In the last few days, the deaths of John Madden, Betty White, and Dan Reeves and have become the subjects of a lot of discussions. And as usual, there are many statements along the lines of "Happy heavenly birthday" and "Have a good time watching the Super Bowl from heaven."
Is this something that we should just take with a grain of salt, or ignore, or criticize, or just join in and be part of it? It happens about every time a celebrity dies, and unquestionably there are many of those for whom it is questionable, or inherently impossible, for such a thing to be the case by the words of Jesus. And indeed, even if they are professed believers, there is still to be considered what He said about being rich in this world and being a non-fruitbearing tree.
Perhaps this is an extension of what most of us do when, for example, our Christian grandfather who drank, smoked, did shady deals, and seldom attended a service passes away. We just assume he's 'in heaven' anyway. To say otherwise would cause a split between us and other family members who were closer to him.
This thing even reaches to the fictional characters an actor has played. For example, I remember when Eddie Albert died, on a message board people were saying "Now he's in heaven enjoying Lisa's hotscakes again" [he played NY attorney Oliver Douglas, who became a scrabble farmer, bringing his socialite wife (Eva Gabor) with him, who knew nothing about cooking, but learned to make hotcakes that could be used for machine parts].
All in all, what should be the attitude toward treating the afterlife as something so comical, or really believing anyone that we liked has to be in heaven after passing?
Is this something that we should just take with a grain of salt, or ignore, or criticize, or just join in and be part of it? It happens about every time a celebrity dies, and unquestionably there are many of those for whom it is questionable, or inherently impossible, for such a thing to be the case by the words of Jesus. And indeed, even if they are professed believers, there is still to be considered what He said about being rich in this world and being a non-fruitbearing tree.
Perhaps this is an extension of what most of us do when, for example, our Christian grandfather who drank, smoked, did shady deals, and seldom attended a service passes away. We just assume he's 'in heaven' anyway. To say otherwise would cause a split between us and other family members who were closer to him.
This thing even reaches to the fictional characters an actor has played. For example, I remember when Eddie Albert died, on a message board people were saying "Now he's in heaven enjoying Lisa's hotscakes again" [he played NY attorney Oliver Douglas, who became a scrabble farmer, bringing his socialite wife (Eva Gabor) with him, who knew nothing about cooking, but learned to make hotcakes that could be used for machine parts].
All in all, what should be the attitude toward treating the afterlife as something so comical, or really believing anyone that we liked has to be in heaven after passing?
