Heaven

As Paula Gooder puts it, this book tackles all the “weird stuff” the Church tends to shy away from. We are in the realm here not of fluffy clouds and harps but of God’s presence, angelic beings and mystical visions. Heaven, we discover, is not just about the afterlife but the here and now – about how we live with each other, the planet and God. This is indeed the essential ‘rough guide’ to heaven, and much more.

In this profound, lucid and compassionate book, Paula Gooder demonstrates that heaven is not a vague future hope but the presence of the God who made heaven and earth. This means that believing in heaven involves us in God’s passionate commitment to earth. A concept of heaven that is only about the fate of the pious individual after death is a meagre diet compared with the feast that this book lays before us: heaven and earth renewed, restored and reconnected.

Paula Gooder has an extraordinary ability to offer top-class biblical scholarship in an accessible form. She makes a complex topic interesting and surprisingly relevant.