What does the word \u2018heaven\u2019 say to ordinary blokes? There\u2019s \u2018chocolate heaven\u2019 which sounds a bit girly and after all, is just a pudding which women especially drool over. Then a lot of stuff about heaven seems to get mixed up with all the romantic hoo-hah around Valentine\u2019s Day, with cute little fat, baby cherubs in adverts floating about with tiny non-threatening, dangling willies (or willies safely covered by some random bit of scarfy looking stuff). But the only reason why blokes get onto the Valentine bandwagon is because the retail industry has got them on a guilt trip unless they buy a Valentine\u2019s Day present for their partner.<\/p>\n
When does a bloke say to his mate, \u2018fancy going for a beer?\u2019 and his mate says, \u2018oh, that would be heaven!\u2019– like never, unless they\u2019re both heavily into amateur dramatics. On the telly or in films, the only people who say something is heavenly are upper class women or some bloke in the caricature role of the harmless, effeminate, bumbling twit of a country vicar. Heaven is where parents tell their little kids, Grandma\u2019s gone when she\u2019s just died, even when the old bird never mentioned the place or never appeared to give a tinker\u2019s cuss about the place when she was alive. \u00a0Heaven is soft, fluffy, nice, boring, pale and filled with middle aged, middle class women in white dresses who spend their time getting a buzz from Philadelphia Cream Cheese.<\/p>\n
Heaven is for wimps and posh women. And who gives a passing cloud for whether it really exists or not?<\/p>\n
\u2018Hell\u2019. Now there\u2019s <\/em>a word worth thinking about. \u2018Give \u2018em hell\u2019 is a battle cry to strengthen your brothers in arms. Hell\u2019s Angels are respected nowadays and \u2018hell raisers\u2019 are sort of rogues you admire. Hell Boy is a cool super hero. The primary American carrier-based fighter plane in the second half of World War II, the Grumman F6F, was called the Hellcat. The Scottish infantry regiments in the British Army still wore kilts into battle during the First World War. This and their fighting ferocity caused the German Army to honour them with the nickname, \u2018The Ladies from Hell\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018We rode like bats out of hell\u2019, is a proud achievement. \u2018We\u2019re in this till hell freezes over,\u2019 is a determined vow of endurance and \u2018we\u2019re with you come hell or high water,\u2019 is one of loyalty. Hell only starts to get nasty in those horror films with a touch of the occult in them, but\u2014hey, they\u2019re only films and you can come back to Earth with a beer and a curry afterwards. Hell only really gets a bit nastier with \u2018restaurants from hell\u2019\u2014like the clip where the bloke complains and the CCTV shows the waiter in the kitchen peeing into his coffee. Or slightly worse, \u2018neighbours from hell,\u2019 but\u2014hey, any bloke worth his salt would soon sort them<\/em> out (if he wasn\u2019t one himself\u2014chortle, chortle).<\/p>\n \u2018Hell\u2019 may not be nice but it\u2019s not soft, fluffy, pale or boring either. Once you\u2019ve chucked the worn-out joke version where little devils with tails run around pricking sinners with their forks, like unhappy barbecue sausages, what we\u2019re left with \u00a0is challenging, exciting, dark red and crunchy. It\u2019s definitely not <\/em>for wimps or posh women.<\/p>\n My thoughts on all this weren\u2019t helped a while ago when I sat through a sermon on heaven, meant for non-believers. As I write this I see that the phrase \u2018sat through\u2019 gives the game away. The preacher got very enthusiastic about heaven. He made out that heaven would be heavy on singing and a thing called praising, which was closely connected with singing. Everyone there would be full of joy because Jesus would be there. You wouldn\u2019t be allowed in unless your sins were forgiven and got rid of. Perhaps the force of that might have been lost a bit by him saying that if you weren\u2019t a Christian you wouldn\u2019t enjoy it anyway. The logic that followed was\u2014well, you\u2019d better become a Christian so you could enjoy heaven.<\/p>\n The longstanding church goer in me who has been on the receiving end of \u2018sound\u2019 Bible teaching for years and years acknowledged that everything he was saying was true. The ordinary bloke in me, who steadfastly refuses to keep his thoughts to himself, thought the preacher had succeeded in making heaven out to be like an endless church service, which is another view of heaven which turns ordinary blokes off. It even turns some believing blokes off who have a boring or embarrassing experience Sunday by Sunday sitting passively in rows, listening to long monologues or singing songs they cringe to. But of course, it\u2019s less likely to seem boring to the one bloke who gets a huge buzz standing up in front of them being 100% engaged in giving everybody else his message. That\u2019s ironic\u2014init.<\/p>\n It seemed to be one of the best examples I\u2019ve heard, of preaching the Gospel mostly from inside your own mindset and not trying to put yourself much into the non-believer\u2019s mindset. A likely result of this is a doctrinally accurate message, with no communication with the people you are trying to reach. Or worse, communication of a message you didn\u2019t want to communicate. After all, if you won\u2019t like heaven because you\u2019re not a Christian, the obvious alternative to becoming one so you can <\/em>enjoy it, is to say\u2014well, because I can\u2019t connect with this \u2018heaven\u2019 you\u2019re talking about, I\u2019ll do without both<\/em> the heaven and<\/em> the \u2018becoming a Christian\u2019 bit, thanks. \u00a0But perhaps I\u2019m missing the point. Perhaps, on the subject of heaven, preachers in the UK today are only meant<\/em> to be communicating with wimps and posh women. That can\u2019t be right though, can it?<\/p>\n Heaven Is For Wimps And Posh Women is a 3-part blog. Part 2 will be published on Wednesday 17th November.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n