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For over three decades, John Burke has studied thousands of near-death experiences (NDEs) and discovered a striking commonality among them all: Every individual, regardless of their religious background, experiences the God of the Bible. “I interviewed 70 people on every continent, and found that they all encountered the same God; it didn't matter their culture, ethnicity or religious background. God is the God of all nations,” Burke told The Christian Post.Burke, who with his wife, Kathy, founded Gateway Church, a multisite church based in Austin, Texas, recounts some of these stories in his book,Imagine the God of Heaven: Near-Death Experiences,...

One of the obvious reasons that human beings’ destiny after they shuffle off this mortal coil is such an enduring mystery is that nobody ever comes back to tell us what really happens. Or do they? This is a question that has been the subject of intense speculation, particularly among people who focus on paranormal phenomena. Referred to frequently as “near-death experiences,” (NDEs) people do sometimes undergo what most doctors would refer to as “death,” including a complete cessation of brainwave activity, but are then “brought back to life.” And some of them claim to have memories of that period...

A drug that’s been touted by President Donald Trump as a “game changer” didn’t help hospitalized patients with coronavirus and was associated with heart complications, according to a new study. “This provides evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not apparently treat patients with Covid 19,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Even worse, there were side effects caused by the drug — heart toxicities that required it be discontinued.” Trump has said that hydroxychloroquine shows “tremendous promise” and has made it sound like the drug is harmless. “I think it’s going to be great,” Trump...

On Thursday Michigan Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer was the latest Democrat to ban doctors from prescribing the lifesaving drugs hydroxychloroquine and Z-Paks to save senior citizens in the state from coronavirus. Hydroxychloroquine is safe and in at least three international tests was found 100% effective in treating the coronavirus. Whitmer follows Nevada’s Democrat Governor Sisolak in banning the life-saving drugs from coronavirus victims. On Friday coronavirus survivor Jim Santilli blasted Michigan Governor Whitmer after he was saved from the virus by a hydroxychloroquine treatment.

The stories make headlines and strike fear in the hearts of runners who read them. Athletes—often young and seemingly healthy—die suddenly at races, during training runs, or in the off hours between them. Often, the cause is sudden cardiac arrest, which occurs when the heart stops beating. It’s a short-circuit in the electrical impulses that govern your heartbeat. That’s different from a heart attack, typically caused by a blood clot physically blocking blood flow through an artery, though the two can be linked. According to the latest American Heart Association statistics, sudden cardiac arrest isn’t common among runners—about 0.54 per...

Where have we heard this story before? On December 12, T. Scott Marr is found in his bed, unresponsive but breathing, and rushed to Methodist Hospital where he is placed on a breathing machine. He is diagnosed as having suffered a stroke. The family returns the next day and doctors tell them there has been no neurological improvement. “Brain swelling — primarily in the back of the brain — concerned his doctors,” according to Kelsey Stewart of the Omaha World-Herald. “We were worried in this case that this was not a reversible process and that it was going to proceed...

A chance glance and a big toe saved a 22-year-old woman’s life in the UK, the London Times reports. Sam Hemming, a law school graduate of North Wales’ Bangor University, was being driven home to Hereford by her boyfriend, Tom Curtis, in July when they got into an accident, per the Mirror: The car flipped, and while Curtis wasn’t badly hurt, Hemming was left with broken neck bones, a fractured arm, and severe head injuries, leading doctors to place her in a medically induced coma, the Sun notes. After 19 days, the doctors said hope was gone, and Hemming’s family...

I would not describe myself as a mystic, nor would I say that I am particularly attracted to mysticism. On the contrary, I tend to shy away from such things. I would even go so far as to say that I have a sneaking sympathy for Ronald Knox’s quip (or was it Newman’s) that mysticism begins in mist and ends in schism. It’s not that I don’t respect mysticism—as long as it is grounded in orthodoxy. I have a great love for the mystical meanderings of St. John of the Cross, and who but a fool does not have...

Ivan Turing is a tech billionaire. Dr. Carolyn Tyler is a cardiothoracic surgeon. Their divine appointment informs the plot of “Proof,” a dramatic series with decidedly religious overtones, which airs on TNT. Turing, played by the actor Matthew Modine, is terminally ill. He wants to know whether there is life after death. So he recruits Tyler, played by the actress Jennifer Beals, to investigate. The surgeon reluctantly agrees. But only after the billionaire (who bears a striking similarity to the late Steve Jobs) makes her an offer she can’t refuse – leaving his vast fortune after he dies to the...

