Unseen Existences: Of Heaven, Earth, and the Divine Mystery in All Things

author and pastor Brian Zahnd invites us to remember heaven, to experience and embrace the divine mystery of the spiritual realm in this lifetime. This slow and steady progression of a deeper Christian faith that draws us nearer to God―a "pilgrimage of the soul"―fosters in us a love for both the heavenly and the earthly. For too long, the conversation about heaven has been caught between two extremes. On one hand, there is the shallow "escapist" theology that reduces salvation to a reservation for the afterlife, unconcerned with God's good earth or issues of justice in the world. On the other hand, many of us have overcorrected, hyperfocusing on the here and now and losing sight of the spiritual reality beyond―a fatal mistake if our Christianity is to have a compelling message in the twenty-first century.