Is hoping for heaven just a form of escapism?

G’day everyone, Dave Deane here, and our question for the week is: Is hoping for heaven just a form of escapism?

There is a sense in which I can really sympathise with this question, because unfortunately there are Christians who, as the old saying goes, ‘are so heavenly minded they’re no earthly good’. But as to the merit of the accusation itself, being if it were true would this be a reason not to reject Christianity, there are a couple of things to say.

First, it is something of a ‘Freudian slip’ in that it cuts both ways. Where a Christian might look to the reality of eternity to escape realities here on earth, a non-Christian might look to realities here on earth to escape the reality of eternity. I mean, there are all sorts of distractions around us that keep our attention fixed on the ‘here’ and ‘now’: entertainment, sports, Netflix, music, games, social media, reading, little fix-em-up projects, going out and socialising, study, work, and so on. We can invest so much time investing into people and activities like these that we never slow down, that we never have enough ‘stillness’ and ‘silence’ in our lives to ask the question about the reality of eternity. To ask the ultimate questions of life, like meaning and purpose, where we’ve come from and where we are going.

Second, I think it’s important to balance what I just said with the realisation that terms like “escapism” are usually used in a negative sense, as though an ‘escapist’ is someone who irresponsibly seeks diversions to avoid ‘real life’. But not all escapism is ‘bad’. An activity that takes our minds off of some aspect of daily life can be really positive; very therapeutic and healthy. Watching a movie, for example, is a form of escapism. So is a game. So is music. None of these are ‘bad’ per se; the point is simply this: these activities are supplements for our lives, not substitutes for our lives.

So third and finally, providing we have a healthy understanding of escapism as a supplement for our lives, we might turn the question around and challenge the premise. Is hoping for heaven just a form of escapism?I might be tempted to say ‘yeah, you bet it is! And it changes every single thing about how I live my life right in this reality, right here and right now’. C.S. Lewis thought of the question like this. In his book Mere Christianity he said ‘Christians are people who continually look forward to the eternal world, and that’s not a unhealthy form of escapism or wishful thinking, it’s just something we are all meant to do! It doesn’t mean that we leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.’ And Lewis goes on to mention the Jesus disciples, this small band of Jewish tradies who took the message of Jesus and the hope of eternal life to the mighty Roman Empire and changed the world… Or take the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, John Newton, William Wilberforce, these kinds of people left their mark on Earth precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. And to quote him exactly, Lewis finishes, writing “It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither…”