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I’ve been training for a half marathon with a good friend who recently became a Christian. The runs have been great catalysts for theological and evangelical conversations. One time, we turned to the topic of heaven: what to think of an upcoming film on near-death experiences, whether we’d see our beloved dogs in heaven, and eventually, the role of God’s grace and salvation in determining where we spend eternity. Theologian Andrew Wilson offers three books I’m excited to read on this topic: Dane Ortlund’s Finally Home (reviewed a little earlier than usual), Michael Zigarelli’s Evidence for Heaven, and Dante’s Paradiso.
Happy Reading,
Kara Bettis Carvalho
Senior Features Editor, Christianity Today
PS. This is the last newsletter I am editing, as I am departing CT for a new opportunity. I have had great joy in overseeing its development in the past few months. I look forward to following in the future as a reader. The new Books Newsletter editor will introduce himself next week!
A portion of this newsletter appeared as a column at Christianity Today. Join CT for full access to all our journalism.
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Three Books on Heaven and the Afterlife
Dane Ortlund, Finally Home: The Christian Hope of Heaven (Crossway, October 2026)
Writing about heaven is different from writing about other Christian doctrines. Some books on the new heaven and new earth are so imaginative and speculative that they become untethered from biblical reality. Others are not imaginative enough; they make lots of accurate statements but lack the fusion of poetry, consolation, metaphor, wonder, and joy that characterize the apostles and prophets. Dane Ortland’s new book, Finally Home, gets the balance just right more than any other modern book I have read on the topic. It is clear, solid, robust, and orthodox, but it is also soaring, evocative, comforting, and beautiful. It will be my go-to book to recommend on heaven from now on.
Much of the ground covered is what you would expect. Death, the intermediate state, the resurrection of the body, righting of wrongs, the renewal of creation, and the beatific vision are all here, described with clarity and presented with delight. Ortlund has not just read, but pondered and internalized, the great works of Augustine, Dante, Milton, the Puritans, and C. S. Lewis on this subject, and it shows. A pastoral care and an evangelistic warmth to his writing fire the heart, and he has an admirable simplicity to his overall framework.
There are some wonderful surprises as well. I did not expect the book to start with a chapter on how short our life is. Nor was I expecting a list of the careers that would (and would not) continue in the resurrection, or a chapter on how we will judge angels. I had never noticed the prominence of glory in Romans or thought about the new creation in terms of the calming of the wind and the waves. These are just some of the rich insights that are sprinkled throughout this marvelous book. Highly recommend.
Michael Zigarelli, Evidence for Heaven: Near-Death Experiences and the Mounting Case for the Afterlife (Baker Books, 2026)
This short book presents three claims of escalating significance. Each of them is reflected in the title and subtitle. The simplest and most defensible claim is that near-death experiences (NDEs) are much more common than many of us realize: They are experienced in all sorts of different cultures and are increasingly the subject of serious academic research.
The next claim is a bit stronger, namely that these experiences are so widely attested. Despite the wide range of cultures from which they come, NDEs have so many overlapping features—the departure of the soul from the body, height