Appendix C

An Annotated Resource List for Grieving Christians, Pastors, and Caregivers

The books and ministries listed in this appendix are the ones I find myself recommending most often. Some are old friends I have given to grieving widows over kitchen tables. Some are scholarly volumes I would put in a pastor's hand. Some are research books that earn the trust of the doctor at the bedside. None of them is perfect. All of them are, in some real way, gifts to the grieving Church.

I have kept the list short on purpose. If you have just buried someone you love, you do not need a hundred books. You need two or three that meet you where you are. I have tried to flag, in the annotations, which books are most useful for which kind of grief and which kind of reader. A widow three weeks after burial does not need the same book as a pastor preparing to teach his elders about NDEs. Both are served here, but not by the same volumes.

One more word before the list begins. A few of these books come from authors who do not share every conviction held in this handbook. The NDE and deathbed-experience research literature, in particular, is largely written by clinicians and scientists who are not evangelical Christians. I include their work because the data they have gathered is sound, important, and needed by the Church. Where their wider conclusions drift from Scripture, read with care. The annotations note these places. The pastoral and theological volumes, by contrast, come almost entirely from within the orthodox Christian tradition, with a few clearly marked exceptions.

Christian Grief Classics

These are the books I have given more often than any others. They are written by Christians who have grieved deeply and have come back to tell the truth about it. They will not flinch from the worst of your pain, and they will not leave you in it. Begin here.

Guthrie, Nancy. Holding On to Hope: A Pathway through Suffering to the Heart of God. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 2002. After losing two infant children to a rare genetic disorder, Guthrie wrote what may be the warmest pastoral guide to grief in print today; the book is short, biblically saturated, and reads like sitting at the kitchen table with a friend who has been there.¹

Sittser, Jerry. A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss. 20th anniversary ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2021. Sittser lost his mother, his wife, and his four-year-old daughter in a single drunk-driving accident, and his hard-won account is the most pastorally penetrating book on catastrophic grief in modern Christian literature; the new reader should be warned that it is honest, and it should be read slowly.

Keller, Timothy. Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering. New York: Dutton, 2013. Keller's most theologically rich pastoral treatment, weaving together biblical theology, philosophy of suffering, and pastoral wisdom with rare clarity; pastors who want one volume that grounds the whole Christian doctrine of suffering in pastoral usefulness should own this one.

Lewis, C. S. A Grief Observed. New York: HarperOne, 2001 (originally 1961). Lewis's raw notebook entries after the death of his wife Joy ("H.") remain the gold standard for honest Christian lament; many bereaved readers have written that finishing this little book was the first time they felt the Church had given them permission to grieve.

Guthrie, Nancy, comp. O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: Facing Death with Courageous Confidence in God. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011. A curated anthology of the best Christian voices on death and dying — Spurgeon, Calvin, Edwards, the Puritans — gathered into a small bedside volume; especially helpful for the dying or for those keeping vigil with the dying.

Books on Heaven and the Intermediate State

The next set of books answers the questions, "Where is my loved one right now?" and "What will heaven be like?" Each is written from a substantially Christian and orthodox framework, though they differ in how strongly they affirm the conscious intermediate state. Read them together.

Alcorn, Randy. Heaven. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 2004. The most thorough evangelical popular work on heaven written in a generation, with sustained attention to both the present heaven (where the dead in Christ now are) and the future new heaven and new earth; a long but pastorally indispensable reference whose strong intermediate-state framework is exactly what most grieving Christians need.

Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. New York: HarperOne, 2008. A bracing recovery of bodily resurrection at the center of Christian hope by one of the great New Testament scholars of our time; engage carefully, however, with Wright's tendency to minimize the conscious intermediate state, which this handbook affirms more strongly than he does.

Walls, Jerry L. Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. A philosophically careful and pastorally warm defense of Christian hope from a Methodist philosopher; especially helpful for the thoughtful reader wrestling with the coherence of heaven and the moral logic of God's love.

