Many Say They Have Died and Visited Heaven. Pastor Who Has Examined More Than 1,000 Near-Death Experiences Stories Shares Findings By Billy Hallowell for Faith Wire
John Burke, a pastor and author who has studied and examined over 1,000 accounts of near-death experiences, has been on a mission to help people better understand these claims.
Burke, author of the bestselling book, “Imagine Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God’s Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You,” recently told “The Pure Flix Podcast” he’s a firm devotee of evidence and reason and believes accounts of near-death experiences have credibility.
“I’ve been to seminary, I’ve studied the Bible, I’ve taught it for 30 plus years and, at the same time, I’ve always been curious,” Burke said. “So, I have collected and studied over 1,000 of these near-death experiences, and I’ve always been trying to put it together — ‘How does it fit with the heaven of the Bible and the God of the Bible?’”
Support Our Site
Now is your chance to support Gospel News Network.
We love helping others and believe that’s one of the reasons we are chosen as Ambassadors of the Kingdom, to serve God’s children. We look to the Greatest Commandment as our Powering force.
The preacher said he wrote “Imagine Heaven” to explore the correlations and commonalities seen in near-death experience cases across the globe.
“These people are having an experience that I’ve come to believe is truly beyond our four dimensions of time and space,” Burke said.
He added that those who go through near-death experiences often find themselves struggling to explain something that transcends our current world, all while being restricted to the experiences and semantics of this realm.
Watch Burke share his investigation into near-death experiences:
He compared our current existence to a flat, two-dimensional, black-and-white photo. Those who have a near-death experience, Burke said, are “ripped off that two-dimensional plane and brought out into three dimensions of color.”
Suddenly, these individuals are trying to explain the newfound dimension to people who have only experienced the two-dimensional realm.
“They have to interpret their experience, and they always do in their own worldview, and that’s very important to understand because not every interpretation aligns with the Bible,” he said. “But I’ve found, incredibly, the commonalities are pointing to the God of the Bible and no one else.”
