"Heaven is For Real" (2014) movie review

Little boy, near death experience

"Heaven is For Real" website.

IMDB

Based on the #1 New York Times best-selling book of the same name, HEAVEN IS FOR REAL brings to the screen the true story of a small-town father who must find the courage and conviction to share his son's extraordinary, life-changing experience with the world. The film stars Academy Award® nominee and Emmy® award winning actor Greg Kinnear as Todd Burpo and co-stars Kelly Reilly as Sonja Burpo, the real-life couple whose son Colton (newcomer Connor Corum) claims to have visited Heaven during a near death experience. Colton recounts the details of his amazing journey with childlike innocence and speaks matter-of-factly about things that happened before his birth ... things he couldn't possibly know. Todd and his family are then challenged to examine the meaning from this remarkable event. Written by Sony Pictures Publicity.

Reflections

Benedict Groeschel, A Still Small Voice: A Practical Guide on Reported Revelations.

St. John of the Cross, the mystical Doctor of the Church, ... warned people to assume that extraordinary experiences came from the forces of evil unless the opposite could be proved.

This is not an infallible guideline, but I do think it has some relevance here.

From a review of Groeschel's book:

Fr. Groeschel's book has been extremely illuminating and helpful. He cautions skepticism toward all claims of divine revelations, noting that the Vatican itself is very careful in certifying them. He divides bogus claims into various types: some are outright frauds; some are psychologically disturbed; still others are simply self-deluded because of their strong need & desire to believe.

• "Picture-thinking": thrones, wings, animals, colors, songs, swords, bows-and-arrows.
• The imagery in the book seems appropriate for a four-year old, but it can't be distinguished from a drug-induced dream: Jesus' rainbow-colored horse, the pink diamond in his crown, wings on everybody, both angels and saints, homework given to Colton by his grandfather, seeing the Trinity in three distinct forms (definitely not the Beatific Vision), angelic hosts fighting demons with swords, bows, and arrows, watching God shoot Holy Spirit power down on his dad while he preaches, seeing everyone in heaven with halos, Jesus going up and down "like an elevator," sitting beside the Holy Spirit on a little chair, etc., etc.
• The preternatural knowledge shown by the boy (immortality of a sister lost in a miscarriage and encounters with a grandfather and great-grandfather) does not require divine activity. Evil spirits could also know and communicate these facts to him.
• Protestant theology.
• Gnosticism--revelation comes from personal experiences.
• Preternatural powers (gift of knowledge) at work: not necessarily good angels. Evil angels also have knowledge of human history and can communicate that to "prophets" (cf. Edgar Cayce).
• Our faith is based in Jesus' resurrection from the dead, not from any number of near-death experiences. Many near-deathers preach New Age religion based on their experiences. I don't want to open the floodgates to that kind of "revelation."
• The boy's experience has been narrated and interpreted by his father, who is a Wesleyan Methodist preacher.
• "Be ready … there is a coming last battle."
• "They market the book as if the kid died and came back. That's not the case. The kid went under general anesthesia and seems to have had some sort of vision. The heaven he visited definitely seems to be the American Evangelical heaven."