In 2012, Norman B. Talsoe had a dream in which he was told he should write a book. The words for the book’s title were part of his vision: “God,” the “Here,” and the “Hereafter.” Unsure how to proceed or if he was even capable of writing anything at all, it took him some time to act. So daunting was the prospect of putting pen to paper that he even referred to his experience as “My Impossible Dream.” The impetus for finally beginning his book arrived in a roundabout way. The appearance of the child-star singer Jackie Evancho on America’s Got Talent and her subsequent performance of the song “The Impossible Dream” inspired Talsoe to act on the instruction he had been given. In her performance, he received confirmation that he must trust the truth of his dream as it was a message from God. Now, ten years later, with the author in his nineties, the book is published. Its aim, as Talsoe puts it, is “to instruct everyone on how to become heaven-ready to satisfy God’s expectations.”
GOD, THE HERE, AND THE HEREAFTER is Talsoe’s guide to the end times and the forthcoming return of Jesus Christ to finally conquer Satan. Much of the book is concerned with fundamentalist Bible interpretation, with particular emphasis on the book of Revelation. In Talsoe’s opinion, the second coming is imminent, and mankind needs to be prepared. And according to Talsoe, the word of God is explicitly and unequivocally stated in Scripture. Without repentance, without preparation, man is destined to spend eternity in Hell.
Broken down into short chapters, the book draws heavily on the Old Testament with frequent quotations that Talsoe takes as literal truth. There is no room for nuance, metaphor, or any more liberal reading. Of course, such a rigid interpretation of the Bible is driven by absolute faith. Non-believers will have a difficult time finding a welcoming point of entry in Talsoe’s text, and even more so anybody who might consider themselves “liberal” or, worse still, a supporter of Barack Obama. With nothing but spurious evidence, Talsoe casts Obama as the literal Antichrist due to his promotion of gay marriage and abortion. His proof for this is that on the day Obama won the election, the winning lottery number in Illinois was 666, a “fact” subsequently erased by the “far left.” Indeed, Talsoe’s anti-Obama rhetoric goes further, revealing the author to have not only bought into the “birther” conspiracy but also the preposterous idea that Obama’s marriage was an elaborate hoax. He writes, “He was a homosexual married to a man posing as his wife, proven by pictures that showed a bulge in her dress that should not be there… One of his most egregious actions caught him red-handed in filing a long-form birth certificate that was forensically false.”
There is a reliance on pseudoscience to explain away questions about the absolute veracity of some of Talsoe’s biblical propositions. He calls on the “ancient astronauts” theory to explain why the remains of Neanderthals would seem to predate the appearance of Adam and Eve and cites the works of the frequently discredited amateur archaeologist Ron Wyatt as proof of the Noachian Flood. Elsewhere, the Turin Shroud is cited as indisputable proof of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
While a reader’s propensity to commit to Norman B. Talsoe’s prophetic visions and instructions will be dependent on their own faith, the author’s inclination to lean into debunked science and conspiracy theories to press his point rather tilts the book towards fringe beliefs rather than rigorous biblical scholarship. As such, GOD, THE HERE, AND THE HEREAFTER stands as one man’s intriguing, though far from convincing, warning as to what may be just around the corner.
