Imagine the God of Heaven

Imagine the God of Heaven is a book by pastor and author John Burke on the subject of near-death experiences (NDEs). While his earlier book, Imagine Heaven (2015), focused on the afterlife, this volume centers on what NDErs, people who have reported NDEs, reveal about the character and identity of God. Burke draws on numerous NDE accounts from people of diverse backgrounds, weaving them together with biblical Scripture and historical evidence to argue that the God encountered in NDEs is the same God revealed throughout the Bible: a personal God of light, love, justice, and joy, triune in nature (one God existing as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

Burke opens by recounting his own journey from agnosticism to faith. When his father was dying of cancer, someone gave his father a book on NDE research, and Burke, then a skeptical engineer, began studying the phenomenon. Over three decades, he examined the commonalities of more than 1,000 people who clinically died, were resuscitated, and claimed to have experienced life beyond death. He became convinced that God is real, relatable, and good. Burke distinguishes between what NDErs commonly report, which he finds consistent with Scripture, and how they interpret those experiences through their own cultural and religious frameworks, using NDE accounts not as doctrine but as vivid illustrations of God's character as revealed in the Bible.

Part 1 establishes what Burke calls "Global Evidence of God." He opens with the NDE of Santosh Acharjee, a Hindu manufacturing engineer from India whose heart stopped during a medical crisis. Santosh describes encountering a brilliant divine Light that engulfed him with love, then traveling to a massive walled compound with 12 gates. God spoke to him in a loving voice and sent him back to earth. Santosh was troubled afterward because he had encountered no Hindu deities, only this unknown God of Light. Burke presents NDE accounts from across the globe showing that people of vastly different backgrounds describe the same two characteristics of God: light and love. He cites a Gallup poll finding that eight million Americans have had an NDE and a 2019 European study indicating approximately 5.5 percent of people across 35 countries reported one.

Burke presents the scientific case for NDEs, summarizing 10 points of evidence. These include verifiable out-of-body observations (such as the case of Pam Reynolds, a singer and songwriter, who described surgical details despite having no brain waves and 100-decibel clicking in her ears), the consistency of common NDE elements across cultures, heightened lucidity contrasting with the confused sensorium typical of hallucinations, the ability of congenitally blind people to see during NDEs, encounters with deceased relatives previously unknown to the NDEr, and dramatic long-term life changes. Burke argues that over 30 alternate explanations fail to account for this evidence, and that the simplest explanation, consistent with Occam's razor (the principle of choosing the simplest adequate explanation), is that every human has a soul that survives death.

Burke traces the God of Light through history, arguing that around 2000 BCE, before any current world religion's scriptures were codified, God chose Abraham and Sarah to bless all nations. He recounts the story of Heidi Barr, a Jewish girl raised by an atheist father in Iowa who experienced abuse yet sensed God's presence nightly. At 16, crushed by her horse, Heidi had an NDE in which she recognized Jesus despite having been raised never to acknowledge him. Burke also tells of Bibi Tahereh, a devout Muslim woman in Tehran who encountered a figure in white declaring, "I AM HE WHO IS," and later recognized him as Jesus. He presents the 1948 rebirth of the nation of Israel as a fulfilled prophecy foretold by Isaiah around 700 BCE.

Part 2 explores "God's Love Story." Burke argues the Bible is a love story: God creates people for relationship, humanity rejects God, and God relentlessly pursues his beloved. He opens with the NDE of Dr. Ron Smothermon, a psychiatrist stabbed 13 times by a friend who had experienced a psychotic break. As the attacker aimed a final blow at Ron's heart, time stopped and God appeared, imprinting qualities of infinite love, knowledge, and power into his consciousness. Burke examines God's compassion through three metaphors: God as parent, illustrated by Kaline Fernandes, a Brazilian engineer who experienced God's fatherly firmness and gentleness, and by Micki, an NDEr whom God cradled like a mother rocking a baby; God as friend, illustrated by Deborah, an NDEr who discovered God knew everything about her and wanted to relate to her not as a possession but as a personal friend; and God as lover, drawn from the prophet Hosea's marriage to unfaithful Gomer as a metaphor for God's faithful love. Santosh's story resumes: After two years of searching, he attended an Easter service and recognized the God of his NDE as Jesus.

Burke addresses the tension between God's love and justice through Melanie, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse who left her body during the assault and found Jesus beside her. Decades later, Melanie contacted her abuser to share the message of forgiveness. Burke cites the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, which contain Isaiah's prophecy of a suffering Messiah written before Jesus lived, as evidence these predictions were not added after the fact. On forgiveness, he returns to Dr. Rajiv Parti, an anesthesiologist and former skeptic whose NDE took him from a hellish realm to a Being of Light. Months later, Rajiv saw a vision of Jesus who identified himself by name. Alexa, an NDEr who hemorrhaged during childbirth, experienced a courtroom-like life review in which an evil being accused her at every failure, but Jesus declared, "She's mine!", signifying she was forgiven and protected by his sacrificial death.

Part 3 examines "God's Mystery and Majesty." Burke explores the Trinity through Heidi Barr's NDE, in which the Jewish teenager experienced all three persons of God. He uses a "Flatland" analogy: just as inhabitants of a two-dimensional world would see three separate circles where a three-dimensional being placed three fingers, three divine persons might connect as one God in higher dimensions. Susanne Seymoure, a 12-year-old skier nearly killed when her scarf caught in a tow rope, encountered Jesus as a warm father figure who then revealed his full glory as an enormous golden hand of light. On Jesus, Burke presents the NDE of Randy Kay, a CEO who died from septic shock, in which Jesus embraced him and called him "my beloved child." Burke explores Jesus as mediator, brother, teacher, and friend. He explains the Holy Spirit through Penny Wittbrodt, a critical care nurse whose NDE included a life review focused on the ripple effects of small kindnesses and a flash-forward vision that later came true. The Spirit, Burke argues, is the key to spiritual growth, as Jesus taught through his vine-and-branches analogy (John 15:4-5).

Part 4, "Doing Life with God Today," addresses practical applications. Jim Woodford, an agnostic airline pilot who clinically died from an opioid overdose, saw streaks of light across the heavenly sky that his guardian angel identified as his family's prayers. Burke walks through the Lord's Prayer as a model for heartfelt communication and describes the "60:60 Experiment" from his church, in which participants set hourly reminders to stay connected to God's Spirit. On sovereignty and free will, Dr. Mark McDonough, who as a teenager lost his mother and brother in a house fire and had burns over 65 percent of his body, experienced perfect peace during an NDE, understanding that all things had purpose. Burke uses astrophysicist Hugh Ross's concept of multidimensional time to suggest God can know the future without predetermining human choices.

The final chapter presents joy as God's most overlooked attribute. Burke draws on the 1890s NDE of Rebecca Springer, a nineteenth-century author who clinically died from what may have been pneumonia and described a heavenly landscape of singing grass, playing children, and reunion with deceased family. He argues that God is the most joyful being in creation and that evil's greatest deception is the notion that fun exists apart from God, connecting this to Jesus' parable of heaven as a great wedding feast to which everyone is invited.

Burke closes with a prayer inviting readers to accept God's forgiveness through Jesus. An appendix addresses whether people who have never heard about Jesus can be saved, arguing, following Christian author and apologist C. S. Lewis, that while salvation comes only through Jesus, God may apply Jesus' payment to those who seek him with genuine faith, just as Old Testament figures like Abraham were saved without knowing Jesus' name.