There are plenty of reviews online that discuss the book’s claims. According to the record of sales those claims have a lot of clout in the readership of the American public. There are plenty of discordant reviews that rough house with the book’s implications, providing not an ounce of credulity to Todd Burpo’s claims. Perhaps the American public is credulous, or perhaps merely curious. But there’s something that tugs at the heart when people get more than speculative and start offering narratives of eyewitness certitude about postmortem reality.
As a fellow Wesleyan PK I can’t help but side with young Colton. (There is an oath that we all take, and it can’t be broken regardless of whether or not our pastor parent remains in good standing with the Wesleyan denomination.) The boy, quite apparently, had an incredible experience. One that I hope, despite the patronage of publicity, he is able to continue to claim as his own. But I can’t bite my tongue (without considerable pain) on one point that I find problematic.
Does the boy’s testimony of his experience amount to empirical proof that the popular evangelical images of heaven are really for real? Is this it – the proof that the public has been waiting for? The book concludes that the boy reported things he couldn’t possibly of known without actually visiting heaven. Can you argue with this evidence?
Between the two options of credulity and curiosity, I would suggest siding with the latter. Near the middle of the book the author describes the occasion that his son told him about meeting Jesus in heaven. Colton’s father is careful not to ask leading questions. With methodical devotion he is careful not to mar the evidence of the innocence of his son’s testimony. Colton described his encounter with Jesus, providing details about Jesus’ eyes and dress and “markers”. Todd Burpo puzzled over what his son meant by “markers” until it dawned on him… stigmata. He coaxed his son to describe Jesus’ markers and the boy stood pointing to the centers of his palms and the tops of his feet to show where the red markers were located on Jesus’ body.
This episode frames what could be considered the crux of the book, from chapter 12 “Eyewitness to Heaven”. Todd Burpo resolves from this incident that the evidence pointed to the fact that his son had visited the real heaven and, unprovoked and uninformed, Colton was describing his first hand encounter with Jesus. Colton’s encounter secured the traditional images of heaven as conclusively true, and it confirmed the reality of heaven as dauntingly irrefutable.
Again, I insist that I have no qualms with Colton’s powerful experience and vivid visions. I think of the potentially traumatic incident of emergency surgery that the boy (and family) went through, and of the healing and consoling effect that his vision of heaven had for him. I think this is beautiful. I think of the inspiring nature of the young Colton’s testimony, and the way that it must have moved his family and community to tears and celebration. I am thrilled by these happenings.
But why take this occasion and be so emphatic that it is incontestable proof that the piecemeal conglomeration of heavenly images used in most American evangelical churches is the absolute truth about the nature of the afterlife? And why insist that it is an undeniable indication of the complete, unadulterated, inerrant and consummate truth of the exceptionality of a very particular branch of Christian teaching about the gospel of Jesus? Is that necessary? Is it honest?
I learned in my 9th grade physiology class at a conservative Christian high school from a devout Christian teacher about the physiology of crucifixion. I remember this lesson more vividly than I do the lecture on the movement of blood through the heart or the synaptic leaps that occur in brain activity. It was detailed and disgusting. And one of the details I learned was this: Had Jesus been nailed to the cross through the centers of his palms as is portrayed in popular art the weight of his body would have pitched him down off the cross. The nails in his hands would not have been sufficient to support his body on a cross. His fleshy hands, lacking adequate bone support, would have ripped apart and he’d have fallen forward to the ground. Victims of crucifixion were not nailed to the cross through the palms of their hands but in their forearms, between the ulna and the radius, providing adequate structure to support the weight of their bodies and the duration of their torment.*
Colton pointed to the centers of his palms in recollecting his vision of Jesus’ “markers”. Does that inconsistent detail negate the value of his transcendent experience? No, I genuinely don’t think it does. Does it discredit Todd Burpo’s and Lynn Vincent’s use of Colton’s experience as forensic proof that the evangelical Christian gospel is universally and empirically a closed case? I think so.
It’s unfortunate that some lackluster adults used the images described by a playful and insightful child to narrow the expanse of truth to a very closed vision of reality. It’s problematic that they’re ending the conversation – about life and God and truth – by insisting on the final word. Perhaps by favoring our impulse for curiosity and resisting the temptation of uncritical credulity we can hear Colton’s story and keep the conversation alive.
*(Note: A scientist with an alternative conclusion regarding nail placement, but who also concludes with "It's never finished... It's always open.")
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