Eleven Million Near-Death Experiences: Do Some Indicate it May Not Be Safe to Die? ā Program 5
By: Howard Storms, Nancy Evans Bush, June Langley, Dr. Maurice Rawlings, Dr. John Weldon, Dave Hunt; ©1994 |
If people of different faiths have different near-death experiences, what does that tell us about death and life after death? |
The Theology of Near-Death Experiences
Introduction
The popular movies Ghost and Flatliners describe what more than eleven million Americans have now reported, namely that they have had a near-death experience in which they left their body, traveled through a dark tunnel, recognized friends and loved ones who had died, and encountered a supreme being of light. Are their near-death experiences real evidence for life after death? Some people have reported they found themselves in hell, not heaven, during their near-death death experience. Do their frightening hell experiences indicate it may not be safe for us to die?
My guests who will be answering these questions includeĀ : Dr. Maurice Rawlings, a specialist in cardiovascular diseases; Nancy Evans Bush, president of the International Association of Near-Death Studies, one of the most prestigious organizations in America collecting information on near-death experiences; June Langley, a nurse who has cared for over 500 children who have died of terminal diseases; Dave Hunt, internationally known Christian researcher and author of the best-selling book The New Spirituality; Howard Storm, an atheistic professor who, as a result of having a hell experience, believed on Christ and has become a Christian pastor; and Dr. John Weldon, author of more than 40 books on comparative religions. We invite you to join us.
- Ankerberg: Welcome. Weāre talking about the experiences that approximately 13 million Americans, maybe more, have had called near-death experiences, where they, in a moment, are taken out of their body; or they are going through a tunnel, they see a great white light. Most of them are positive experiences. And then they come back into their body and it affects them. Whatās taking place? Whatās going on? Is this good? Is it bad? What can we draw from this? Does that tell us thereās life after death?
- Around this circle, we have talked about the fact that some of the people that are having near-death experiences, such as Howard here, had ābadā onesāhell experiences. They went to hell. And they didnāt believe it. He was an atheistic professor at a university, chairman of the department, and knocked religion; knocked belief in God. Yet finds himself in a hell experiences and comes back. It changes his life. He becomes a Christian and goes into the ministry. Whatās going on? Whatās taking place?
- And weāre getting to the thorniest areas, the theological philosophical implications. And June, I want to take your point and I would like to push it on them, and then I want you to back me up on this, okay? You deal with a lot of people, children.
- Langley: Right.
- Ankerberg: And what you were saying is that if you put a theological interpretation on this experience that theyāre having, and you would like to change it from what other people are thinking theologically, because into the hospital can walk people that are skeptics; people that are Jewish; people that are Protestant; people that are Catholic; people that are Muslims; people from all over the world. And what youāre saying is that when you share about this great light, you do it basically in a universal way, or a way that you think will not offend those folks. Is that correct?
- Langley: Thatās correct.
- Ankerberg: Alright. Now, what you are upset at is youāre wondering how they can have you say something else about that. Is that correct?
- Langley: And more.
- Ankerberg: Okay. Well, you pick it up right there and letās go from there.
- Langley: I feel that the other religions are not being represented here. I can agree with all my colleagues in how they feel. You do feel what you feel. But also there are others out here of other religions and other nationalities, and they also feel. And why canāt that be right? Youāre dealing with the Bible; they have the Qurāan and the books that they hold dear. And itās okay. I am dealing with children. I am dealing with parents who are losing a loved one. I embrace every religion no matter what it is, because you cannot change a personās religion and say, āJesus Christ says to do thisā when a mother is of Hebrew faith or, as she said, Burmese faith. You embrace it, because there is one. The children have shown us this.
- These innocent children have not been put out into the world where they can lie and connive. Theyāre pure. And they have come back and told me this, the nine. The one, okay, I accept that. And the child probably did see, because that was of her faith and she accepts and I accept. And the bottom line is, when I help these people, these children, cross over, you must accept all the faiths. Thatās the only way. God is wisdom, no matter what name you give him. You canāt say anything other to a mother that has this dying child. You accept it and she accepts it. Thatās my part that Iām tryingā¦
- Ankerberg: So ask them a question. What do you want them to explain?
- Langley: Well, I can understand your feelings in what youāre talking about, the Bible and Jesus Christ; but can you understand their feelings?