Walls, Jerry L. Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. A Protestant philosophical defense of a non-Catholic understanding of purgatory as sanctification rather than satisfaction; not the position of this handbook, but worth reading by any pastor who wants to understand the deeper logic of post-mortem transformation.

Books on Substance Dualism and the Soul

If your loved one's body is in the ground, what is the conscious "her" who is right now with Christ? That is the question of substance dualism. The books below ground the Christian doctrine of the soul carefully, biblically, and philosophically. Pastors should own at least the first one.

Cooper, John W. Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000. The standard scholarly treatment of biblical anthropology and the conscious intermediate state, demonstrating from both Old and New Testament texts that Scripture teaches a holistic dualism in which the soul survives bodily death; the book to give a seminarian or pastor who wants to ground his hope in careful exegesis.²

Moreland, J. P. The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters. Chicago: Moody, 2014. An accessible philosophical defense of the immaterial soul against contemporary physicalism; especially helpful for any believer struggling with the question, "Is the loved one I buried really still her, or just her body?"

Farris, Joshua R. An Introduction to Theological Anthropology: Humans, Both Creaturely and Divine. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020. A current academic introduction to what it means to be human in body and soul, written from a substance-dualist framework; ideal for the thoughtful reader or seminarian who wants the wider theological frame around the doctrine of the soul.³

Moreland, J. P., and Scott B. Rae. Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000. A philosophically rigorous defense of substance dualism that draws out the ethical implications for bioethics, end-of-life care, and personhood; the right next step after Moreland's The Soul.

Books on Postmortem Opportunity

Few pastoral questions cut deeper than this one: "Did my unbelieving loved one have any real chance to meet Christ?" The books below offer a careful, biblically defensible affirmative answer — without sliding into universalism. They are essential reading for any pastor who walks alongside the bereaved who do not know their loved one's final spiritual state.

Beilby, James K. Postmortem Opportunity: A Biblical and Theological Assessment of Salvation after Death. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021. The most rigorous evangelical treatment of postmortem opportunity in print today, surveying the biblical evidence, the patristic witness, and the contemporary theological landscape with care and charity; pastors with bereaved congregants asking about loved ones who died without a clear profession of faith should know this book.

Jonathan, Stephen. Grace Beyond the Grave: Is Salvation Possible in the Afterlife? A Biblical and Theological Dialogue. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014. A careful biblical and theological case for postmortem opportunity, written by an Anglican pastor and theologian; readable, irenic, and pastorally sensitive — a good companion volume to Beilby for the reader who wants two voices on the question.

Walls, Jerry L. Does God Love Everyone? The Heart of What's Wrong with Calvinism. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2016. A short, accessible defense of God's universal love and ongoing pursuit of the lost; especially helpful for readers troubled by certain forms of Reformed teaching about reprobation, and for grievers who fear that God may not have wanted to save the loved one they have lost.

Pinnock, Clark H. A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992. A landmark evangelical defense of God's wide pursuit of the unevangelized, including the post-mortem possibility; a foundational text for the theological tradition this handbook draws upon.

Fackre, Gabriel, Ronald H. Nash, and John Sanders. What About Those Who Have Never Heard? Three Views on the Destiny of the Unevangelized. Edited by John Sanders. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995. A multi-view evangelical book in which Fackre defends the divine perseverance (post-mortem opportunity) view alongside the restrictivist and inclusivist alternatives; the cleanest place to compare positions side by side.

Near-Death Experience Research

The NDE research literature has grown enormously in the last fifty years. The books below are the ones I would put in a pastor's hand first. Begin with Greyson and Burke; add Long and van Lommel for the harder data; add Miller for the explicitly Christian reading.

Greyson, Bruce. After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond. New York: St. Martin's, 2021. The dean of medical NDE research summarizes fifty years of careful clinical investigation in a memoir-style work that is patient with skeptics and honest with the data; the place to start for serious readers who want a sober, non-sensational introduction.

van Lommel, Pim. Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience. New York: HarperOne, 2010. The Dutch cardiologist whose 2001 Lancet study made NDE research mainstream lays out his cardiac-arrest data in detail and explores the implications for our understanding of consciousness; a key reference for anyone asking, "Is the medical evidence really there?"

