What are some other books by him that y'all would suggest?

I've only read two of Alcorn's books and both were basically about Heaven. I know he dabbles in fiction work as well, and implements the Scriptural views of Heaven that we've only really "rediscovered" of late. One such that Alcorn quotes a great deal is Safely Home, which strikes me as a "Theological Thriller"...wow, did I just create a new genre name? It seems to have standard Apocalypse storylines intermingled with scenes from the New Heaven and New Earth (stargazer referenced it in an earlier post. Phosphorous also referenced a few more of his works *points up*). Beyond Lewis and Tolkien I've never really read any books that focused, even a little bit, on the afterlife as we know it and I'm probably going to pick this one up (if I don't get it for Christmas, that is).

Mysterious PM Writer, as Dr. Ransom has dubbed them, sent me another PM, this one citing Scripture saying that the Earth will be completely destroyed by fire and the New Heaven and New Earth in Revelation will be a brand new construct, an act of Special Creation. Alcorn does address this in the book and references Scriptures which would indicate that yes, God will baste the current world in fire, however this will have the effect of wiping the slate clean, so to speak. All traces of the curse will be removed in totality. God has wiped it clean before with the Flood, and yet the Earth is still here, yes?

The chalkboard the Creator uses to draw things and teach from isn't evil in and of itself...it's just that the Devil has done a little graffiti work on it and made it appear blasphemous. God is going to chain Satan in the boilerroom (presumably next to Freddy Krueger) and completely clean the chalkboard off and then use His own Creative Genius to draw anew on the chalkboard. There will be no traces left of the graffiti that Satan had in place there. Probably a terrible analogy, but the best I can come up with at this hour of the morning.

I've done my steady best to get MPMW to come here and post because there's nothing I'd like more than to see some serious theological discussion on the subject, as well as a lot of prognostication from members as to what the New Earth will be like. I will not reveal MPMW's identity, however I will issue an open invitation to them to come here and discuss the matter a bit more openly. We're all Christians here and if we're going to be talking about this (and many other things) for eternity we may as well start here, right?

No, I am not MPMW, but I wanted to come in here and say that the discussion here, and your introductory post in particular, Shadowlander, has made me want to read the book very much. I've heard ww and Dr. Ransom talking about Heaven a little, and so I know a little bit about it, but this thread has really piqued my interest. I suspect I shall have to get the book from the library soon.

Please note that this Special Feature will be closing on Friday evening of this week, after which you may continue discussion of Alcorn's books on the Books thread.

Argh! I have almost missed my chance entirely to say more about this awesome book. Who/what do I blame? Perhaps my computer, for being slow and unwieldy. Or being work, for being an entirely reasonable taker of much of my time. Or other writing projects. Or, perhaps, I could blame Christmas. Yes, that seems a good idea. I’ve been so busy with Christmas — just as busy as anyone else can be, actually. Okay, I give up on trying to make excuses. ...

Speaking of holidays ...

Do you think we’ll still celebrate holidays on the New Earth? Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Birthdays, etc.?

My de facto “policy” is this: if it’s not sinning here, then why not have it there? Can a holiday like Christmas give glory to God on Old Earth? If so, then I think the “burden,” if there is one, is to show from Scripture that something like recognizing a special occasion won’t be in the New Heavens and New Earth, rather than proving from Scripture that it will be. There isn’t space enough in the Bible to say what all we’ll be able to do, think, achieve, etc., in the New Heavens and New Earth.

My mom got the book...agh, forgot it’s name. Something about “Passion for Purity” or something like that by Randy Alcorn. She’s really liking it, and after she’s done, she had suggested for my sister and I to read it so we’ll probably do that. What are some other books by him that y’all would suggest?

Heaven. Read Heaven. After that you might read If God Is Good..., a book about the reasons for suffering that is apparently in the same deep-and-lengthy-yet-readable vein as Heaven. I haven’t read that book yet, but it’s on my Christmas wish list!

[T]he discussion here, and your introductory post in particular, Shadowlander, has made me want to read the book very much. I've heard ww and Dr. Ransom talking about Heaven a little, and so I know a little bit about it, but this thread has really piqued my interest. I suspect I shall have to get the book from the library soon.

Hey, you could add Heaven to your wish lists, Aslanisthebest and Destined-to-Reign. (See below for more glowing comments on this book from yours truly, in a review I wrote this past summer. ...)

Randy Alcorn’s fiction Safely Home seems to have standard Apocalypse storylines intermingled with scenes from the New Heaven and New Earth (stargazer referenced it in an earlier post. Phosphorous also referenced a few more of his works *points up*).

