After listening to a long and heavy Russian book about Satan running around Moscow, The Master and Margarita, I thought that a feel-good, short and sweet book about a little boy going to Heaven and meeting Jesus would be a refreshing change: but it really wasn't. I'm a Catholic (in name) who is open to other beliefs — and skepticism, too — but what I do believe is that there's more to human consciousness than can be explained by some quirk of evolution; that we likely have souls; and that means there is likely a God (a Creator if not a Judge) and an afterlife. To listen to anecdotal evidence of what this afterlife might be like wasn't intended to prove or disprove anything to me — like I said, I assumed it would be a feel-good experience and I went into this with an open mind. But what I thought would be a glimpse of the glorious reward for the righteous turned out to be a vision of an afterlife that is only open to those who believe in and practise a narrow version of one of the world's many religions. This did not feel good.
When the four year old Colton, months after an out of body experience during surgery, in which he said he went to Heaven — the details of which are revealed to his parents over the course of several years — is brought to a funeral, he becomes upset when he sees the casket and, pounding his fists against his thighs, asks if the man had Jesus in his heart, because if he didn't, there was no way the deceased was going to Heaven. This message of exclusion is repeated later: The boy's grandmother asked worriedly if Colton had seen her father in Heaven — she had always worried that he hadn't made it to Heaven because, although he was a good man, he hadn't publicly committed himself to Jesus. Colton reassured her that, yes, he had seen Pop in Heaven, and it is revealed to the family some time later that just two days before the car accident that killed him, Pop had indeed raised his hand in church when his Pastor had asked if anyone was ready to accept Jesus into their heart that day. This is an alien enough idea to me that it may as well be the Westboro Baptists holding their "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" signs at military funerals — nowhere in my personal philosophy would a loving God exclude those from Heaven who fail to follow the rules laid down by the very human men who interpret His word. (And I don't mean that to be disrespectful -— at a glance, there are 400,000 people in the Wesleyan Church worldwide [the denomination of Colton's Pastor father], and as a percentage of the Earth's population, that's a meager number eligible for salvation. That number could be increased with the addition of more of the right kinds of Protestants, I suppose, but the fact that it definitely excludes the 1.2 billion Catholics, 1.6 billion Muslims, 1 billion Hindus, 1 billion Secular, 500 million Buddhists…the necessity to stand and publicly accept Jesus as your Saviour seems an arbitrary requirement of a just and loving God.) This did not feel good.
There were logical inconsistencies in the "proofs" that the boy visited Heaven, too. His father, the Pastor Todd Burpo, was astonished when Colton described Jesus as wearing white robes with purple from shoulder to hip (Colton didn't even know the word "sash" until he was eleven because he parents "didn't want to influence his story"), red "markers" on his palms and feet, long brown hair, and hair on his face (because Colton, at nearly 4, didn't know the word "beard"). Because Burpo knew that his son had never seen a traditional representation of Christ, he knew that he must have seen him in person. Later in the book, Burpo says that since he's a Pastor, he goes on many home and hospital visits to minister to his congregation, and being a busy family man, he would often bring along one or more of his kids. Since so many of these places have pictorial representations of Jesus, he and his wife would often ask Colton if they looked like the Jesus he met — and although they were never quite right, I assume they weren't far off of what the boy had described: How could he have never seen a painting of Jesus before his experience and yet saw so many after?
Another proof offered is that Colton saw his sister, the baby his Mom miscarried before he was born, in Heaven. Burpo insists that neither he or his wife ever told Colton about the lost baby, so he must have met her to have known about her. They did tell his six year old sister, though, but even the idea that she may have told her brother is never discussed. I find the notion of lost babies being elevated straight to Heaven is beautiful , and would never deny anyone the comfort such a story might bring, but it doesn't stand up as proof of Colton's journey (and yet this sister and the physical description of Jesus are two of the biggest proofs offered and repeated throughout).