- Weldon: Of course, I can clearly understand their feelings. And maybe to address some of the things that you have brought up, you know, ideas are neither broad or narrow; theyāre true or theyāre false. And if you look at comparative religion, and my dissertation was in comparative religion with an emphasis on Eastern religion, thereās a vast difference between one religion and another. They do not all teach the same concepts of God or the same views about Jesus Christ or salvation or the nature of man or the afterlife. They teach different views that are contradictory. So amidst these competing claims that we find in comparative religion, how do we determine what truth is? Well, I have to see if anything really stands out in the field. What does stand out is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which would stand up in a court of law today. Iāve talked to a number of lawyers who have told me that. If the evidence is presented fairly, the fact that Christ rose from the dead would stand up in a court of law. So I have to look atā¦
- Langley: Youāre going to say this to a Hebrew mother?
- Weldon: I have to look at what He saidā¦
- Langley: Or a Buddhist mother?
- Weldon: Yes. I have to look at what Heā¦
- Langley: At the time the child is dying? Youāre going to say āJesus,ā right?
- Weldon: Iām not talking about children dying at this point. Iām talking about whatās true. If Jesus Christā¦
- Langley: Thatās what you believe and what they believe is true also.
- Weldon: No. Jesus Christ said, āI am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes unto the Father but by me.ā Thatās true or false.
- Langley: And itās wonderful that youāre quoting these, but say this to a mother of another religion.
- Weldon: If itās trueā¦if itās trueā¦
- Langley: And you accept this. Allow them to acceptā¦
- Ankerberg: Go ahead, Dave.
- Hunt: What would you say to a mother of a dying Hebrew child or a Buddhist child or a Muslim child and you want to give them an injection, for example. No. Maybe this is the only thing that will save their life.
- Langley: This is the scenario youāre giving me.
- Hunt: And they say, āBut we donāt believe in that.ā What would you do? Theyā¦
- Langley: When I reach the child, there are no injections that we have to worry about.
- Hunt: Yes, but Iām asking you, you see, youāre saying that it doesnāt matter; anything is truth. But it doesnāt work in medicine. It doesnāt work in anything else.
- Langley: Thatās why they call it the healing art, they donāt say itās a science.
- Hunt: Okay, butā¦
- Ankerberg: Change your metaphor around, David, and change the illustration. If a doctor said this is a good pain killer and this will keep the pain down, etc., etc., and over here you have another syringe that has poison. It has something in it, but the fact is, for this patient it would be poison. If a mother came into the room and said, āI want you to give her that one.ā
- Langley: The poison?
- Ankerberg: Would you do it?
- Langley: No.
- Hunt: But she believes in this.
- Langley: She may believe in it and you know what would happen? Probably when I left the room the mother would give the syringe to the child if she really believed it.
- Hunt: No. Youāre going to take the syringe out of there.
- Langley: And thereās nothing I could do.
- Rawlings: Pediatric cases, to me, are completely different than adult cases. Theyāre innocent.
- Langley: Thatās right.
- Rawlings: Adults, like you saw when you went into adult medicine, suddenly, three suicides, all bad cases all at once. You didnāt see that in children.
- Langley: No. Not in the 500.
- Rawlings: In adults that go through the near-death experience, this 11-13 million, whatever, that see the light, they donāt say, āI saw Buddha; I saw Matrieya.ā They donāt name the god of their faith usually. Theyāll see the angel or the messenger of death. But in the United States and in Christian areas, itās āI saw Christ.ā They name it specifically. This is of some importance, because in the emergency room we donāt see⦠here, the Hinduāand Iāve had a Hindu patientāthey call on āShiva or Vishnu, Brahma, help me.ā Itās āGod, help me,ā or āJesus, help me.ā And I think that Madalyn OāHair, when we get here there, sheāll say, āGod, help me.ā Sheās the atheist.
- Ankerberg: Okay. Weāve got to take a break and when we come back weāll pick it up right here. But I also think we need to make one thing clear, that no Christian would say that theyāre going to force their belief on anybody else. I think we need to take that away. The thing is, weāre not saying youāre going to mandate this by law. Youāre not going to force somebody to do it. What youāre saying is, youāre debating this on the basis of what is true. And when youāre put into a situation, you might not have any control over that situation. So thatās one thing you have to do.
