Heaven Is Not My Home: Learning to Live in God's Creation

Rating:
Summary: Lacking in consistency and abundant in contradiction
Review: Paul Marshall, in talking about the Christian faith in relation to the secular world, does make some solid, practical points. However, the consistency of these points varies as each chapter arises, and the importance of work, for example, is as important as play, and rest, and so on. His emphasis is placed on all the wrong things. Yes, he does encourage Christians to acknowledge the need for these physical and spirutal rewards, however, he discredits God in many instances. Man's sole purpose on the earth is NOT to take care of it, although that is a big factor. Man is created to glorify God. Marshall discredits God's omniscence in Chapter 12 by stating, without supporting, that "God was directed by Adam's decision" to name the animals. Here, Marshall in talking about the amount of responsibility placed on Adam, discredits God and ignores God's ubiquitous omniscence. Marshall repeatedly contradicts himself and places man as equals with God, which is just messed up. This book may be helpful to new Christians, as a starting point, but there is much more solid, beautiful literature out there and I strongly recommend that no Christian apply his entire spiritual life around this book.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific book on the Christian's earthly responsibilities
Review: The author definitely chose a provocative title for this book. I hope that no one avoids it because of the title. If you read between the lines you can see that he is not denying the biblical doctrine of the eternal state. In fact, I thought that another way of titling the book could have been "Disembodied existence somewhere in an ethereal third dimension is not my destiny."

The view that many Christians have is that, after this life, our souls go to heaven and we walk streets of gold, wearing white robes and singing hymns for eternity. What Marshall does is show that our eternal destiny may in fact look a bit more like our current earthly existence than we realize.

Marshall correctly brings out the biblical teaching that the created order is basically good, and therefore it can be embraced. Sin is not the essence of the creation, sin is an imposter.

Because many Christians have wrongly interpreted Biblical passages on the world and worldliness we have adopted an attitude that sees this world as something evil at worst, or unnecessary at best. Either way, this world and this earth and this creation are to be avoided or endured until the time when we will be freed from all of it.

However, Marshall shows very well that sin is to be removed from the creation, the creation itself is not destined to perish. He demonstrates that this creation is destined for renewal, not eradication. Eternity will be spent in a new heavens and a new earth.

Such a view has implications for how we live now. Our work, our rest, our play, our culture, our politics, and all human activity has value. We are to embrace our earthly callings. He makes the comment that all honest work is pleasing to God. Paul tells us - wheter we eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.

All of life can be and should be done to the glory of God.

One weakness of the book is that he does go overboard on showing that this earth is our home. I once had a professor who said that when a ship is listing badly to the right, you don't jump up and down in the center to get it straightened out. You jump up and down on the left. I think this is what Marshall has done here - he has seen how the church has overdone it on the otherworldliness and is trying to get us back on course about our responsibilities in the here and now. As such, he doesn't deal adequately with the verses that speak of our identity as pilgrims, strangers, aliens, etc..

With this minor weakness I still have no problem giving the book 5 stars. It is a beneficial and necessary read for Christians.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent summary of much good Christian thinking
Review: This book is insightful, readable, enjoyable, and brilliant. I will recommend it to many friends. Marshall summarized many of my thoughts about modern Christianity, and challenged me to take the Kingdom call of God more seriously in my everyday life. Highly recommended.