An Honest Debate.com

John Lennon’s hauntingly beautiful song, “Imagine,” begins by asking us to “Imagine there’s no heaven.”  “It’s easy if you try,” he tells us.  He then invites us to join him in his fantasy, assuring us that if enough of us join him all of the people will start “living for today.”   According to Lennon this is a good thing because it will lead to a materialistic Utopia in which   possessions, greed or hunger will give way to loving, sharing and a united world.  

Lennon was right in imagining that his idea would have consequences.  He was even insightful in recognizing that one of the principle consequences would be “people living for the day.”   But there are things that Lennon did not foresee that begin to happen when people start imagining there is nothing above us.  

Lennon’s problem, to paraphrase Fredrick the Wise, was that he “did not know the damned race.”  You see, when the hope of heaven is abandoned not only will people start living for the day, they will also begin living only for themselves and individuality will run amok.   And people without the hope of heaven do not start sharing either.  On the contrary, they start hording!  Rapacious gluttony on every level becomes the only thing that makes sense.  After all, in such a world the child who dies with the most toys really is the winner…no matter how many of the other children he had to hurt to collect his toys.  

Lennon’s materialistic fantasy also has an impact on interpersonal relationships.  Marriage and the family would be among the first victims of his brave new world.  Since love as love does not exist in a materialistic universe, using others to meet our own perceived needs would become the rule, and, of course, discarding them when they no longer serve our purposes would only make sense.  In such a world the most one could romantically hope for would be to be someone else’s significant other…a least for a while.  At least until things begin to get difficult.   

“Imagine” is an old song.  If Lennon were the only one who believed in such a world there would be not problem.  Unfortunately he was correct when he wrote, “You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”   Today many people — too many people – share his dream, and it’s producing a nightmare.   We see evidence of this all around us, as the world demanded by Lennon’s logic takes shape before our eyes.   We hear echoes of his thought every time we hear some one say, “Life is too short for this.”  This cliché has become an all purpose excuse to get out from under any painful situation.    The assumption of the user whenever he uses it is, “Surely you agree with me that I’m justified in walking away from this difficult situation given the fact that it is causing my emotional distress.  After all life is short and this life is all we have.”  

It is not surprising to me that I hear those who have lost their hope of heaven saying such things; but what is distressing to me — as a minister of the gospel — is that I hear this sort of self-justification being used by people who claim they believe in heaven.  But do people who really believe in eternal life think this way?   I would propose they do not – or at least they should not — because if there is a heaven waiting for us then life is not short, it’s eternal.   Persevering in a difficult situation — in a world “under heaven” — makes sense.  As does serving others, rather than using them; as does making and honoring commitments; as does the self-sacrificial that puts another person’s needs above our own.  

It would seem that modernity’s last great “gift” to the western world before taking its place on the ash heap of history has been the near total elimination of it’s faith, and with the loss of it’s faith the death of its hope.  If the destructive trends that are destroying homes, lives and threatening the future well being of our society are ever to be reversed it will only happen when the 80+ percent of us who claim to believe in heaven start thinking and acting consistently with our profession of faith.  Because in the final analysis the crisis of modern times is a crisis of unbelief; this being the case its only solution is faith.