{"id":489,"date":"2009-10-01T21:24:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-01T21:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2009\/10\/love-and-life-after-death\/"},"modified":"2009-10-01T21:24:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-01T21:24:00","slug":"love-and-life-after-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2009\/10\/love-and-life-after-death.html","title":{"rendered":"Love – and Life – After Death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

When a leading Southern Baptist blogs on the passing of a notable Unitarian Universalist, it makes for an interesting contrast.<\/p>\n

Forrest Church<\/a>, who died on September 24 at the age of 61, was Senior Minister of All Souls Church in New York City for thirty years. He was the author of more than twenty books, and co-authored A Chosen Faith<\/em>, which is on the shelf of every Unitarian Universalist in the country, or so it seems. His next-to-last book was titled Love & Death<\/a><\/em>, written after he knew he was dying from cancer.<\/p>\n

Church\u2019s message was the only thing that can be said with certainty about death: we will die, but our love remains. He said \u201cif religion is our human response to being alive and having to die, the purpose of life is to live in such as way that our lives will prove worth dying for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al Mohler is President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, the leading seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is a fundamentalist and a Calvinist, but he is also very intelligent and articulate. That someone in his position noticed the passing of a UU minister is a testament to Rev. Church\u2019s stature.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, Mohler finds Church\u2019s ideas lacking<\/a>. Mohler says \u201cWithout the resurrection of Christ, there is no hope for us after death\u201d and \u201cThe Christian hope is essentially grounded in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Without life after death, love after death will not matter. No resurrection \u2014 no hope.\u201d I\u2019m not exactly sure what that says about his opinion of this world he believes his god made, but it can\u2019t be good.<\/p>\n

So here we have quite a contrast: the Unitarian who, finding insufficient evidence for life after death, comes to terms with his own mortality; and the Baptist who, holding fast to the literal interpretation of the Christian myth, insists that if this life is all there is we have \u201cno hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

I agree with Rev. Church that there is love after death \u2013 we live on in the love we leave behind. We live on in our physical and spiritual descendants. We live on in the deeds we do \u2013 the good and the not-so-good. And we live on in that our bodies will be returned to the Earth and our elements recycled into future living things. These things are clearly true. And if it turns out they\u2019re all that\u2019s true, I\u2019m OK with that.<\/p>\n

But I also believe our souls \u2013 the essence of who we are \u2013 live on after death. There is evidence (though not proof) for this: near death experiences, past life memories, communication from the dead. There are the beliefs and practices of cultures across the world from the time we became human (and maybe before) through today. But mainly, I believe it because my heart tells me it\u2019s true \u2013 there is more to Life than the material world, and our spirits are more than the interaction of the chemicals in our brains.<\/p>\n

I may be wrong. But this is what I believe, so I do the only thing that allows me to live with integrity \u2013 I order my life as though it is all entirely true. I speak with (and listen to) my gods and goddesses. I honor my ancestors (of blood and of spirit). And I do my best to care for the Earth, because it\u2019s the right thing to do, but also because I want it to be in good shape when I live again.<\/p>\n

But regardless of what comes after death, Forrest Church was right about one thing \u2013 love lives on.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a leading Southern Baptist blogs on the passing of a notable Unitarian Universalist, it makes for an interesting contrast. Forrest Church, who died on September 24 at the age of 61, was Senior Minister of All Souls Church in New York City for thirty years. He was the author of more than twenty books, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLove - and Life - After Death<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When a leading Southern Baptist blogs on the passing of a notable Unitarian Universalist, it makes for an interesting contrast.Forrest Church, who died on\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2009\/10\/love-and-life-after-death.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Love - and Life - After Death\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When a leading Southern Baptist blogs on the passing of a notable Unitarian Universalist, it makes for an interesting contrast.Forrest Church, who died on\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2009\/10\/love-and-life-after-death.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-01T21:24:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2009\/10\/love-and-life-after-death.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2009\/10\/love-and-life-after-death.html\",\"name\":\"Love - and Life - After Death\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-10-01T21:24:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-10-01T21:24:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\"},\"description\":\"When a leading Southern Baptist blogs on the passing of a notable Unitarian Universalist, it makes for an interesting contrast.Forrest Church, who died on\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2009\/10\/love-and-life-after-death.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2009\/10\/love-and-life-after-death.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2009\/10\/love-and-life-after-death.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Love – and Life – After Death\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"description\":\"Musings of a Druid, Pagan, and Unitarian Universalist.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Beckett\"},\"description\":\"I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. 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