After Heaven, I read Safely Home, but I loved Heaven much more. Make no mistake, I love great fiction, and Alcorn’s work was good — but his nonfiction was better. Much of the novel he set in China, and dealt in a very linear way with a Chinese man from the persecuted church. As such, it was very depressing, and rightfully so, and to the point where the Heaven elements (and that being the present-day “intermediate” Heaven, not the New Heavens and New Earth) seemed almost tacked-on. It seemed to imitate Lewis more, too.

Lest that seem overcritical, I still can’t say enough about Heaven. In fact, come to think of it, I finally got around to condensing a lot of what I’ve written on the subject for a book review, written last June for my church’s website: ’Heaven’ is imbued with Biblical doctrine, informed imagination. Well, I might as well excerpt it here, eh wot?

This book, along with Desiring God by John Piper, really did “change my life,” in the way people hear about sometimes, back in 2006 when I read it for the first time. Now, since reading it twice more in three years, I can eagerly agree with Alcorn’s back-cover quote:

The next time you hear someone say, “We can’t begin to imagine what Heaven will be like,” you’ll be able to tell them, “I can.”

Unlike other Christian authors, who may assume unbelieving readers already know, he begins with a carefully written chapter that ensures some readers are told that they are actually headed by default for Hell. Alcorn blessedly knows his audience — and the fact that some among them will be naïve non-Christians who assume that a pleasant afterlife is theirs to claim.

From there he heads into more assumption-questioning that continues throughout the book. (Some have said Alcorn seems too redundant in doing that, though I argue that rebuttals to long-held un-Biblical beliefs often need to be this redundant.) For the first several chapters he hits hard against popular Churchian legends about the afterlife. Heaven is not only the present-day “interim” Heaven where the redeemed go upon death, Alcorn writes, but in the future, it will be the New Heavens and New Earth. And the New Earth will by definition be earthly.

By calling the New Earth Earth, God emphatically tells us that it will be earthly, and thus familiar. Otherwise, why call it Earth?

When Scripture speaks of a “new song,” do we imagine it’s wordless, silent, or without rhythm? Of course not. Why? Because then it wouldn’t be a song. If I promised you a new car, would you say, “If it’s new, it probably won’t have an engine, transmission, doors, wheels, stereo, or upholstery”? If a new car didn’t have these things, it wouldn’t be a car. If we buy a new car, we know it will be a better version of what we already have, our old car. Likewise, the New Earth will be a far better version of the old Earth.

The word new is an adjective describing a noun. The noun is the main thing. A new car is first and foremost a car. A new body is mainly a body. A New Earth is mainly an Earth.

The New Earth will not be a non-Earth but a real Earth. The Earth spoken of in Scripture is the Earth we know — with dirt, water, rocks, trees, flowers, animals, people, and a variety of natural wonders. An Earth without these would not be an Earth.

Heaven, page 158

Many people don’t seem to get that — and I’m not just talking about non-Christians. Wrong ideas of Heaven are just as common in the Church. Some Christians, if they think about it, assume Heaven is a nonmaterial world of spiritoid weirdness where life may be really boring and you may even lose your individuality. It’s like the Twilight Zone. But we’re often given quick assurances that it’s not creepy — it’s all a good sort of spiritoid-ness, and we’ll love it anyway.

Those lines are out there, just floating around in Christendom without Scriptural support — ideas like: Well, we have no way to know much about heaven. Or, We’re not sure what kind of bodies we’ll have in heaven. Or this one: Time (or work) will be no more in heaven.

Many others secretly wonder, Will we eat and have fun? Will there be pizza in Heaven? What about coffee drinking? And — as I used to do — many Christians don’t think beyond those questions, but think them somehow “unspiritual” and end them right then.

Alcorn believes many such Christians mean to be humble and not presumptuous. Of course we don’t know everything there is to know about what God will have for us in Heaven. But God has revealed plenty for us in Scripture, Alcorn writes. Wrong ideas about Heaven have come not from the Bible, but from “Christoplatonism” — underlying ideas that only the “spiritual” is spiritual, and created matter does not matter to God.

Sprinkled throughout Alcorn’s first chapters are quotes and testimonies from believers who, he writes, secretly admitted they wished Heaven were more like Earth. The (supposed) fact that it won’t be like Earth frightened them. But Alcorn shows how Scripture contradicts many of the myths people have about Heaven, and points readers to the truths of God’s resurrecting not only His people from sin and death, but the rest of His material creation as well.