Mariamne, the second wife of Herod the Great, asks her husband for a cosmetologist. But Herod, having other things on his mind, finds that there are three Cosmologist on their way to the area looking for a baby King, who Herod presumes will supplant him.The rest is history.

 Yet in cartoon form it illustrates the kind of havoc that can occur when we mishandle Scriptures by presuming we know what a particular passage says based on our current experiences and problems. Presuppositions, (nee presumption), leads to interpreting the Bible in ways opposed to, if not secondary to, the original intent.

This is the problem with interpreting ,the creation narrative and Heaven. We need to pay close attention to what we can know, and what we suppose we know. 

And that is why I am writing The New Earth Chronicals in a two-part form. .

Writing a speculative novel about "Heaven" as we so glibly call it, is easy. Just throw whatever you want into it, pour, mix, shake, and serve, then sit back and collect your royalties and accolades.  Just peruse Amazon Kindle, or a bookstore (if you can find one!) and take your pick. Without much though one can see that the majority of books written on the future and heaven is nothing more than froth.

But when it comes to Christian Doctrine, there is source material. And that source material tells us specifically that our future is not Heaven but a New Heaven and a New Earth!

In order to understand the future we are promised in Scripture, we must first understand our past-- the beginnings of all things. Scripture clearly describes our future in the New Heaven and the New Earth as the re-creation of what was originally begun in Genesis yet was corrupted by sin. So we must travel back in time to the beginning to find our future!

But how do we do that? Do we need a flux capacitor? No, we just need to ask the appropriate questions!

The above diagram accurately describes the expression of each of the major branches of Christianity. Without much thought we easily see these categories worked out in daily life. 

As the Manager of Mile High Pines Camp, a Christian Retreat in the San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California, I hosted retreats for each of these faith groups. I experienced first-hand their expressions of faith and praxis of Scripture. The validity of the above diagram was certainly evident without much theological consideration.

The Catholics have long accepted Tradition as their prime support, if not supplanting, of Scripture. As to Reason, they were handling (or rather mis-handling) it with Galileo at the time we Protestants were in our theological cribs. Their experience with Galileo and others during the Rennaisance was the rebalancing of that leg of their quadrilateral stool. Yet they did not attempt to rebalance Tradition until Pope John XXII forced the Vatican II reforms (with limited success). Experience remains their weakest leg.

The Charismatics (or Apostolics) were born out of the fervor of the Second Great Awakening Revivals. Spiritual expression and supernatural occurrences became primary. Adventists with Mary Baker Eddy, and the Jehovah's Witnesses followed likewise. And now the Experience has become embedded as a Tradition which makes the onginging Holy Spirit "experiences" suspect.

The Liberal or "Mainline" Churches, as progressives, have largely eschewed Scripture as prime and replaced it with both Experience and Reason. As the Protestant cousins of the Catholics, their effect is more of how the Protestants react against them. Most of the doctrines maligned by the Evangelical and Charismatics are those most esteemed by the Progressives. This is the core of the "Culture War" we are now experiencing.