"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.

Books by the family

The family seems to be producing a book a year. The books are written by Todd Burpo, Colton's father, who is senior pastor at Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, Nebraska.

• Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent (Nov 2, 2010)

• Heaven Is For Real Conversation Guide by Todd Burpo (Nov 8, 2011)

• Heaven Changes Everything: Living Every Day with Eternity in Mind by Todd Burpo and Sonja Burpo (Oct 9, 2012)

• Heaven is for Real for Little Ones by Todd Burpo and Sonja Burpo (May 7,

2013)

• Heaven is for Real Movie Edition: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent (Mar 4, 2014)

Quotations from the book

page 103

Todd asked, “What does God look like? God the Holy Spirit?”

Colton replied, “Hmm, that’s kind of a hard one…he’s kind of blue.”

page 125

Talking to his mom and bedtime, he related, “I’ve seen power shot down to Daddy. Jesus shoots down power for Daddy when he’s talking. Yeah, at church. When he’s telling Bible stories to people.”

page 126

The next morning, Todd asked him about it, “What’s the power like?”

Colton replied, “It’s the Holy Spirit. I watched him. He showed me.”

Todd asked, “The Holy Spirit?” Colton said, “Yeah. He shoots down power for you when you’re talking in church.”

page 138.

[What do we fight with?].

“You either get a sword or a bow and arrow, but I don’t remember which.”

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.
• "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."
• "Be ready … there is a coming last battle."

We won't be able to judge the truth of this prophecy in Colton's father's lifetime. If it is true, the truth will be revealed by the last battle, and the world will have come to an end. If it is false, those who accepted it as true will be misled by the prophecy until Colton's father dies without the final battle taking place.

The bottom line

This is the kind of book and movie about which reasonable and faithful people may reasonably and faithfully disagree. God certainly might have taken Colton to Heaven and revealed Himself under these images, but I don't find them especially edifying myself. I believe in the reality of Heaven because I believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Nothing in Colton's story strengthens my belief in what Jesus has promised for those who receive His mercy and follow Him faithfully.

I do not doubt the sincerity of Colton or of his parents. I do not doubt that they sincerely believe that Colton is telling the truth about his experience. The trouble is that other people with near-death experiences just as sincerely tell other stories about the nature of death and the afterlife. Here, for example, is a priest's story of "dying," then visiting Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven in the company of his guardian angel. I am not interested in collecting and evaluating every near-death story now available on the internet to see how they compare. I expect nothing but confusion to come out of that kind of study. I suspect that the persons who have these experiences will see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. That's how we behave when we are wide awake; that's how I expect people to behave when they are profoundly injured and near death.

I do not doubt God's power to reveal truth to whom He wills. St. Paul writes of himself (2 Cor 12:2-4):

² I know someone in Christ who, fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows), was caught up to the third heaven.

³ And I know that this person (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows)

⁴ was caught up into Paradise and heard ineffable things, which no one may utter.

Numerous saints have had visions of Heaven and Hell, mostly without trauma or medication that might raise suspicions about their mental state during the visions.

Others find Colton's story consoling and encouraging. They might believe that little children can only tell the truth and could never be used by evil spirits to mislead the faithful, or they may simply trust Colton's story as organized and recorded by his parents.

Most people who have positive near-death experiences lose their fear of dying. Those who trust their testimony often gain that same grace of blessed assurance that all will be well in life after life. These are real graces and blessings.

Peter Kreeft

The man to whom I look to teach me how to think about Heaven is Peter Kreeft. He reasons from the Catholic Deposit of Faith, which includes Scripture and Tradition.

"How Heaven Transforms Our Lives."

Restoring a practical and operative faith in heaven would go very far toward restoring vigor, joy and spiritual health to our society. But we can’t give what we don’t have. We must be sure we are living this central article of our faith first. If the salt has lost its saltiness, it is good for nothing but to be trampled underfoot on icy sidewalks.

The fundamental reason heaven is so life-transforming is not what is there but Who is there. Heaven does not contain God. God contains heaven. Heaven is relative to God, God is not relative to heaven. Heaven is heaven only because it is the full presence of God. Without God, whatever else heaven may have becomes completely worthless. So does earth. (St. Paul’s word for it, in Philippians 3, was skubala, which the old Douay and King James Bibles translated "dung.") And with God, nothing else is needed.

• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven.
• "Heaven."
• "What Will Heaven Be Like?"
• Heaven, the Heart's Deepest Longing.
• "Fourteen Questions About Heaven."
• "How Heaven Transforms Our Lives."

Links

• Heaven.
• Hell.