Long, Jeffrey, with Paul Perry. Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences. New York: HarperOne, 2010. A careful synthesis of the largest NDE database in the world (the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation), organized around nine lines of evidence Long argues converge on a real afterlife; written for general readers but solid in its data.

Long, Jeffrey, with Paul Perry. God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience. New York: HarperOne, 2016. A follow-up volume focused on encounters with God in NDEs, drawing on the same large database; especially valuable for the Christian reader who wants to see how often experiencers report meeting a loving, personal God consistent with biblical revelation.

Burke, John. Imagine Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God's Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015. The most accessible evangelical synthesis of NDE accounts read against Scripture, by a pastor with thirty years of pastoral experience; if a pastor will hand only one book on NDEs to a curious congregant, this is most often the right choice.⁴

Miller, J. Steve. Is Christianity Compatible with Deathbed and Near-Death Experiences? The Surprising Presence of Jesus, Scarcity of Anti-Christian Elements, and Compatibility with Historic Christian Teachings. Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Press, 2022. The clearest direct answer to the question Christians most often ask about NDEs; documents extensively how often Jesus appears in NDE accounts and how rarely the experiences contradict orthodox Christianity, with careful attention to apparent counterexamples.⁵

Sabom, Michael B. Light and Death: One Doctor's Fascinating Account of Near-Death Experiences. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998. A cardiologist's careful, evangelical Christian engagement with NDE research, including the famous Pam Reynolds case; aging in some details but still a valuable witness to the seriousness with which serious physicians have taken these experiences.⁶

Deathbed Experience Research

The literature on deathbed visions, "nearing-death awareness," and shared death experiences is in some ways even more pastorally urgent than the NDE literature, because most of us will sit at a bedside long before any of us has an NDE of our own. These books equip pastors and families to recognize, honor, and not pathologize what dying people often see and say.

Callanan, Maggie, and Patricia Kelley. Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying. Rev. ed. New York: Bantam, 2012 (originally 1992). Two hospice nurses describe what they have seen at thousands of bedsides; the foundational pastoral book on deathbed visions and "nearing-death awareness," and still the single best volume to give to a family keeping vigil.

Kerr, Christopher, with Carine Mardorossian. Death Is But a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life's End. New York: Avery, 2020. A hospice physician's careful prospective study of end-of-life dreams and visions, drawn from systematic clinical research at Hospice Buffalo; medically sober, deeply humane, and accessible to any reader.

Moody, Raymond, with Paul Perry. Glimpses of Eternity: Sharing a Loved One's Passage from This Life to the Next. New York: Guideposts, 2010. The book that brought "shared death experiences" into mainstream awareness, by the man who coined the phrase "near-death experience" in 1975; engage critically with Moody's wider metaphysical conclusions, but the case material is invaluable.

Peters, William J., with Michael Kinsella. At Heaven's Door: What Shared Journeys to the Afterlife Teach about Dying Well and Living Better. New York: Atria, 2022. A compassionate study of shared death experiences from the founder of the Shared Crossing Project, including new case research; helpful for the rarer cases where caregivers report experiencing some part of a loved one's passing alongside them.

Miller, J. Steve. Deathbed Experiences as Evidence for the Afterlife, Volume 1: A Groundbreaking, Scientific Apologetic Evaluating Death-Related Visions, Terminal Lucidity and After Death Communications. Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Press, 2023. A current, careful evangelical apologetic on deathbed experiences as evidence for the afterlife; the most thorough single-volume pastoral and apologetic treatment available on this side of the field.⁷

Fenwick, Peter, and Elizabeth Fenwick. The Art of Dying: A Journey to Elsewhere. London: Continuum, 2008. A British neuropsychiatrist and his wife present a wide collection of deathbed-vision accounts gathered through formal research surveys; complementary in scope to Callanan and Kelley.