I also thought that, despite the help of a professional writer, Heaven is for Real isn't a very well written book. I couldn't help but snort when it said that Colton had "tinkled in his underwear". Since this was a point in the book when the boy was very ill and his incontinence was a terrifying symptom for his parents, this term was jarringly precious. I would agree that "urinate" might have been too clinical to capture the real emotion of the moment, but why not just "wet"? That might seem a petty complaint, but it's just one of many times that the writing made my eyes roll — and even if Todd and Sonja Burpo did do most of the writing, he says that as a Pastor he's a "storyteller" foremost. I wonder which of them came up with this passage, describing the parents' feelings on being told to go get a good night's sleep for the first time in two weeks while Colton spent the night in the ICU:
I have to admit those words sounded like an oasis in a desert of exhaustion.
We were afraid to leave Colton alone, but we knew Dr. O'Holleran was right. That night was the first night since leaving the Harris' home in Greeley that Sonja and I spent together. We talked. We cried. We encouraged each other. But mostly, we slept like shipwreck survivors on their first warm, dry night.
Okay, which is it? An oasis in the desert — you're so parched that you need refreshment -- or shipwreck survivors on dry land — you're so waterlogged that you need to warm up and dry out? This is the level of writing.
There are also some questions of Theology that bothered me about this book. In the Epilogue, Burpo says:
The Scripture says that as Jesus gave up his spirit, as he sagged there, lifeless on that Roman cross, God the Father turned his back. I am convinced that he did that because if he kept on watching, he couldn't have gone through with it.
Holy anthropomorphising the Deity, Batman. Not only does Burpo make this statement as a way of showing that, since he nearly lost his own little boy, he understands God's feelings about sacrificing His only son, but it denies the omniscience that I thought a Pastor of every denomination believes in: At the moment of the creation of the universe, God knew what the crucifixion would "look like", how could He possibly turn His back and not watch?
And I didn't understand why Colton says that everyone in Heaven, himself included, had wings. I can let this pass as childish imagination without using it as proof against his experience, but where I come from, Angels and humans are not the same thing (and I think with a book like this you must accept everything or nothing…). More importantly, I didn't like his story of his vision of the Apocalypse: Because women and children just stood back and watched the battle (!), Colton was able to see his father, bodily risen, fighting Satan and demons and monsters. We have already learned at this point that Colton's great-grandfather, Pop, is his younger, fitter self in Heaven, and the miscarried baby is a little girl the approximate age she would have been if she had lived. So…if Colton had actually died at nearly 4, he would be with the women and children at the Apocalypse? The little girl keeps aging according to Earth time, but he wouldn't? Again, you either accept everything or nothing…
Here's the thing: I am willing to believe that Todd and Sonja Burpo were astonished when their little boy told them that, while he was in surgery, he had gone to Heaven and sat on the lap of Jesus. I can believe that Colton honestly believed in his experience. Perhaps the Burpos were astonished by and believed every word their son said about his experience and maybe they faithfully recorded the details and decided, seven years later, to put them into a book to share with the world. Even if all that is absolutely true, and I have no reason to question their intentions, this is not a good book. It feels exclusionary — a warning instead of an invitation — and probably has little value to anyone who does not practise the Burpos' brand of faith.
Here's the one thing I did like: Todd Burpo describes watching a CNN special on a little girl, Akiane Kramarik, who, although raised by atheists, said she was personally touched by God with visions of Heaven. A child prodigy, she started painting incredible portraits at 6 years old and started writing poetry at 7. She had famously painted a picture of Jesus, and when Burpo showed it to Colton, he said it looked exactly right. This is a much more compelling story to me than that of a Pastor's son who had a Sunday School vision of Heaven, and I invite anyone who's interested to take a look at her website: Akiane Kramarik
When my grandfather was at the end of his life — my own Pop, and a very good man who, if he wasn't deserving of a heavenly reward then no one is — he lost consciousness for several days. At the last moments of his life, Pop blinked into awareness and, staring up into the far corner of his hospital room, his face broke into a wide and beatific smile, he weakly raised his hand to point at whatever his vision was showing him, and with a sigh, he was gone. Even if it was the totally natural firing of synapses marking the end of any life, I do hope that Pop saw Heaven in those last moments; and of course, I do hope he was taken to paradise. Maybe Heaven is for real, and if it is, I have to believe it is more inclusive than the one Todd Burpo describes in his book.
