The Inevitable Reality of Death

This past week, LifeWay Research released some new data on how Americans perceive and pursue spiritual realities. The statistic that most struck me is the fact that 46% of Americans NEVER wonder about whether they will go to heaven. It’s not that they don’t believe in heaven or hell. It’s just that they simply don’t think about it.

I have often lamented the impression that we live in a culture of death. Skulls and skeletons have moved from underground Goth subculture to mainstream fashion. Death, gore, murder, blood and violence fill movie screen, television programs and video games. The current generation has been desensitized to images of graphic violence.

But despite the numb, calloused reaction to IMAGES of death, many people in our culture are not confronted with the actuality of death. Death is fictional. It is a caricature. For average, comfortable suburban people, it isn’t real.

Although I am speculating, I would imagine that very few of the 46% have been personally impacted by the stark reality of death. Seeing the cold, lifeless body of one whom you have loved—not a made-up corpse or a cremation urn—inevitably raises questions of the afterlife. With our society’s comfortable embrace of the images of death, we seem to have lost touch with its reality.

Amos 6:1