Heaven is for Actualthe story of a boy who allegedly visited heaven and lived to inform is getting a giant Hollywood remedy this week.
The movie facilities on four-year-old Colton Burp and his supposed imaginative and prescient of the afterlife after a traumatic near-death expertise. Greg Kinnear – and his signature bewildered look little doubt – performs Colton's father, a small-town pastor who’s confronted with the choice to both share his son's account or maintain it a secret from the remainder of the world. Spoiler: his ebook turns into successful.
With the movie out this week, Christians should grapple with how precisely they need to reply theologically to each Colton's story and different popularized near-death experiences (NDEs). Can—or ought to—these tales be used to tell our beliefs in regards to the afterlife? What about our Christian apologetics?
Whereas this may occasionally shock some followers of the ebook, Christian thinker and apologist William Lane Craig urges followers of Jesus to proceed with warning when learning NDEs, and particularly Heaven is for Actual. In a podcast devoted to this problem, Craig says:
“My concern is that this: Christians, of their enthusiasm for the glimpse of heaven that the ebook presents, could start to base their view of the afterlife and heaven on these experiences relatively than on what the Bible teaches.”
Whereas Colton's story might need us crying within the lavatory after the film, NDEs are sometimes inconsistent with each other. “We all know a few of them. [NDEs] they’re neither genuine nor true as a result of they contradict one another. However how are you aware whose expertise is genuine and whose is just not?” Craig states.
As a lot as it might damage to confess, Heaven is for Actual it's exhausting to show, particularly relating to Colton's heavenly expertise itself. Might this imaginative and prescient or Colton's interpretation of the imaginative and prescient be true? Sure. it’s so? We will't make certain.
Dr. Nonetheless, Gary Habermas of Liberty College factors out one necessary facet of NDEs that he says Christians can not overlook. In his ebook behind loss of life Habermas offers practically twenty circumstances of what he cites as verifiable NDEs. He goes on to argue that whereas NDEs can not essentially set up a biblical worldview, they can be utilized to refute naturalism.
So given all this data, how ought to Christians reply Heaven is for Actual?
In a way, followers of Jesus ought to decide a film by the identical requirements we use to guage all motion pictures. Is it creative? Does the plot work? What about Kinnear's confused look?
Alternatively, Christians needs to be fast to keep in mind that whereas Colton's story could also be heartwarming and provoking, it’s not the Bible. The movie can be utilized as a dialog piece about loss of life and a pointer to cultural curiosity within the afterlife, however viewers mustn’t let the story dictate their view of the afterlife.
Sure, we will develop our theology of heaven from a ebook. No, that ebook isn't Heaven is for Actual.