After-Death Communications and Continuing Bonds

If you (or a parishioner) has sensed the presence of a deceased loved one — felt their hand on your shoulder, smelled their perfume, woken from a dream that did not feel like a dream — these books help name what is happening. None of them is the final word. Read them with discernment (see Chapter 25 of the main volume).

Guggenheim, Bill, and Judy Guggenheim. Hello from Heaven! A New Field of Research — After-Death Communication — Confirms That Life and Love Are Eternal. New York: Bantam, 1995. The largest popular collection of after-death communication accounts (over 3,300 cases analyzed); read with Christian discernment but invaluable for the bereaved who has had such an experience and felt alone in it.⁸

LaGrand, Louis E. Love Lives On: Learning from the Extraordinary Encounters of the Bereaved. New York: Berkley, 2006. A grief counselor's pastorally warm treatment of "extraordinary experiences" of the bereaved; helpful for normalizing what many grievers report but few feel free to discuss in church.

Klass, Dennis, Phyllis R. Silverman, and Steven L. Nickman, eds. Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Washington, DC: Taylor and Francis, 1996. The academic volume that re-shaped grief science to recognize that healthy grief includes ongoing inner connection with the deceased; technical but a landmark, and the source most subsequent grief research builds upon.

Grief Science (Secular but Helpful)

The grief science literature outside the Church is uneven, but at its best it is observationally careful and pastorally useful. The three volumes below are the ones I would put in a pastor's library to round out his understanding of how grief actually works in the human soul.

Bonanno, George A. The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us about Life after Loss. New York: Basic Books, 2009. A research psychologist's careful corrective to the famous "five stages" model of grief, demonstrating from longitudinal data that grief is more varied (and often more resilient) than the stage theory suggests; honest about resilience without minimizing pain.

Wolfelt, Alan D. Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart. Fort Collins, CO: Companion Press, 2003. The most widely used companion-style grief workbook in pastoral and clinical settings; gentle, practical, theologically modest enough that Christians can use it without difficulty.

Neimeyer, Robert A. Lessons of Loss: A Guide to Coping. Memphis: Center for the Study of Loss and Transition, 2002. A leader in meaning-reconstruction grief therapy lays out his approach in plain language; useful for pastors thinking about how the bereaved rebuild a life and a meaningful narrative after loss.

Westberg, Granger E. Good Grief. 50th anniversary ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010. A short pastoral classic by a Lutheran chaplain that has shepherded millions through the early stages of grief; not deep, but warm, biblical, and easy to put in a stranger's hand at a funeral home.

Specialty Resources for Hard Cases

Some griefs need their own specialist book. The brief list below covers the cases that come up most often in pastoral ministry. Each is the volume I would hand to the bereaved family in that particular situation. None is exhaustive; each is a faithful starting place.

Suicide Loss

Hsu, Albert Y. Grieving a Suicide: A Loved One's Search for Comfort, Answers, and Hope. Rev. ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2017. Hsu, an evangelical editor at IVP, lost his father to suicide; his book is the most widely recommended Christian resource for suicide survivors and is honest about the unique theological and emotional terrain of this loss.⁹

Child Loss

Nash, Ronald H. When a Baby Dies: Answers to Comfort Grieving Parents. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999. A short, biblically careful book for parents grieving the loss of an infant or unborn child; argues for the salvation of those who die in infancy from solid biblical and theological grounds.

Guthrie, Nancy, ed. When Your Family's Lost a Loved One: Finding Hope Together. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2008. A compilation of Guthrie's pastoral wisdom, edited especially for families navigating the death of a child or sibling; pairs well with Holding On to Hope.

Dementia and the Long Goodbye

Swinton, John. Dementia: Living in the Memories of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012. A practical theologian's profound treatment of personhood, identity, and divine memory in those losing themselves to dementia; transforms how families care for and remember their loved ones, and undergirds the pastoral work in Chapter 17 of the main volume.

Children's Grief

Kroen, William C. Helping Children Cope with the Loss of a Loved One: A Guide for Grownups. Minneapolis: Free Spirit, 1996. A practical, age-appropriate guide for adults helping children grieve; widely used in schools and churches and full of concrete, age-graded suggestions for what to say and what to do.

