Q&A with Brian Zahnd
What is the core message of Unseen Existences ? Brian Zahnd: Many of us have pushed back against “escapist” theology—a shallow version of Christianity that reduces salvation to a reservation for the afterlife. Because this pie-in-the-sky, I’ll-fly-away-when-I-die, in the sweet-by-and-by theology of heaven is unconcerned with God’s good earth or issues of justice in this life, we’ve embraced an earthly Christian faith that informs and influences our entire life—including our ethics and politics. Amen! And yet, in our zeal to embrace a faith for this-world, I warn that many of us have overcorrected and lost sight of heaven. And this is a fatal mistake. For if Christianity is to have a compelling message in the twenty-first century it must once again speak confidently, if humbly, about the reality of the spiritual world—the reality of unseen existences. Unseen Existences invites us to remember heaven, to experience and embrace the divine mystery of the spiritual realm in this lifetime. This pilgrimage of the soul—this slow and steady progression of a deeper Christian faith that draws us nearer to God—embraces a love for both the heavenly and the earthly. Many people today struggle with belief in anything beyond the material. How would you invite skeptics or disenchanted Christians to rediscover the “unseen”? Brian: To quote Nick Cave, “We must take our subtle spiritual intuitions seriously and view them as the quintessence that underlies the ordinary world.” Philosophical materialism has the embarrassing problem of being unable to account for matter itself. Most people are capable of recognizing that meaning must be derived from something that transcends the material world. If all there is is matter, not much really matters. I encourage people to lean into what they already intuit in the deepest part of their being.
How do you see this book fitting into your broader body of work? Brian: In many ways Unseen Existences is the natural successor to When Everything’s on Fire .
If readers only take away one thing from Unseen Existences , what do you hope that one thing is? Brian: I’m going to be ambitious and hope that readers can take away two things from Unseen Existences : Our true home is in the unseen world of heaven, and life is a pilgrimage of the soul toward our true home of union with God.
HEAVEN
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