Is "Heaven is for Real" for real?

I finally found time to sit down and read the book, “Heaven is for Real,” by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent. I hadn’t really had any desire to do so, since I figured I kind of new what was coming. The subtitle, “A little boy’s astounding story of his trip to heaven and back” sort of spills the beans as to what will be found between its bright yellow and orange covers (complete with a picture of little Colton). After a few requests from members of my congregation, however, I dove in and after two sessions, had it finished off.

To give my impressions of it, I think it needs to be dealt with on different levels.

First, just as a piece of literature. From this level I have to say that the book is just awful. I hate to be so blunt, but in my opinion, it is. It just reads like it was written not only about 4 year old Colton, but by him. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.

The most irritating aspect of the book is the repetitive nature of the events. Apart from the description of the actual events that lead to the youngster’s “trip to heaven and back,” the book follows an eventually predictable cycle; Either a question is asked (an open ended one, the father is keen to remind the reader), or, more often than not, Colton just out of the blue says something that he could not have possibly known, regarding either the events of the time he was in surgery or, more often, the layout of heaven, the attire of the trinity, relatives he had never met and God’s attitude toward things; after that comes an dramatic reaction by Colton’s father, “That sent my head spinning,” “My heart skipped a beat,” and so on (and on, and on . . .), which leads to a question of clarification and more revelation from Colton’s time in heaven.

This literary device just gets very old quickly and continues through the whole book.

The use of italics to set off the father’s thoughts also wears on one after a while.

And that’s the good news about the book.

Of course the controversy (there IS controversy about this book, isn’t there?) and the purpose of the book is found in the content of what is recorded. This is not (purportedly) a work of fiction, these are presented as real events. How should we react to what is put forward by the author?

The second level of evaluating the book, as I see it, is the question, “is it factual?” from the point of view of experience. Did Colton Burpo really experience the physical trauma that the book records, and did the things he is recorded as saying actually come from the mouth of this youngster, or from the imagination of the authors?

That question I am unable to answer. I see no reason on the face of it to doubt Mr. Burpo, apart from ones that would seriously impugn his character, which I have no intention of doing, and yet . . .

But that fact makes the book all the more difficult to deal with.

Which brings us to the third aspect of the book, its theological aspect. The questions are numerous; Do people die and then come back to life? If they do, do they go to heaven (or hell) and then get sent back? Are the things that Colton relates about his experience in line with the Bible? What would be the purpose of this miraculous report? Why from a three year old?

Do people have these near death experiences? We hear about them every once in a while. As of late they have become much more common . . . and much more profitable. I wonder if there is a correlation between the two. I suspect so.

According to the summary of the hospital records supplied in the book, though, Colton didn’t die, so this is not a “there and back again” experience.  

Three year old Colton, on whose word we are supposed to accept the rest of the experience, says “I died. But just for a little bit.” I’m not sure which we are supposed to accept, and it ends up not really mattering.

The father goes on to bring to mind the two episodes in the Bible when people saw heaven without dying, Paul (2 Corinthians 12) and John on the island of Patmos (the book of Revelation). My inference here is that this is meant to “explain” how it could be that his son experienced what he experienced.

So now this is not even a traumatic near-death (or “short time death”) experience, this is just a vision that happened while the three year old was under general anesthesia; a vision of heaven and God and Christ and the angels and the end of time etc.

So it is on par with what the Apostle John received when he received a vision (or series of vision) when he was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.”

In a way this is helpful, since now we don’t have to deal here with the whole dying and coming back problem (and it is a big problem). This was a vision, except that it wasn’t a vision. It is presented as a “trip to heaven.” It is presented as something that really happened. So this toddler had an experience better than John’s, more on par with the apostle Paul, a man “who was caught up to the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2).

The interesting and greatly problematic question in this connection is, are we to assume that whereas Paul; writer of scripture, Apostle of God to the Gentiles, recorder of 2/3 of the New Testament was expressly forbidden from revealing anything he had seen on his “trip to heaven,” that Colton Burpo, three year old son of a Wesleyan minister was given a similar trip and allowed to speak of what he saw (in fact given messages to bring back), all interpreted through the grid of a three year old’s understanding and ability to explain. So, for example, the eternal wounds of Christ who died for our sins are “markers,” like from a felt pen.

A further question is what is the message that is revealed as a result of Colton’s trip, and by the book. The message shared by Colton seems tailor-made for the Burpo family. This is not a message for the church, or even an evangelistic message (like the rich man hoped for, when he asked that Lazarus be sent to warn his brothers), but seems mainly to have been to shock Colton’s mom and dad, and to comfort them to learn that their miscarried baby and “Pop” (Colton’s grandfather) are in heaven having a good time.

As a side “benefit” (sarcasm intended) it gives the small and reckless Colton a “healthy” (sarcasm intended again) lack of fear or even caution around moving vehicles. When he darts out into the middle of a parking lot and is scolded by his dad and lectured about the danger of getting hit by a car, he responds, “Oh good! That means I get to go back to heaven!” Great.

In addition to Colton’s experience of the throne room of God there is thrown in for good measure, a vision of the end of times, albeit a peculiar one; one in which not all Christians are involved in the ongoing fight against the powers of darkness, but only the men. “The women and children got to stand back and watch . . . but the men, they had to fight.”

Again, this is the bottom line, what is the purpose of this miraculous and moving report of heaven? What has God told us or not told us in his excellent word about heaven that is in need of either correction or augmentation by the report of a three year old, or a thirty three year old for that matter? The answer is “Nothing.”  God’s word is complete. We don’t need an addendum to the Bible called “Heaven is for real.” If you are not convinced that heaven is for real from the words of Christ and His apostles in the scripture, you are not going to be convinced by the word of Colton Burpo. This seems to be the thought behind these kinds of books. We need something more than the Bible to really grab hold of people, really twist their emotions to get them to really accept the things the Bible teaches.  What a sad statement about our evaluation of God’s word.

One of the testimonials on the back of my paperback copy of the book says, “Heaven is for Real will forever change the way you think of eternity.” Therein lies the great danger of this book and books like it. It presents a distorted (at best) picture of heaven, removes the consideration of it from its proper context, and distorts biblical data, in some cases seriously. One example will suffice. During one of Colton’s recitations of his travels he says that he saw God sitting on a throne. It is bad enough to report that God the Father, whom heaven and earth cannot contain (2 Chronicles 2:6), and who does not have a body (John 4:24), who no man has seen or can see (1 Timothy 6:16) is able to sit on a physical throne and be seen in his fullness by a little sinful human boy; but then he reports matter-of-factly that not only does Jesus sit on a throne at his right hand (a glimpse of orthodoxy) but that Gabriel sits on a throne at God’s left hand. Angels do not sit in the presence of God, they stand. The only theology that has Gabriel sitting on a throne is not Christian, but Muslim.

In the end, this book is not cute, it is not well written, it is not biblical. Its method is crude, its purpose is lost, its message is confused, and its facts are a dangerous mixture of bible quotes and misinterpretations of much of what the Bible has to say about the hereafter.

Christians, and anyone wanting to gain a Christian perspective on heaven, will do very well to stay far away from this book. I recommend the Book written by the one who created heaven, and the one who came from there and ascended back, who went to prepare a place for his people there, and who will come back and receive us to Himself and take us there. Read the Bible. There are also plenty of good books which open up the teaching of scripture in a responsible way. One suggestion is the aptly titled “Biblical Teaching on the Doctrines of Heaven and Hell” by Edward Donnelly, published by Banner of Truth. You can get through Monergism Books, a great resource for books on all subject related to Christian doctrine. 

Pastor Gene