‘Everything Is Ready Now’: A Near-Death Experience by RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS April 4, 2015 [America's Pre-Eminent Lutheran Theologian And Convert To Catholicism Writes...] NOTE: The following piece is excerpted from an essay, “Born Toward Dying,” that originally appeared in the February 2000 issue of First Things and became the basis for the book As I Lay Dying: Meditations upon Returning. The operation took several hours and was an unspeakable mess. The tumor had expanded to rupture the intestine; blood, fecal matter, and guts all over the place. My stomach was sliced open from the rib cage down to the pubic...

Near-death experiences have gotten a lot of attention lately. The 2014 movie "Heaven Is for Real", about a young boy who told his parents he had visited heaven while he was having emergency surgery, grossed a respectable $91 million in the United States. The book it was based on, published in 2010, has sold some 10 million copies and spent 206 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Two recent books by doctors—Proof of Heaven, by Eben Alexander, who writes about a near-death experience he had while in a week-long coma brought on by meningitis, and To Heaven and...

Tyndale House, a major Christian publisher, has announced that it will stop selling “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” by Alex Malarkey and his father, Kevin Malarkey. The best-selling book, first published in 2010, purports to describe what Alex experienced while he lay in a coma after a car accident when he was 6 years old. The coma lasted two months, and his injuries left him paralyzed, but the subsequent spiritual memoir – with its assuring description of “miracles, angels, and life beyond This World” – became part of a popular genre of “heavenly tourism.” Earlier this week, Alex...

Nearly five years after it hit bestseller lists, a book that purported to be a six-year-old boy's story of visiting angels and heaven after suffering a bad car crash is being pulled from shelves. The young man at the center of The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, Alex Malarkey, said this week that the story was all made up. "I did not die. I did not go to Heaven," Alex Malarkey wrote. He continued, "I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never...

LifeWay Christian Stores has come under fire for selling a book based on a boy who claimed he visited heaven and who is now saying that the story is false. The book, titled The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, has been available since last year and tells the story of 6-year-old Alex Malarkey who suffered a horrific car accident in 2004. The crash paralyzed Alex and it was unlikely he'd survive after slipping into a coma. He awoke two months later and claimed that angels took him through the gates of heaven to meet Jesus. Malarkey addressed the validity...

After reading about the lady in Florida that was dead for 45min, I was wondering about near-death experiences. There have been a lot of these experiences written about here in our country, but I was wondering if anyone has info on near-death experiences in other countries. Specifically, is there anything recorded about those individuals that are not Christian and have experienced near-death?

Researchers conducting the largest ever study into near-death experiences have discovered that awareness may continue even after the brain has shut down, revealing more about what happens when we die. Scientists at the University of Southampton studied more than 2,000 people who suffered cardiac arrests at 15 hospitals across Britain, Austria and the United States. Around 40% of patients who survived described "awareness" during the time before their hearts were restarted, when they were clinically dead. One 57-year-old man, a social worker from Southampton, described the noise of the machines and what the medical staff were doing during this time....

A recent piece I wrote on hell was inspired, in part, by the story of 23 Minutes in Hell, an account from a gentleman named Bill Wiese of a nighttime experience in which, he believed, he was permitted to experience hell for a short period of time in order to return to the land of the living and tell everyone that hell is for real. MY own post was not a careful exegetical treatment of the issue of damnation, but a description of a personal struggle between the vision of the afterlife I have inherited from my evangelical upbringing and...

"Heaven Is for Real," the movie based on the near-death experience of a young boy who believes he visited heaven and met Jesus, is generating divided opinions among Christians on whether it presents a biblical message on heaven as it hits theaters Easter weekend. The movie is based on the best-selling 2010 book Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back, where pastor Todd Burpo reports on the near-death experience of his then 4-year-old son, Colton, who shares of meeting Jesus in heaven as well as a number of his deceased relatives...

Editor’s Note: Click here for Part 1 of P. David Hornik’s new series: Near-Death Experiences—A New Take on Life, Part 1: Sam Parnia Explains Where the Field Is Leading. And click here to see his previous articles on the subject here: Do You Believe in Life After Death? Out-of-body experiences, tunnels, bright lights, deceased relatives, a being of light—and life reviews. These are the most commonly reported elements of near-death experiences. They have been reported now for decades from all over the world, across cultures and religions. Of all of them, the life review may be the most difficult...

The "near-death experience" reported by cardiac arrest survivors worldwide may be grounded in science, according to research at the University of Michigan Health System. Whether and how the dying brain is capable of generating conscious activity has been vigorously debated. But in this week's PNAS Early Edition, a U-M study shows shortly after clinical death, in which the heart stops beating and blood stops flowing to the brain, rats display brain activity patterns characteristic of conscious perception. "This study, performed in animals, is the first dealing with what happens to the neurophysiological state of the dying brain," says lead study...