I haven’t heard about such persons that you would wish as part of a control group in terms of understanding NDE’s. There do seem to be cases though of living persons who never knew the gospel being introduced to it by angels
or even Christ himself. One such person who was a Muslim, I think in Syria, who received a nightly visitor who told him to transcribe words he would give him into a notebook. The Syrian in question stated there was something very compelling about the personality of his visitor who came to see him over a week or so. He was told to see a certain foreign person known to be a believer and present to him the notebook. It was the gospel of John when the translation was done. The Muslim in question had never been exposed to Christianity(though he was certainly one after that whole experience).
A personal friend and Gideon in NY state tells me of story of a murderer imprisoned at Rykers who was illiterate and thought to be semi retarded who was known to be violent and explosive. In solitary he began receiving a nightly visitor that he called “the dude”. He was taught by this visitor to read entirely from the Bible(a Gideon Bible; how it got into solitary no one knew) that officials stated seemed to have appeared out of no where as well. The behavior of the prisoner changed as well and he was no longer violent and explosive and in need of meds. The prisoner had changed so much that he was allowed under certain conditions to tell his story to various groups in and around NY City. He’d tell his story about “the dude” and how he learned to read, how he came every night to his cell, about how the guards had never seen the dude but they they knew something remarkable was happening with this prisoner. The prisoner would then finish his testimony and on his own, return back to the prison on his own recognizance. He was questioned by various folks about this “visitor” but the prisoner would only refer to the visitor as “the dude”! This was a direct work of God leaving the prisoner literate, and saved.
I do believe there may be authenticity of NDE’s of those that after they had had one, were noted to have become converted to Christ and were leading lives or repentance afterword. Some said they saw hell even but Christ had met with them on the brink and they were saved “by the skin of their teeth”. Such stories convince me of the truth of the verse...”He was not willing that any should perish but have everlasting life!”
But I do concur(I suppose not that such concurrence matters to you, and not trying to be snarky, just accepting my own low status in life) that a control study of those who had never heard the gospel should be done of the NDE’s that are reported in that group.
God doesn’t like unjust weights and measures....he wants us to weigh what is observed as truth against that which might be observed as false. If there are no recorded accounts of NDE’s that mention Christ from a group of folks never exposed to Christ would tell us that NDE’s may be personal to only our individual experiences, being also culturally colored during our fading perceptions upon the twilight of our lives.
No recorded NDE’s from a culture that doesn’t have Christian influences that do have a Christ component in them would tell us that NDE’s are a real thing after all and they would tell us of the work of the Holy Spirit even in societies closed to God’s open works.
Thank you for the excellent comment.
Clarification:”No recorded NDE’s from a culture that doesn’t have Christian influences that do have a Christ component in them would tell us that NDE’s are a real thing after all and they would tell us of the work of the Holy Spirit even in societies closed to God’s open works.”
Should read as:”Let’s say we do a study NDE’s from a society that has had little or no Christian impact and is hostile to Christ and that there have been several generations born not exposed to the gospel(like North Korea). If we record a number of NDE experiences where the person has encountered Christ and has come back changed and converted from the experience; then we know that NDE’s may be a real thing revealing the work of the Holy Spirit in such a society that is otherwise closed to Christ.
To address your observations here, we must first establish the benchmark that all cultures have, however twisted, a comcept of an All-Powerful Creator and Guider of both the non-living and living elements of the visible universe. Thar is because all humans are descendants of the federal head, the First Adam, and have some kind of verbally communicated tradition of Him. There is no "primitive" (evolved from scratch) culture. All are decadent, to different degrees straying from personal contact with the Creator as a function of the Tower of Babel debacle, the Semitic tribes less than others: the tribes of Abraham (Ishmaelites, Isaacites), Isaac (Edomites, Israelites), and Jacob (Judahites/Jews, Levites, etc.), the Judahites least of all. But Christian missionaries going out have seen this amonst long-lost branches of humanity. Some striking examples have been the naive Americans of both continents, and in the far-distant islands like Hawaii and New Guinea. This principle is illustrated in the report by Don Richardson of his work among the Sawi of Irian Jaya (click here) , whose book "Eternity in Their Hearts" (click here) I have read, perhaps 29 or 25 years ago.
