Your post reminded me of this quote from N.T. Wright from Surprised By Hope.
"The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether....They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom."
Have you ever read James Bryan Smith's book, "Room of Marvels?"
I think that it fits the idea that the good we do here on earth echoes in eternity, and it's written from both Smith's personal experiences and also his evangelical theology. https://jamesbryansmith.com/book/room-of-marvels/
Hm....do Catholics still believe in purgatory? Do they behave better? Hasn't capitalism , individualism, and our estranged society redefined good behavior, and religious right done away with the "love your neighbor as yourself" directive? With cognitive science showing us just how little free-will as we are so limited by genetics and what has happened to us from thousands of years ago to five minutes ago, accountability and any concept of heaven and hell is seriously brought to question. I would think that anyone that spends time in religious thought would generally be decent to one another just for humanitarian reasons, regardless of the future..... but who am I. I look around and see who humans are in the modern age and I wonder about so many things.
Your post reminded me of this quote from N.T. Wright from Surprised By Hope.
"The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether....They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom."
I don’t recall who wrote this, but I read a wonderful line recently, “Nothing done for love will be wasted. “
Here it is (audio version was slightly different I think): https://open.substack.com/pub/gooutinjoy/p/restory-gardening-among-the-galaxies?r=45v1w&utm_medium=ios
Have you ever read James Bryan Smith's book, "Room of Marvels?"
I think that it fits the idea that the good we do here on earth echoes in eternity, and it's written from both Smith's personal experiences and also his evangelical theology. https://jamesbryansmith.com/book/room-of-marvels/
Hm....do Catholics still believe in purgatory? Do they behave better? Hasn't capitalism , individualism, and our estranged society redefined good behavior, and religious right done away with the "love your neighbor as yourself" directive? With cognitive science showing us just how little free-will as we are so limited by genetics and what has happened to us from thousands of years ago to five minutes ago, accountability and any concept of heaven and hell is seriously brought to question. I would think that anyone that spends time in religious thought would generally be decent to one another just for humanitarian reasons, regardless of the future..... but who am I. I look around and see who humans are in the modern age and I wonder about so many things.