To Heaven and Back Is An Old Story
A child's experience during surgery taps the ancient tradition of visions of paradise
By Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, WSJ
April 24, 2014 7:18 p.m. ET
In "Heaven Is for Real," 3-year-old Colton Burpo recovers from serious appendix surgery to tell an astonishing story: During the operation he left his body and visited heaven. Initially skeptical, his parents come to believe him as he vividly describes relatives who had died decades prior and events that happened before he was born.
Colton's father, Todd Burpo, the pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, Neb., recorded his son's experience and the resulting book became a surprise best seller three years ago. Publisher Thomas Nelson has sold more than nine million copies in the U.S., and it has been translated into 35 foreign languages, including Chinese, Russian and Spanish. It has spent years on best-seller lists and has been an Amazon best-seller for about 120 weeks. And now it has been adapted into a movie starring Greg Kinnear that was released nationwide April 16, bringing in $22.5 million its first weekend, just behind "Captain America: The Winter Soldier."
For all its success, it's easy for nonbelievers and skeptics to view the chart-topping book and feature film as a prime example of evangelical Christian naïveté mixed with New Age pablum—a mishmash of Eckhart Tolle and the "Left Behind" series. But while the details are different, Colton's story is very much a part of the ancient Christian tradition of pious speculation about heaven deriving from visions, dreams and experiences.
St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, received a vision of heaven during his blasphemy trial. "Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!" he said. He was stoned shortly thereafter. Just before she was thrown to wild beasts for her faith in Christ, third-century martyr Perpetua detailed a dream in which she saw her brother drinking from the fountain of life.
(More here.)
By Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, WSJ
April 24, 2014 7:18 p.m. ET
In "Heaven Is for Real," 3-year-old Colton Burpo recovers from serious appendix surgery to tell an astonishing story: During the operation he left his body and visited heaven. Initially skeptical, his parents come to believe him as he vividly describes relatives who had died decades prior and events that happened before he was born.
Colton's father, Todd Burpo, the pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, Neb., recorded his son's experience and the resulting book became a surprise best seller three years ago. Publisher Thomas Nelson has sold more than nine million copies in the U.S., and it has been translated into 35 foreign languages, including Chinese, Russian and Spanish. It has spent years on best-seller lists and has been an Amazon best-seller for about 120 weeks. And now it has been adapted into a movie starring Greg Kinnear that was released nationwide April 16, bringing in $22.5 million its first weekend, just behind "Captain America: The Winter Soldier."
For all its success, it's easy for nonbelievers and skeptics to view the chart-topping book and feature film as a prime example of evangelical Christian naïveté mixed with New Age pablum—a mishmash of Eckhart Tolle and the "Left Behind" series. But while the details are different, Colton's story is very much a part of the ancient Christian tradition of pious speculation about heaven deriving from visions, dreams and experiences.
St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, received a vision of heaven during his blasphemy trial. "Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!" he said. He was stoned shortly thereafter. Just before she was thrown to wild beasts for her faith in Christ, third-century martyr Perpetua detailed a dream in which she saw her brother drinking from the fountain of life.
(More here.)
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