These cannibalistic cultures are decadent, not "primitive."
One such person who was a Muslim.
You simply must not say that this Muslim never knew the Gospel. The knowledge of "Isa ibn Mryan" is integrated into the Koran. The essence is communicated and denied there. No Mohammedan is unaware of its defiance against Christians and what they stand for, especially resulting from the attempts of European Christian warriors attempting to regain hegemony over the areas of the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Land. You would have to prove to me that you had experienced at keast personal unarbitrated conversation with this person, for me to give any credibility toit at all.
A personal friend and Gideon in NY state tells me of story of a murderer imprisoned at Rykers who was illiterate and thought to be semi retarded . . .
From the point of view of being a member of the Gideons for 13 years, and an officer of it, I have the experience of selecting voluntary speakers for our yearly local Camp Pastors' Appreciation Banquets, for which an element is the testimony of a non-Gideon witness, speaking ten or twelve minutes of being saved through the intervening effect in his/her life of having a Gideon-distributed Bible to read at a critical point in his/her need for it. I became aware that one has to sort out which stories are fresh, new, scripturally true, and not embellished with successive retelling such that it tends toward the kind of entertainment glorifying the teller rather than the Author of the Bible. This story you are giving me here is one I would investigate rather more deply, before presenting it to an assembly of fundamental evangelical discerning pastors and other spiritua;;y mature Christian businessmen. But even they can tend to be a bit credulous and approving, a bit blind to the questinability.
I don't think this tale would hold up very long upon the personal interrogation of this candidate for a miraculous outcome.
I do believe there may be authenticity of NDE’s of those that after they had had one, were noted to have become converted to Christ and were leading lives or repentance afterword.
This type of a God-bent reaction is not at all unusual for a person whohas been more and more resistant to the Person and Work of Christ, and is no longer flexible, but brittle when broken by some life-alterung circumstance. It need not be an NDE experience, just one that brushes away the obsccurung fluff of a busy distractive life and kays bare the final unalterablre truth that in the end, it is just God/Christ and me that detetrmines my ongoing and eventually eternal existence. Just Him and me. In it, He speaks to the person, often almost volubly. This is not a scarce commodity. Did this not happen to Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisee adversary of Jesus and His servants? Was he not the writer that the Holy Spirit chose to go to the Gentiles and show them how to live as a reborn servant of The Anointed King of Righteousness? No recorded NDE’s from a culture that doesn’t have Christian influences that do have a Christ component in them would tell us that NDE’s are a real thing after all and they would tell us of the work of the Holy Spirit even in societies closed to God’s open works.
I think you're going to find it rather difficult to find such a group, but the tribes in Irian Gaya and in the jungles of South America are good candidtates. What it took to reach them was the authorized trained disciples Jesus has commanded to go and make disciples out of all tribes on the earth. There is no command in the Church Age for dosembodied unhuman spirits to do this job instead of His regenerated chosen living ambassadors who are uniquely assigned to be heralds of the New Covenant by which God deals with mankind inb this dispensation of His Grace.
Persons reacting to a near-death-of-the-flesh experience are acting on the basis of a pre-installed statement that is summed up in two words: "Jesus saves!" to which may be added the heart-remembrance of the kindness and cautions of relatives and well-meaning friends, of whom some may have been purveyors of this gospel.
Scripture says that the righteousnes of The God is written in the human heart, until it is obscured by one;s overwhelming history of sinful response, hardening the heart and dooming the soul of the person thus preoccupied.
There is no substitute for the regenerated believer to go out into the community to recruit others with the Good News and the Word of God that details God's plan of salvation.
Don't look to NDE-induced visions or disembodied spirits to do the job meant only for those who will preach as a herakd the proclamation of faith alone in Jrsus alone as that which gives pardon and absolute eternal life.