Heavy Metal and Heaven!?

CATHEDRAL NEWSLETTER - 7 August 2025

Friends in Christ, plenty of people will criticise Christians for believing in miracles. And they make it sound "going to heaven" is some sort of fairy story. The picture of sitting alone on a cloud strumming a harp comes to mind. 

However almost everyone at almost every funeral I've taken actually believes there is some kind of after-life.

And a great many of them think they and their loved ones will be 'up there', almost by rights.

Recently, Ozzy Osborne, lead singer of Black Sabbath and pioneer of heavy metal music, did a massive final concert, and died just weeks after, with complications from Parkinson's Disease. He was an impressive performer, dressed in all black, with some dark imagery and infamous stagecraft. In fact, he was known by his fans as the "Prince of Darkness" with extended drug abuse earlier in his career. Later he and his family were part of a pioneering reality TV show about their now fairly ordinary life family! And Osbourne claimed consistently to believe in God and to be a Christian, albeit not a very good one, rather than a promoter of Satanism! (Here you can read an obituary that explores the question of his faith.)

Heavy metal music is probably not the main genre of interest to a Cathedral crowd.

But my reason for introducing him is that Rod Stewart, in a recent concert, displayed AI-generated images of Ozzy taking selfies with dead singers in heaven, including George Michael, Prince, Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, Bob Marley and Amy Winehouse. There's a line up of pop-stars – with a mix between them, of drug abuse, sexual confusion, legal troubles, addictions and mental illness. They also had diverse spiritual views, including non-Christian religions. Yet Rod Stewart confidently pictures them all in heaven. 

On what basis does he make that judgment? 

Neither final judgment, nor the ultimate power of forgiveness, belongs to you or me!

So on what basis may we expect any person to go to heaven? Would you like to know and be sure?

It's not on the basis of sentimentality.

It's not on the basis of popularity or success.

All that is nothing but wishful thinking. 

Here's what Jesus said to his disciples: 

"My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going... I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:2-4,6)

One of the first disciples, Peter, understood this clearly in the early church era, after performing a miracle of healing for a long-term disabled man. He said:

"...know this, you and all the people of Israel: it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed... Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:10,12)

Trusting the Lord Jesus is the only way to God the Father, in heaven!

Some might say that this is just mere assertion, a claim without basis.

I reply that far from it, Jesus has been to the 'other side' and come back again to tell us all about it. That's quite unlike Shirley Maclaine, or Kerry Packer, or Muhummad or Buddha for that matter. His was no 'near-death' experience, and no mere 'spiritual' ascent. 

Jesus died on the cross – for our sins – then was buried, and descended to the dead.

And on the third day, he rose again, and after time with his discples, ascended bodily to heaven, from where he will one day return to judge us all. 

As I never tire of saying, the evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus is far better, for stronger than most casual observers realise. (Watch or listen to my public lecture here.)

Jesus, if you follow him as the Good Shepherd, can really guide you through the 'valley of the shadow of death' (Psalm 23, John 10). 

Excuse my rehearsal of such basic Christian truths. But, I want you to know that Christian hope is as far from pop sentimentality as you can find.

It's just like the hymn quoted by Ben in a sermon recently says:

On Christ the solid rock I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand.

Warmly in Christ,

Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney

P.S. Enjoy a great 60 second video of the action at our Community Hub inside and outside the Cathedral for Homelessness Week on Tuesday just gone.