90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper

This book might be easily tapped as a companion piece to Bill Weise's 23 Minutes in Hell, which I reviewed last year. My review of "23 Minutes"

Once again, you are expected to believe a premise of going to the supernatural realm before life is over. This time however, that the author, a practicing pastor in a Texas church, actually did "die" in an automobile accident and reached the gates of Heaven. The author, or more or less his body at that time, had been declared technically dead by onscene medics, when a fellow man of the cloth supposedly received word from God that he should lay hands and pray for the "dead" man.

This ensued with the miracle of the "dead" man coming back to life. I'm sorry, but only one person has ever been dead and come back to life, pastor. All others may have been technically "dead", but as we see every day, there is much we do not know about the way the world works, or even the science of such things.

Outside of the tale of his trip to "heaven", we have the story of his recovery. (He was pretty much a bed case for a long time due to his injuries.) Then we have the struggle like in "23 Minutes" of the author trying to get people to accept his story. I don't know why I bother with these more fantastical stories, insteadof just reading how to live the right kind of life. I'm always disappointed and skeptical.

Give this one 5 stars.

The Shack by Wm. Paul Young

This book was passed on to me from my mother, who had it passed on to her from her hairdresser. Apparently a whole hell of a lot of people are doing the same thing, because it is a fairly popular book. Why, I can't for the life of me understand.

The basic premise of the book, stated in the beginning by the author, is that a friend of his lost his youngest daughter to a child molester/killer on a weekend camping exhibition, and had totally blamed himself for the event. Four years after the fact, he receives a note, purportedly from God, asking him to spend the weekend with Him at the shack where the evidence showed his little girl had been murdered.

The book starts out interesting enough, with some background leading up to the death of his daughter, but by the time it gets to the meat of the story, my interest was rapidly replaced with disbelief, boredom, and sometimes, even outrage. I don't mean to say I couldn't accept this fictional meeting with God. (And fiction is what it is, by the way, despite the author's attempt to set it up as having really happened). What I had problems with is that this isn't the God that the Bible portrays. [Note: from here on I refuse to capitalize "god" "jesus" or "the holy spirit" intentionally, because I do not accept these characters as the Christian Trinity.]

I can't say for sure who this "god" is, although a google search for the name he gives the "holy spirit" character, Sarayu, gave me a connection to Indian theology, so maybe its a Hindu religion. Young does stick with the idea that the three characters of "god", "jesus" and "the holy spirit" are individual, but at the same time, one being, but that effort crashes and burns as he reveals characteristics about the "trinity" that one would fail to find in years of intense scrutiny of the Bible.

As far as the boredom, well, the book just drags on shortly after the main character, Mack, shows up at the shack. Most of the effort is spent in trying to justify whatever religion the author is trying to espouse. The attempt to rescue Mack from his depression is at best, mildly interesting, but it drags on for page after page.

I don't recommend this book to anyone, much less anyone who is Christian. And I will not, as the back of the book exhorts, be passing it on to others.

2 stars just to give it a rating, but don't let that influence you.

The Purpose of Christmas by Rick Warren

If you think Christmas is all about Santa Claus and reindeer and trees and presents, then this book, an introductory book into the birth of Jesus Christ, savior to millions of the Christian faith worldwide, will educate and might appeal to you. If, however, you are already a believer in the faith, there is nothing here you didn't already know.

Not that Warren is by any means a boring author, or that he hasn't the ability to inspire people with his writing, but the style and direction of this little piece is more purposefully used to evangelize the non-Christian than it is to enlighten the Christian.

Taken at its basic sense, this is a great tool for those of the faith to use to break the ice with their friends who are not. And it is well written enough and earnest enough to serve that purpose.

I give it 7 stars.

23 Minutes in Hell by Bill Wiese

If you don't believe in a Hell or some sort of eternal damnation in the afterlife, I doubt you will even take this book at face value. It is a preposterous idea, after all, that one could even experience Hell without having to die first. And the author didn't experience a typical life after death experience of the tye you hear about on the fringe radio shows like George Noory and Art Bell.


Rather, he was just asleep, on a normal night, when he found himself transferred from the present life to a cell with huge monsters. From the pain and terror he experiences there, to his brief passage by the lake of fire, what he later estimates to be the 23 minutes he spent there is an experience that is very disturbing.


Due to the fact that he was in bed prior to this gives creedence to the idea that he dreamed it all, although he on more than one occasion in the testimony portion claims it was not a dream. I personally can't say whether or not he dreamed it or not. Ron Mays, an expert on the subject makes a clear case for it being false in a review I read on Barnes and Noble. True or not, it is as scary a description as anything Stephen King could dream up.


If you are going to read it, bear in mind that only the first ¼ of the book is about his experience. The rest is devoted to his adventures in trying to get the story out. This part is fairly boring, unless you are interested in that kind of thing.

Overall I'd say the book rates about 5 stars.

The Spychips Threat by Katherine Albrecht & Liz McIntyre

Don't let the subtitle "Why Christians Should Resist..." divert you from reading this book. It is not a diatribe designed to save your soul from eternal damnation, but a serious look at the dangers that could derive from the implementation of RFID technology. The few mentions directed toward the Christian community are just that, so you need not worry about any hellfire and brimstone sermons here.

The authors do an outstanding job here, and Stephen King has nothing that will scare you near as much as the reality posed here. If you believe in privacy and the right to live your life ithout any intervention from either marketers or government, then this book is a call to arms.

RFID (radio frequency identification) is the technology of using small implants that have the capability of radioing information to a reciever about how and where the spychipped item is being used. But this is only the beginning. The authors will introduce you to a nightmare future possibility, in which everyone is tracked via GPS through implants under the skin. Think Big Brother from he classic George Orwell novel 1984 come to real fruition.

Of course, if you are of the Chritian faith, this book is very important, given that the authors occasionally relate how significant these developments are in relationship to end times prophecy. Don't miss out on this one.

I give this one 9 stars.

I Sold My Soul on Ebay by Hemant Mehta

The premise of this book is fairly simple. An atheist decided to "sell his soul on Ebay" or in reality to take on the burden of having to attend the church of the winning bidder's choice for a number of times commensurate with the winning bid. In this case, the winning bidder, one former pastor, decrees that Mehta visit a variety of churches and write his views on his experiences.

As a result, the author makes various excursions, both in his own area, and to some churches of national recognition, (one is Joel Osteen's megachurch) and observes not only how people react to him as a visitor, but to the program the church presents. All this is done as an atheist with an open-minded view as to how it is all done, with an eye on how each church could potentially be drawing or even repelling the potentially unsaved masses.

As a church-going Christian myself, I think that there is some interesting views that the author makes that can be taken into account for many churches. For instance, he says and I think rightly so, that too many churches have a long song and praise session that may tend to bore those who are new to the church. Actually, there are probably more than a few members of these churches who harbor the same feelings (myself as one).

Taken for what it is, open-minded people from both sides of the church door should find this book pretty interesting. I won't give away whether or not the atheist becomes a Christian, you will have to read the book to the end to find that out, but you can be entertained in the meantime with his observations.

Rate this one 6 stars.