(Protestia) Fourteen years ago, Todd Burpo, an evangelical pastor, wrote the New York Times best-selling book “Heaven is for Real,” which detailed what his three-year-old son Colton saw in heaven after he lost consciousness on a hospital operating table, the result of getting his appendix removed.
The book became an international sensation, sold 11 million copies, and spent nearly a year atop the book charts, ultimately getting made into a movie that did over $100M at the box office.
“Heaven is for Real” also served to demonstrate that discernment is floating dead atop the surface of the wide stream of American evangelicalism, like a bloated corpse drifting with the current, because nothing about this fantastical, extra-biblical tale is remotely believable or biblical.
As the Berean Call pointed out, certain of the child’s supposed experiences (angels singing Jesus Loves Me to him; his sitting on Jesus’ lap; meeting John the Baptist and the angel, Gabriel; petting Jesus’ rainbow-colored horse, his descriptions of Jesus’ wounds and attire, including a crown with a pink diamond that Jesus wore, etc.) are highly theologically problematic.
Colton also describes everyone having wings, indistinguishable from angels. This might be expected from a child giving an image of Heaven from their fanciful imagination, but it is hardly acceptable from the vantage-point of Scripture.
Quite frankly, the whole thing reeked of an opportunistic cash grab on the back of the supposed babblings of a child. Nearly a decade and a half on, Burpo persists in his tall tales, telling the Gospel Herald how writing this super true book changed him:
“In some ways, I went from being unknown by most people — you don’t live in a town of 2,000 people and preach there for 20 years if you’re seeking attention — and so, “Heaven is for Real” thrust us into a spotlight we never anticipated. We knew God wanted us to write the book, but we never saw the success of the book coming, that surprised us. Yet at the same time, we said, “God, this is your plan, and we’re going to make the best of it.”
As to how Burpo responds to skeptics who doubt his and his son’s story, he reveals:
“We always will have skeptics, there’s no way to get around that. Colton’s response is the best: I remember when he was 12, he was asked by someone who was interviewing him about Stephen Hawking’s book “There is No Heaven.” This person on a major news channel said, “Colton, what do you have to say about that? He doesn’t agree with you.” Here’s my 12-year-old talking about a well-known scientist. He said, “He can believe what he wants to, but it doesn’t’ change what I saw. I know what I saw.” And that’s where we stand. People have their right to make their own decision, God gave us all that right. But we know what we saw and heard and our experience.”
According to Burpo, his son Colton is starting his freshman year in college and is pursuing a future in worship ministry.
By way of final note, now, keep in mind that the Apostle Paul speaks of himself “being caught up in the third Heaven” in 2 Corinthians 12:2 – and what does not follow is the Apostle Paul then explaining to us the interior decoration of Heaven, Jesus’ horse of many colors, or any other aspect of Heaven that God chose to not reveal in the written revealed Word of God. Neither was the Apostle Paul receiving this vision as an accidental, premature visit to Heaven from a near-death experience. Maybe we should take a hint.
What’s forgotten is that Burpo’s book is nothing new, novelty, or unique. Phil Johnson gives a good list of books with similar testimonies that have become so prominent in the evangelical marketplace that Tim Challies has come to call the genre “Heaven Tourism.” Johnson gives the list including My Journey to Heaven: What I Saw and How It Changed My Life, by Marvin J. Besteman; Flight to Heaven: A Plane Crash . . .A Lone Survivor . . .A Journey to Heaven—and Back, by Dale Black; To Heaven and Back: A Doctor’s Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again: A True Story, by Mary Neal; 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life, by Don Piper; Nine Days In Heaven, by Dennis Prince; 23 Minutes In Hell: One Man’s Story About What He Saw, Heard, and Felt in that Place of Torment, by Bill Wiese.
Johnson writes:
This is not a totally new phenomenon…What’s different about the current crop of afterlife testimonies is that they are being eagerly sought and relentlessly cranked out by evangelical publishers…
These books are coming out with such frequency that it is virtually impossible to read and review them all. But that shouldn’t even be necessary. No true evangelical ought to be tempted to give such tales any credence whatsoever, no matter how popular they become. One major, obvious problem is that these books don’t even agree with one another. They give contradictory descriptions of heaven and thus cannot possibly have any cumulative long-term effect other than the sowing of confusion and doubt.
Johnson continues…
Why Christians who profess to believe the Bible would find these stories the least bit compelling is an utter mystery, but it is a sure sign that many in the evangelical movement have abandoned their evangelical convictions. Specifically, they have relinquished the principle of sola Scriptura and lost their confidence in the sufficiency of Scripture. Why else would they turn from clear biblical teaching on heaven and seek an alternative view in mystical experiences that bear no resemblance to what Scripture tells us?…
Evangelical readers’ discernment skills are at an all-time low, and that is why books like these proliferate. Despite the high profile, high sales figures, and high dollar amounts Christian publishers can milk from a trend such as this, it doesn’t bode well for the future of Christian publishing—or for the future of the evangelical movement.
At the heart of it, our infatuation for these extra-biblical revelations don’t merely speak of our lack of discernment (although that’s frightening enough). Our infatuation for these extra-biblical revelations speak of our disinterest and disenchantment with the sufficient, written Word of God.
Republished with Protestia’s permission.
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