Life After Death

Okay, I’ve lurked for a bit and now I am going to throw something open. What does the emerging church think about the possiblity of life after death? All "scientific" evidence appears to point to the simple fact that when we are dead we are dead and that is it. However, the existence of an afterlife has been a central tenet of Christian thinking forever.

I guess my questions for discussion are these:

• Is there an afterlife?
• How is an afterlife concieved if it does exist?
• What do we think of heaven and hell and by extention judgement?
• If the afterlife exists, what is the point of this life?
• If you are going for a universalist or psuedo universalist interuptation (ie we all or most of us get into heaven) then what is the point of this life? Why doesn’t God just take us straight there….
  
• If there isn’t what does this mean to Christianity?
• Does the lack of an after-life actually make Christianity purer - ie no reward makes action to do good

I hope this will be an extremely productive discussion. It’s such an important issue to consider.