- When we come back, if I could start this with the fact of, June, if you had had the experience of Howard, in other words, sometimes life is not the way we stack it up to be. I keep learning new things every day and that man had one of the biggest surprises anybodyās ever had. Iād like to ask you that question in terms of her question over here. You were an atheistic professor who has a hell experience; wasnāt expecting it, and what did that tell you and how did that change your world view? Letās pick this up when we come right back. Stick with us.
- Ankerberg: Weāre back and weāre talking about, āWhat happens when you die?ā And do the experiences of, say, 13 million Americans who have had near-death experiences, gone through the tunnel, seen the great light and so on, and come back, not all of them have had that experience. Two-thirds have not seen anything, so weāre talking about a third of those that are having them see something. But the fact is, what kind of conclusions do we draw from these people that have had these experiences? And, Howard, in terms of the ātruthā question, okay, you didnāt believe in God, you hated God; you were against this. You find yourself in hell. You had a hell experience. You didnāt have one of these positive experiences, you had a hell experience. Okay? What did that do to your view of reality? That went against your view of reality.
- Storm: Totally destroyed it and I had to rethink everything. But I was so eager after the experience to save my wife and my children and my friends from that hellish experience, that I literally tried to hammer the Bible into them. It finally got to the point where I realized nobody could stand to be around me because I would literally yell and scream Bible verses all day long, thinking that if I were loud enough and long enough, I would persuade them. I did much more harm I did irrevocable harm. Itās taken them years to get over that and find Jesus Christ as their Savior in their lives because the harmā¦
- Hunt: But you did it out of sincere concern because you didnāt want them to go where youād been.
- Storm: Absolutely.
- Ankerberg: The question is this. Your methodology might have been wrong, but were you right even to bring it up?
- Storm: Absolutely. Because I think this is shocking: In my adult life, for as long as I can remember, I was never evangelized. No one ever mentioned anything about Jesus Christ or invited me to church or anything like that. I donāt know what I would have done if they had. I mean, I canāt predict that. But nobody ever did. The Christian witness out there, from my experience, doesnāt exist. Okay? I think we have an obligation. Thatās what Iām trying to convince my congregation of in my church, that we have an obligation to go out there and to witness. And itās not to forcibly do anything to anybody because thatās counterproductive. Itās to witness out of love and caring.
- Ankerberg: Okay. Hold that thought. You didnāt believe it either.
- Rawlings: Right.
- Ankerberg: Okay. You saw a guy on the floor that youāre working on in a clinical death situation where heās dying and youāre trying to save his life and heās going back and forth between hell. And you say a prayer and he gets saved. And the fact is, all of a sudden youāre saying, āWow! What happened?ā
- Rawlings: Yes.
- Ankerberg: Okay? It changed your whole world view. Are you wrong now to write books and tell people about that?
- Rawlings: No. Itās my calling. I told him to keep his hell to himself; didnāt want any part of religion or anything else. Now Iām collecting cases.
- Ankerberg: Yes. Hold onto that. Now, June, youāre like these two guys right now where you donāt believe their world view. And I certainly understand that. If you had, surprise, surprise, surprise: an experience like himā¦
- Langley: I did.
- Ankerberg: Okay. But if you had a hell experience like him, the fact is, would you then warn people about that experience in any way?
- Langley: Well, what happened to me, my platelet count dropped to 5,000.
- Rawlings: If you had a hell experience, what would you do?
- Langley: Would I warn them?
- Rawlings: Yes.
- Langley: I would say itās an individual thing. I canāt say.
- Bush: Many people in my experience feel that they canāt tell the people they love, because if they love them, itās too terrible to tell people about. And they may then spend years trying. And maybe this ties into your question about evangelizing if one is looking solely from the Christian perspective. But people spend decades trying to find the ways, to find the words, in which to give some not comfort, meaningāand I donāt know what the word is that you guys arenāt going to take exception to. I would say āsacred.ā I would say āholy.ā I would say profound, but I want God in there.
- Ankerberg: Nancy, youāre so nice, and I want you to push harder. If I was you saying to Howard, I might say something like this. āWould you expect me, Howard, if I had a hell experience and I didnāt say anything, would I be wrong?ā
- Storm: Absolutely. See, I believe that part of the reason why I left the faith was, people were so nice. Iām sorry to do this to my past, but theyāre probably not watching this anyway. I grew up in a nice, liberal, rational New England religion where people didnāt want to talk about hell or Satan or anything else. And it was like an ethics of ābe good,ā ābe nice.ā You know?
- Hunt: Everybody makes it.
