Last April I wrote a review of the
bestselling book Heaven is for Real
for Acculturated, in which I kept an open mind about young Colton Burpo’s tale
of visiting heaven during a life-threatening medical emergency. After all, though
we should always be skeptical, his story was one in a thousand-year
tradition of remarkably similar near-death experiences (and not only in the
Christian tradition). And just as there is no physical proof that heaven
exists, neither is there proof that it doesn’t. But another boy who claimed to
have made a similar journey announced recently that the book based on his experience was spun out of lies.
The 6-year-old Alex Malarkey – incredibly,
that’s his real name – and his father Kevin were in a terrible car crash in
2004. Alex wasn’t expected to survive, but after two months in a coma he woke
to share a vision of the angels who took him through the gates of heaven
itself. Though he was and remains paralyzed, his father helped Alex write and
publish in 2010 The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of
Miracles, Angels, and Life Beyond This World, touted on the cover as “a
true story.” The book did brisk business for Christian publisher Tyndale House,
selling over a million copies and spawning a TV movie.
But as far back as 2012, Alex and
his mother Beth both began complaining that the book was a distortion and
embellishment of Alex’s experience. Tyndale claims that Beth
refused to meet with them and discuss her concern over the “inaccuracies,” and
so they continued to publish the book.
Until last week, that is, when Alex,
now a teenager, published a brief open letter in which he firmly renounced his “remarkable
account,” saying,
I did not die. I
did not go to Heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me
attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible.
People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible,
which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth.
It’s hard to know what the full truth is here. Kevin and
Beth have been estranged since the book’s publication – there are accusations
that Kevin “neglected his duties” as husband and father – and Alex himself
apparently has never received any royalties from the book despite being named
as co-author. Despite Alex’s repudiation of his heavenly vision, it’s possible
that he and his mother are simply fed up with how Alex has been treated by a
too-adoring segment of the Christian community, by his own father, and by Tyndale.
Whatever the truth, what is the
impact of Alex’s statement? What does this mean for believers and non-believers
alike? What does it mean for other tales of near-death experiences?
First, it means that the lucrative publishing
industry that has built up around such miraculous tales will take a big hit in
credibility and sales. Tyndale House, for example, has announced that it is
pulling Malarkey’s book from the shelves. Other such books may droop in sales
as well, and any future ones may have difficulty finding a home with even
Christian publishers, at least until the Malarkey controversy fades.
More importantly, it means that
skeptics or outright atheists have been handed damaging ammunition for assaults
against the very notion of an afterlife, certainly any that resembles the stereotypical
vision of winged angels and Pearly Gates.
But does Malarkey’s malarkey prove
or disprove anything about the afterlife? Apart from being a sad tale of exploitation
(and possibly even fraud), public credulity, and family dysfunction, the answer
is no. This is what I previously wrote about Heaven is for Real:
The fact is that
all of us are ignorant of the realms beyond the narrow chinks of our caverns.
To paraphrase Hamlet’s familiar lines, there are more things in
heaven and earth than are dreamed of in all our philosophies. Colton Burpo
brought a childlike innocence to one of the most profound and mystical
questions of our existence – is heaven real? Whether or not one believes
his answer is real brings to mind the words of Thomas Aquinas:
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no
explanation is possible.”
While credulity is easy, so is
disbelief. The trick is to balance skepticism with intellectual curiosity and
the humility to know that “now
we see through a glass, darkly.” Now we know only in part, but the time
will come for each of us when we know the truth face to face.
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 1/26/15)
