cover image WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE? A Promise of the Afterlife

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE? A Promise of the Afterlife

Brian C. Stiller, . . Pion/NavPress, $18 (192pp) ISBN 978-1-57683-383-4

Understandably, many of us aren't fond of pondering our own death. Yet, as is evidenced by the popularity of "life-after-life" books, we are often grateful, even fascinated, when someone else takes the time to do it for us. In this plain-spoken but strangely placid meditation on the great themes of death, heaven and hell, the president of Canada's evangelical Tyndale College links our performance in this life with our destiny in the next. Rejecting philosophies like Platonism and reincarnation as insufficient to explain the mysteries of suffering and death, this conservative author and television personality endorses a traditional Christian understanding of sin, atonement and punishment for the ungodly. "Heaven is for those who trust in Christ for the resolution to our failure and rebellion. He is our 'ticket' to heaven." Saved by grace, the soul who confesses Christ, asserts the author, will be eventually be re-united with the body in a restored "heaven on earth." Enlivened with historic references and enhanced by the writer's familiarity with literary classics, this volume still seems oddly dispassionate, which may be inevitable in a book meant to both encourage and exhort. It is tantalizing to speculate how much more compelling this would have been if Stiller had spent more time helping readers to consider how the prospect of resurrection, judgment and cosmic renewal could transform the way they live now. (Mar.)