Deceived by the Light

by Douglas Groothuis

Can we really know what waits for us in the afterlife? Deceived by the Light... affirms that the Bible alone reveals all we need to know about life, death, and eternity. In the fascinating, mystical world of near death experiences, Betty Eadie's testimony is most extraordinary. In her widely read bestseller Embraced by the Light, she claims she met and conversed with the Lord Jesus Christ and received amazing revelations about spiritual progression, death, and the afterlife. Was Eadie's experience for real? And what about the many other near death testimonies that speak of visits to heaven or hell - are they credible? Should we believe their messages? Doug Groothuis, a well respected expert on new religious movements, takes us to the clear teaching of Scripture for some surprising answers. Along the way he clearly addresses the fears and questions many people have about death and what comes after.

204 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

About the author

Douglas Groothuis (PhD, University of Oregon) is professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary in Denver, Colorado, where he heads the Apologetics and Ethics masters degree program. His articles have been published in professional journals such as Religious Studies, Philosophia Christi, Themelios, Christian Scholar's Review, Inquiry, and Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. He has written numerous books, including Christian Apologetics and, most recently Philosophy in Seven Sentences.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A CHRISTIAN CRITIQUE OF NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES

Douglas R. Groothuis (born 1957) is currently Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary. He is also the author of books such as 'Unmasking the New Age,' 'Revealing the New Age Jesus: Challenges to Orthodox Views of Christ,' 'Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith,' 'Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism,' etc.

Here are some quotations from this 1995 book:

It is also important to understand that Betty Eadie is a Mormon, although this is veiled in the current edition of her book. 'Embraced By The Light' was originally marketed in the heavily Mormon areas of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada as a Mormon testimony... The first edition also contained several obviously Mormon references that were altered in the mass-marketed version." (Pg. 22)

"In a television interview, Eadie used the idea of spiritual preexistence to explain the presence of evil in the world. She claimed that those who were tortured and killed during the Nazi Holocaust had chosen these horrific earthly situations before their birth. She seemed to think this somehow made the situation more tolerable. But the ethical implications of such thinking are astounding." (Pg. 26)
"Betty Eadie also claims to have seen her family in their home while her body lay in the hospital bed. But in typical Eadie fashion, she gives no corroboration." (Pg. 64)

"The original research of Maurice Rawlings (in his books 'Beyond Death's Door' and 'To Hell and Back') was criticized by Kenneth Ring and others for not being scientific enough. Rawlings did not carefully detail how many people he had interviewed personally versus the number of secondhand reports he had reviewed. Nor did he specify the amount of time that had elapsed between the NDEs and the interviews." (Pg. 75)

"The results of an unofficial 1992 questionnaire ... indicated that of the 229 who claimed to have experienced the NDE phenomenon, only 23 percent had done so during clinical death... These findings contradict Melvin Morse's claim that one must clinically die in order to have the experiences associated with the NDE. Apparently his sample was too limited." (Pg. 110)

(Carl Sagan claimed) the NDE is nothing but a reawakening during clinical death of the repressed memory of the birth experience. Sagan's cleverness aside, the dissimilarities between physical birth and the NDE are too great for his argument to work." (Pg. 169-170)