- Storm: Yes. Itās sort of a vague, general kind of a thing. It did me no good, because I was easily seduced. I didnāt know that the name of Jesus Christ was powerful. I didnāt know that when you prayed in the name of Jesus, there was a power there. I didnāt know that Jesus died on the cross for me. I didnāt know. I was ignorant of all those things because everybody had made it all so nebulous. So, what I do with my witness, and what I feel compelled to do is, like, I believe that there is a probability that if you donāt know God in an intimate and personal wayāand God has shown us that intimate and personal way through the man from Nazareth who was the Christāif you donāt know that, thereās a good probability that Iām not willing to bet anybodyās life on it. Iām not willing to take the responsibility that they may have that hellish experience.
- Langley: I had a near-death experience. My platelet count dropped to 5,000. I was pronounced dead. They resuscitated me in the emergency room. I didnāt see God; I didnāt see Jesus Christ; I saw this black thing. Looked like a robe. I wasnāt afraid and Iām not afraid now. I can feel that thereās only one answer now. And that everybody has their own religion and their own feelings.
- Rawlings: Not everybody has a black robe awaiting them.
- Langley: No. Everybody sees things differently. And you have to accept that. Look how narrow you will be if youāre not.
- Hunt: Can I interject here. See, hereās what troubles me, June; however you want to look at it, this is Godās universe. I do not find this criteria in any other area of His universe. You go to, even a baker, āI just throw in some ground glass and it doesnāt matter.ā You come to me as a doctor, and I know that youāve got a ruptured appendix, and unless youāre on the operating table within 30 minutes, youāre dead. But I wouldnāt want to āupsetā you, because you donāt believe in ruptured appendices. And so I say, āWell, June, if youāve got a little pai,n take an aspirin.ā That is not love. You canāt get on a United Airlines jet with a ticket to Disneyland, you see?
- Langley: Youāre taking this out of context.
- Hunt: No. Iām not taking it out of context.
- Langley: No, no, no, no. Youāre saying āapples and oranges.ā Iām not saying that.
- Hunt: Itās not āapples and oranges.ā
- Langley: Iām not saying, āYou have a religion. He has a religion. We all have. Just accept it.ā
- Hunt: But, June, just let me finish. Religion has got to be the most important. Okayā¦
- Langley: Okay, but youāre putting a name on it. Iām not putting a name on it, because Iām dealing with other people that have other faiths. But itās one bottom line: Itās a deity, whatever name you want to put on it.
- Hunt: Let me give you the bottom lineā¦
- Langley: You just said love is the thing that makes the world go āround, right, and I agree with you.
- Hunt: If I love you, June, I want to tell you right nowā¦
- Langley: What you believe.
- Hunt: Not what I believe, what Jesus Christā¦.
- Langley: See, but youāre saying āJesus Christ.ā What about these other peopleā¦
- Hunt: Let me finish. Let me finish.
- Langley: Youāre not being fair to them. They donāt have a chance here.
- Hunt: Let me finish. Youāre not arguing with me, youāre arguing with Jesus Christ.
- Langley: Iām not arguing with anybody. I embrace all of the religions.
- Hunt: Just let me finish.
- Langley: And youāre not. Youāre being very narrow.
- Hunt: Jesus said, āI am the way, the truth.ā You canāt change what Jesus said. āI am the way.ā
- Langley: Iām not changingā¦
- Hunt: June, please let me finish. āI am the way, the truth, the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.ā He said that we have violated Godās laws. There is Godās eternal justice and that He paid the debt for our sins.
- Langley: Okay.
- Hunt: Nobody else paid it. And He said, āUnless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins and where I go, you cannot come.ā Now, youāre not arguing with me; youāre not contradicting me, youāre saying, āJesus Christ, you are a liar.ā
- Langley: I am not saying that. Donāt say that. No. No.
- Hunt: Yes. You are.
- Langley: I embrace all religions and all beliefs.
- Hunt: But you canāt embrace all beliefs that contradict one another.
- Langley: That is your belief.
- Bush: You are both having at things that you genuinely might as well shut up, because neither of you is going to convince the other one of anything. And frankly, I think youāre both being simplistic.
- Ankerberg: Letās bring this up next week and the question is, are we going beyond the data? Are we drawing conclusions we shouldnāt draw? Okay? And Iāll be interested to hear what all of you have to say. I hope that youāve enjoyed this discussion. Weāre going to pick it up right here next week. Please come on back.