain the possibility that God was real. He then set out on a spiritual journey to understand the relationship between NDEs and various religious traditions, finally settling on Christianity and becoming a pastor in the church. Both men agree that it is important to separate the details of NDEs from their religious interpretation, because while the data is common, the explanations vary depending on one’s worldview.

NDEs are no longer just isolated personal anecdotes but are the subject of a significant corpus of scientific literature. Is the academic community ready to take on this data, or will they just dismiss it as a collection of ghost stories? 

Climate change

The enlightenment project, by ridding the heavens of the God of light, made all our days overcast and gloomy. We became scientifically smarter but spiritually stupider. The good news is that the scientific community is warming to the idea that there is something beyond the physical world and that something appears to have a mind. Materialists who only believe in the natural world, with every new scientific discovery, have been forced to perform an intellectual strip-tease, progressively shedding layers of enlightenment arrogance until all that is left is a blushing emperor standing naked before God. Thinking they had closed the lid on the God “delusion”, they discovered much to their dismay that their technological sophistication only served to pop the intelligent design cork and let the genie out of the bottle.

Read more:

Near-death experiences: 5 stories of changed lives

Do near death experiences contradict Christian belief and doctrine?

What is a near-death experience and what can it teach us?

Do consciousness and near-death experiences point to an afterlife?

Turn away from the light!

NDEs not only contradict materialistic scientific dogma but also address the philosophically hard problem of consciousness, a problem Alexander points out isn’t just an interesting academic exercise but one which provides insight into our very existence. He wrote in ‘ Living in a Mindful Universe’: 

“Any notion of meaning and purpose in our existence, of connection with others and the universe, of our very sense of free will, and even of such concepts as an afterlife and reincarnation—all of these deep issues depend directly on the outcome of the mind-body debate. The relationship between mind and brain is thus one of the most profound and important mysteries in all of human thought.” 

The vast majority of those who experience NDEs however aren’t concerned with the hard problem of consciousness but rather are far more intrigued with the hard problem of spirituality. It isn’t proof of an immaterial realm that intrigues them, but rather the identity of the One who lives there. 

Sadly, science was late to the party and now must come to grips with a  significant cohort of subjects who have had an NDE. 

Analyzing the religious significance of NDEs is fraught with difficulty, but if there are people who have truly “broken on through to the other side” then to ignore them not only minimizes their experiences but also potentially deprives us of practical spiritual information. All religions believe the world is a combination of the material and immaterial and have throughout their histories sought to foster that relationship through prayer, worship and theological speculation. 

While those who experience NDEs don’t always come back with specific revelations about which religious tradition is true, they do bring back consistent,  reports that cry out for a unifying explanation. One of the most common and profound experiences is an encounter with a being of love who radiates unconditional love to all those who are present. Is it possible that this singular aspect of an NDE can suggest one religious tradition over another? Is love truly the answer?

God is love

Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry in their book, “God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience” explain the encounter like this:

“We have discovered that a high percentage of people who have had an NDE have a profound and overwhelming experience of a loving being and/or of being fully loved. This love is often described by such words as grace, acceptance, and forgiveness. This reality is jarring and transformative for many people, often affecting the rest of their lives. Many say that this love is not only a feeling, but also a revelation of the nature of the world and even part of the very purpose for their lives.” 

The Christian trinitarian God  is the only who can truly be described as love because He exists as one God in loving relationship with three persons. 

God loves

The being encountered during NDEs is not only described as the embodiment of love but also as the one extending unconditional love to others. I think we need to be careful about how we use the phrase “unconditional love” because while it may be offered unilaterally, it is ultimately meaningless if it is not acknowledged and reciprocated. The reason it is unconditional is not because it doesn’t require a response but because it doesn’t have to be earned. 

I think it is fair to say that it is only Christianity that worships a God who offers unconditional love, because he not only loves us while we’re still sinners, but does so without requiring any work on our part except that we acknowledge his love and respond in kind. 

Hinduism, Buddhism, New Age spirituality and Islam all require that we earn this “divine love” by working off karma, or walking an eightfold path, or thinking positive thoughts, or being obedient to a set of rules and regulations. Christianity, however, only requires that we acknowledge we are often unlovable and yet still profoundly loved. 

Christian critics may counter that God’s love is still conditional because it requires us to believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, but I would argue that this belief, rather than a condition, is simply the acknowledgment that we have been offered no greater love. Love is a two-way street so when we fail to acknowledge God’s love for us then it is like a marriage proposal without an “I do” and sadly when “we don’t” we leave the lover of our soul standing at the altar. Any religion that promotes divine love without a divine lover has merely fallen in love with the feeling of love and not with the one who first loved them.

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Love made flesh

Most people, however, will not experience the profound unconditional love afforded by an NDE, which raises a serious question, “Why doesn’t this God of love give the rest of us an earthly taste of what awaits us in the afterlife?” The phrase “God is love” is meaningless unless we have evidence of his love in this life. Is it possible to experience this NDE kind of love this side of paradise? 

We need to begin by asking ourselves what would the most profound demonstration of earthly love look like? I think we can all agree that in a romantic relationship, love isn’t measured by the number of times we say “I love you,” the price of the gifts we give on an anniversary, or the intensity of the sex, but rather by the sacrificial service we offer one another such as a wife caring for a husband dying of cancer, a parent caring for a special needs child or a soldier throwing him or herself on a grenade to protect their friends. 

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

If true love is measured by sacrifice, and the ultimate sacrifice is laying down one’s life for another, then it would appear we have already been profoundly loved in this life without having to get near death. One could even argue that the sacrificial love offered by God through his Son is even more profound than that experienced in an NDE.  The love experienced in an NDE is intense because of the proximity to the being of love. The sacrificial love offered by Jesus, however, is even greater because of the profound distance he was willing to put between himself and His own divinity. A love not experienced in a beatific vision but by encountering the one who had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him… as one from whom men hide their faces.

Sacrifice could perhaps be enough to convince someone of the profundity of God’s love, but what if that love was taken to the next level and offered to those who were unlovable? 

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

I know of no other religion whose God was not only willing to demonstrate the most profound act of earthly love by emptying himself and dying on our behalf but to do it for creatures that had so little going for them. 

It’s interesting that people who have had an NDE often have their lives dramatically changed. After encountering a profound love characterized by grace, acceptance, and forgiveness they know that they must bring this kind of love back to the planet upon their return. 

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)

The Good News is that despite having difficulty trying to put into words the love they experienced in the afterlife they still have the opportunity to offer a Word that says it all: 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1-4)

Erik Strandness is a physician and Christian apologist who practiced neonatal medicine for more than 20 years and has written three apologetic books; ”The Director’s Cut: Finding God’s Screenplay on the Cutting Room Floor,” ”Cry of the Elephant Man: Listening for Man’s Voice Above the Herd,” and ”God Spoke: Bridging the Sacred Secular Divide with Divine Discourse.” Information about his books can be found at godsscreenplay.com