Historically, Lucy Duncan reminds us, Quakers have generally been more focused on creating “heaven on earth” rather than worrying about the afterlife. Erin Wilson points out that biblical ideas of heaven are grounded in human imagination—and, as Khary Bekka observes, “it goes against common sense.”
Meanwhile, Windy Cooler believes Jean-Paul Sartre was wrong, that it’s heaven that’s other people: “God is found in each of us, so when we connect with one another fully and with generosity, that is heaven.”
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Transcript:
Rashid Darden:
I would like to say heaven is a large bookstore and where all the books are free. I think of Heaven as returning to a singular consciousness with the Creator, the Divine, and with my friends and family who had the mysteries of the universe unveiled to them before me.
Lucy Duncan:
Early Quakers were not interested in heaven. They believed that it was all about focusing on the life that you had. And I believe that we can — and our role as Quakers is — to create heaven on earth. And what is involved in that is in transforming relationships, transforming the earth, transforming and moving beyond capitalism and white supremacy. “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us delight in it and rejoice in it.” We can live as though we’re creating heaven in the way that we are with other Quakers, with the people that we’re interacting with in our families, that we can really think about our life as a as a fractal, a seed for the what broader heaven that we’re trying to create.
Erin Wilson:
I think the scripture context about heaven and the way that we picture it in society doesn’t match. We create songs for children to learn about, you know, the mansion in the sky and, you know, in my father’s house, there’s many rooms created into this fun song. I mean, we’ve taken so much of our understanding of what heaven is from a vision that one man had and wrote in a different language and then translated it.And also it had to pass through counsels of men who had their own opinions on things to even be put into the Bible. I don’t think that it exists in the way that we’re taught that it exists, and I think it would be wonderful to live in a peaceful, beautiful society with people after we die. I don’t know that I think the way I’ve been taught is real, and I’m okay with that. Not knowing is totally fine, but I think the certainty that we’re taught about what heaven will be like and the truths that exist in Scripture versus things that we’ve decided, our truths maybe don’t align.
Lynnette Davis:
I think that my background in the Baptist Church still forms a lot of my thoughts around concepts like Heaven and Hell. I’m not so sure that I have sat with that from where I sit as a Quaker, but I will say this: I do believe that essentially we are energy and that energy is not really destroyed. And so, even when we leave this vessel, our flesh, that last breath that we take is spirit, our spirit, our energy evolving into the next level of who we are supposed to be, in whatever form that is. In that, there is a place, a container, for that spiritual energy to reunite with God, with the Oneness. And I feel that heaven is that oneness.
Khary Bekka:
I don’t believe in the Theory of Heaven and Hell. It goes against common sense. And I don’t really prescribe to the tenets of the Bible, as people do. Do yourself a workshop, I call this a workshop, where you ask your self: Jealousy..is that a higher or lower human emotion? Higher means a righteous lower means not so righteous. A lower? Okay…discrimination? Higher or lower human tendency? Showing favoritism, is a higher a lower? Revenge? In the Bible, we attribute all these lower/higher characteristics to a higher power when it don’t make logical sense. Understand where I’m coming from? These are lower human characteristics, so how can you be attribute that to a higher power? It don’t make rational sense. God feeling as if he’s going to punish me, that’s a tyrant, that don’t make rational sense. No, Heaven is a mentality that you make in your mind. You hear me? You work to create a heaven on earth, you hear me? That’s internally and you express outwardly till you get a community of people around you. But, as far as reward and punishment and spirituality…no. That doesn’t make rational sense.
Rashid Darden:
Quakers really like the light and use that illusion a lot. But there is also a children’s book about God’s holy darkness that I want to sort of reference. I think of Heaven as a swirly darkness where all the colors, the people, the things, the institutions, all the knowledge of the universe is in one place together. And that it’s an infinite state of being where everything is perfect. I believe that I have dreamed of heaven at times. I believe that heaven is here. I think it’s with us. I think it’s in a sense something we can’t see and can’t know in our current state. But when our consciousness is elevated, it can be glimpsed and that those who are already there can chat with us from time to time.
Windy Cooler:
Heaven is other people. So a famous French philosopher said that hell is other people, but it’s quite the opposite; that in traditional Quaker theology God is found and each of us and so when we connect with one another fully and with generosity, that is heaven.
Discussion Question:
- What are your beliefs on Heaven?
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
I think of heaven as a place where our discarnate souls can contemplate their past lives and plan for future lives that will give them a chance to develop spirituallly. I likr Lynnette Davos’s epplanation of ennergy. I think kthat sould are gatheerd into g roupswhere thry ca learnnn lessos,and recognize what they have doe insufficiently; kind of like a school. we are all at different spiritual levels ad are stivingCamden to improce to perfection, realizing that there will be no real perfection until all souls hae reached this high level. Threrefore our overall life objectives are first to fid our proper path ad then to help (not dictate to)otheres to otherss to find each his/her ow way.
I don’t veliece in Hell. why would a lovig parent condemn a child to eternal pain? this was, I think;, Something thought up by early friests to sell indulgenses. rather misdirected souls are given an op portunity to learn a correct pathlCamden, Delaware
So… it is true that often Christianity has been co-opted as providing simply a “ticket to heaven”. I believe we are called a to help create (co-create) a just world in our here and now… on earth as it is in heaven. But I also believe in a heaven … a next step where the love of God continues to call me … No idea what it looks like but everything within me tells me there is more. (call it hope – or wishful thinking … but it seems like a clear yes to me.)
Thank you, that was so interesting, such eloquent people. My prime reason for being a Quaker is their acceptance that I do not believe in God or an afterlife. This world suffices and the spirit within us is our inspiration.
A good start on life after death. To me there is a system of continuing our learning. Think for a minute about eternal hell. Is there a God that can do that, to have a soul tortured forever. A God that would do that would not be a God at all. What would we do with the demons of this extistence. They would be born again and again. If you have not learned what it is all about you keep recycling until you learned what the early Quakers understood. What we have to learn here is service to others. If you learn that you graduate.