Communication Between Cultures

in 1 Peter 1:3–4:“...God has something stored up for you in heaven, where it will

never decay or be ruined or disappear.”These words tell Christians that death is not

something to be feared. In fact, death is often talked of in terms of a“reunion with

loved ones.”As noted, Christians strongly believe it to be a place where they go to be

given the reward of eternal companionship with God. So important is the notion of

heaven and eternal life that religious scholars have found the words“heaven”and

“eternal life”mentioned over six hundred times in the New Testament.^83

Because the idea of hell was a late arrival to Christianity (not introduced until the writ-

ings of Luke and Matthew), there are a number of versions and descriptions of what hell is

and how one becomes a candidate for this“nightmare.”In some of the early descriptions,

details are scarce and not graphic. But other accounts of hell, especially those suggested by

Matthew, are much more explicit and detailed.“Matthew argues, again and again, that

Hell exists, is sheer torture, and is reserved for the damned who will be cast‘into the fur-

nace of fire; where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.’”^84 Not only do portrayals

of hell differ, but who goes to hell instead of heaven is also left to some mild speculation.

In most accounts, hell is reserved for people who die without accepting Christ or who

have“sinned”and not repented. Hell is most of all“the separation from the love of

God.”^85 There is yet another, more modern argument suggesting that a loving God

would not be party to anything as cruel andsordid as hell, and therefore God needs to

be trusted. Regardless of how heaven

and hell are defined in various Chris-

tian traditions, one conclusion is obvi-

ous—Christian doctrine maintains that

there is an afterlife, which, as we shall

see later in the chapter, is not the case

in all religious traditions.

Judaism

There are fewer than fourteen million Jews worldwide, representing less than 0.22

percent of the world’s population.^86 However, their interest in politics, literature, edu-

cation, medicine, finance, and law have, for thousands of years, made them an influ-

ential group no matter where they have lived. As Prothero notes,“This tiny religion

has wielded influence far out of proportion to its numbers. It started a monotheistic

revolution that remade the Western world.”^87

Van Voorst develops this important point in more detail:

Our seven-day week with its day of rest is an inheritance from Jewish scripture. The belief that

there is only one God is a gift of these writings as well. That all people are equally human,

that the human race is one family, and that each individual can fully realize the meaning of

life regardless of social or economic class are ideas that have also come to the Western world

from the Jewish scriptures.^88

Not only have Jewish scriptures influ-

enced numerous aspects of Western civiliza-

tion, but, as Harrison points out,“With the

possible exception of a brief period toward

the end of the eighteenth century, Jews

were the vanguard of intellectual, technolog-

ical, and economic progress of the West.”^89

CONSIDER THIS

What can you learn about a culture and its people by studying

how their religion explains dying and an afterlife?

REMEMBER THIS

The covenant between God and the Jewish people is

predicated on the notion that the Jews are God’s chosen peo-

ple, and this is a basic theme throughout Jewish history.

Cultural Expressions of Christianity 123

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