Anticipatory Grief and End-of-Life Decisions

Butler, Kathryn. Between Life and Death: A Gospel-Centered Guide to End-of-Life Medical Care. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019. A trauma surgeon walks Christians through end-of-life medical decisions with theological care; especially useful for the family facing a long, declining illness in a hospital or ICU setting.

Organizations, Helplines, and Online Resources

Books are not enough. Sometimes a grieving person needs a phone number, a Tuesday night meeting, or an in-person community of others who have walked the same road. The organizations below are the ones I trust enough to refer to without reservation.

GriefShare. The largest faith-based grief support program in North America, run weekly at thousands of churches with a thirteen-week curriculum that combines video teaching, group discussion, and daily devotional reading; the first place to refer most newly bereaved Christians who want a structured small group. Locator at griefshare.org.

Nancy Guthrie's Respite Retreats. Weekend retreats for couples who have lost children, hosted by Nancy and David Guthrie; small, by application, free of charge, and uniformly described by participants as life-saving. Information at nancyguthrie.com.

The Dougy Center for Grieving Children and Families. The leading nonprofit in the United States for children's and teens' grief support; their materials are used internationally and are appropriate for pastors and parents to use directly with children. Resources at dougy.org.

Alliance of Hope for Suicide Loss Survivors. A national online community and resource center for survivors of suicide loss; not specifically Christian, but consistently humane, well-moderated, and well-resourced. Resources at allianceofhope.org.

International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS). The flagship NDE research and support organization; their peer-reviewed Journal of Near-Death Studies is the premier scholarly venue for NDE research, and their local groups offer in-person community for experiencers. Information at iands.org.

American Center for the Integration of Spiritually Transformative Experiences (ACISTE). Provides therapist referrals and integration resources for those navigating NDEs and other STEs; particularly helpful for the experiencer whose pastor does not know what to do (see Chapter 21). Information at aciste.org.

Sittser's A Grace Disguised Companion Resources. Multnomah Bible College's Sittser archive includes interviews and lecture material that pair well with reading the book in a small group setting.

For Pastors and Caregivers

A few practical thoughts on using this list well in the work of bedside, funeral, and follow-up ministry.

First, build a small church library, not a large one. A grieving widow does not need a shelf of options; she needs the right book. I keep three or four working titles on my study shelf and re-buy them every year as I give them away. Holding On to Hope, A Grace Disguised, and Imagine Heaven are the three I have most often pressed into a grieving hand. For the pastor's own deeper reading, Cooper's Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting and Beilby's Postmortem Opportunity belong on the shelf. Buy these once; use them for decades.

Second, give books with care. A book on suicide loss given to a parent grieving an infant is malpractice. A book on the conscious intermediate state given to a fresh widow whose husband died yesterday is too much, too soon. The books in this list are not equally appropriate for every season of grief. A Grief Observed belongs in the first weeks; Heaven by Alcorn belongs in the third or fourth month, when the questions begin. Match the book to the moment.

Third, do not send a book in place of yourself. Books are companions, not substitutes for a pastor's presence. A handwritten card with a single book in it ("I have been thinking of you, and I thought you might find this helpful — but I will be by the house Thursday") is one of the most useful pastoral tools we have. A package mailed without follow-up, by contrast, can feel like the church paying a debt.

Fourth, read the books yourself before you give them. The annotations here are mine; your pastoral judgment must be your own. Some readers will love Sittser; others will find his honesty too raw too early. Some pastors will appreciate van Lommel's medical detail; others will want Burke's simpler synthesis. You cannot know what to give until you know what is on the page.

Finally, build relationships with the institutions, not just the books. Visit a GriefShare meeting at a sister church before you send your widow there. Get on the email list for IANDS or ACISTE before you have a parishioner with an unintegrated NDE. The day a wounded sheep walks into your office is not the day to begin learning the resources. Do that work in advance.