The fourth highest grossing movie of the past weekend was the movie Heaven is for Real, currently grossing $75 million. The movie is based on the bestselling book of the same title. It is true story about the 3-year-old son of a Christian pastor who claimed he had a near death experience during an operation. Because of its overtly Christian message, it is remarkable to me that they made a movie out of this particular story. I have not seen the movie, but I both read and listened to the book. I’ll tell you frankly that I loved the book. I believe you will love the book as well. I don’t think it is the Bible, but I loved the vision of heaven it presented, though I don’t know if it will be that way or not.
Another similar Christian book is 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper. Rev. Piper is a Baptist minister, but no relation to theologian John Piper. Don Piper tells the story of his horrific car accident at which he was declared dead as the paramedics sought to rescue the living. A pastor (who didn’t know it was his friend in the car) came and prayed over Mr. Piper, and heard him singing a hymn in a weakened voice. Ninety minutes had passed since he had been checked. His book begins with his apparent experiences in heaven, but concludes with the long and difficult recovery from severe injury.
The term often used for these occurrences are “near-death experiences”. Oftentimes (but not in the case of young Colton Burpo), the person experiencing this is clinically dead, meaning their heart has stopped, and they are resuscitated by medical personnel. These last two books were by Christians, and these people had Christian NDEs; ie, their experiences largely corresponded with Christian beliefs rather than Buddhist or some other one.
So why are some Christians quite concerned about a book like Heaven is for Real? The “science” of NDEs has been going on for quite a while. The late Dr. Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross is perhaps the most famous scientific expert on death and dying. Her five stages of grief are more or less the authority on understanding how people go through severe loss. She did research on NDEs and along with other researchers came up with a rather universalistic approach to death. No matter what, when you die, you have fine experiences: bright lights, warm feelings. It seems that no matter who you are, in her research, good things happen to you when you die. She sought to comfort people with this information. It took her to some very strange places, including séances.
So are these experiences some sort of demonic deception? To me the answer seems more complicated and nuanced than that. The fact is that these experiences are extremely common and always have been. I can see quotes from 1800s-era books with the accounts of both saints and sinners sharing their dying visions of love, light, and glory on the one hand, and hell and darkness on the other. Our modern medical technology did not create these experiences, but it has enabled some people to come back to us and talk at least about what appears to be the initial experiences of death. Often these stories are difficult to explain because the people saw things they shouldn’t have seen. A common report in NDEs is of observing the actions of family members in another part of a building from their “death bed”. I have never had a NDE, but I have heard several secondhand stories of such things, including one from a former GCC family that moved away.
So is the Biblical gospel undone from the happy stories of Dr. Kuebler-Ross and others? Or is there more to even the Near Death Experience story? Beyond Death’s Door by Dr. Maurice Rawlings tells a fuller tale of people’s experiences at death. As a cardiologist, Dr. Rawlings had occasion to resuscitate several individuals who were clinically dead and had stories to tell. Suffice it to say they weren’t all happy tales. Rawlings became a believer in Jesus Christ because of the evidence for the afterlife he discovered, including the reality of hell. He noticed something that other researchers missed: the stories changed over time, and terrible memories were suppressed. Dr. Rawlings' book was used of God in the conversion of a friend of mine, and I consider it a good and balanced read on this topic.
Let me conclude with some positives and warnings about NDEs.
On the plus side:
Materialistic secularism is unable to explain these experiences adequately.
We have been sold a false world view that the world is the result of an amazing cosmic accident, without maker or designer, and without any apparent purpose except what our brain activity chooses to make out of it. The problem is there are all these people running around, brought back from the dead from the best science can offer, declaring that there is something beyond our materialistic world, and it’s beautiful and purposeful.
But don’t neuroscientists have skepticism about NDEs? One of them certainly did; Dr. Eben Alexander was a great skeptic of these phenomena. He believed brain activity explained them. He had it all figured out until Dr. Alexander himself had a near death experience! Now he goes around speaking about “proof of heaven”.
These numerous accounts raise doubts about the naturalistic worldview. They suggest evidence that something waits beyond death’s door. In that regard we welcome their assistance. But we look to the Bible alone for the definite answer about how to get to heaven when we die!
There are consequences to how you live now.
Once Dr. Rawlings' book came on the scene to show that not all NDEs are “happy dappy”, even NDEs suggest that how you live now matters in the future. That is certainly a concept we embrace. These stories force people to think about something beyond their daily life. There is not only an end of this earthly life, but the beginning of another one. For those who suffer injustice in this life, there is evidence that justice is meted out in the next. Of course, we must ourselves be prepared for our own day of reckoning by repenting and believing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
For those of you who think these stories all sound crazy, let me settle you down a bit.
On the cautionary side:
No one with an NDE was dead in the Biblical sense.
The Bible says “it is appointed for man to die once…” (Hebrews 9:27). There is a difference between clinical death and death as the Bible speaks. Unlike Lazarus who was dead four days, or Jesus who was dead from Friday to Sunday, people with NDEs do not experience the death of all their cells, which, as I understand it, occurs fairly quickly after we die. There is an immediate and irreversible process that begins at death. People with NDEs do not experience either the natural or spiritual death of their bodies. The information is fascinating, but not definitive.
Thus, in spite of the helpful nature of many of these accounts, no one should build a theology of heaven based on any of these accounts. None of them experiences what death is the way we all will (barring Jesus’ return). We don’t know what the afterlife is like from these accounts, because they don’t quite go far enough.
It might have been interesting to interview Lazarus after he had - not a “near death experience” - but actual death for several days. He had been dead so long that the family (see John 11) feared that the odor from decomposition would be overwhelming. Lazarus had a story to tell.
The Bible gives us visions and pictures of heaven. That’s the best we have!
One did come back from the grave and speak to us: our Lord Jesus Christ! He told us how we could join him there (John 14:6). He also spoke to us about heaven through the prophets of the Bible, and books like Revelation. God has revealed what heaven is like (and hell, too, for that matter). He has revealed to us what he deems wise to tell us. We can know all we need to know, all that is wise and wrote.
Final Conclusion
So what do we do with NDEs? Don’t dismiss them. Don’t rethink the Bible because of them. Evaluate them in comparison with the authoritative Word of God. The Designer of heaven has given us what we need to know. Trust Him alone. NDEs are a curiosity, an ally in some discussions, but something with limitations.
I compare NDEs favorably with our favorite fictional accounts of heaven. Many believers have found C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce to be a helpful description of heaven. No one believes it is anything other than the product of the imagination of Mr. Lewis. And yet, a Christian friend quoted it to me just the other day. Why? It spurs our own imagination; it gets us thinking. What if we view NDEs in a similar way? Perhaps they are a bit more sensational with a bit more experiential authority than Lewis' imagination, but they are also limited. They have no more real authority than Mr. Lewis, or the beloved John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress. When I read Piper’s description of heaven in 90 Minutes in Heaven, or Colton Burbo’s stories that he told his parents, I don’t cut the pages out and paste them in my Bible. Instead I think, "That sounds really special; I bet it is at least that awesome.” I think before the Lord: “I believe what you have for us is great beyond my imagination, but this spurs my imagination a bit.”
Thanks for pondering a potentially confusing topic with thoughtful and Biblical consideration.
In Him,
Don