Thos book surprised me in many ways. When it began with a series of seemingly endless anecdotes, I figured it would be just another in a line of popular pap Christian books that I'd prefer to see in the trash can. But after maybe 50 pages of this, Alcorn warmed up and started providing some real meat -- and surprisingly thick meat in some places, at that.

Although in some places a little too midrashic in his use of Scripture, for the most part Alcorn uses a sound combination of exegesis and simple logic to provide a detailed and clear picture of Heaven and the life after. He rightly demolishes what he calls "Christoplatonism" -- a view that the material is bad and that heavenly life will be ethereal and dull. He answers numerous common questions in a sound way (including such oldies as, "Will our pets go to heaven?") and provides a text that may be of particular use in comforting the grief-stricken. Of course, Alcorn does not view the text in quite the terms we would prefer (ie, heaven and hell in terms of the honor-shame dichotomy) but even without that, he comes remarkably close to the same answers that he would have provided with the same view.

I find myself surprised to say of this popular book, "Read it. It's worth it."