Looking to heaven without looking past earth

In the evangelicalism I grew up in, people talked about heaven a lot. We longed for the pearly gates. And why not? Heaven meant being with God forever. We shared the gospel in hopes that others would get saved and get in. “Got heaven?” we asked. We promised a dreamy world beyond this world’s nightmares. We read scripture, sang songs, and tried to be patient for that one day at the end of our days. We couldn’t wait for heaven.

Not so much now. Heaven seems to have dropped off the Christian radar, even in the evangelical world I still largely inhabit. It now feels more like a distant memory than a future hope. It doesn’t come up in theology books. Hardly a word gets said about it at church. One might catch a glimpse of it in a sermon, but things quickly move on to what really matters, whatever that’s taken to be. The mention of heaven always risked offending non-Christians. Now it seems to offend Christians too.

My evidence for a sea change on all things afterlife is largely anecdotal. But if it is true, how did heaven end up with such a bad rap?