I finally read Heaven is For Real (Thanks Marsha) and I found it deeply disturbing. Before I read the book, I posted this review of it by Tim Challies (http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/heaven-is-for-real) on facebook. I stand by his assessment. Especially the end of his review:
"This kind of proof is exactly the kind of proof we should not need and should not want. Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe. Don Piper insisted that he was called to be the Minister of Hope. If hope is to be found in any person, it will be found in the person of Christ. It is the Spirit working through the Word who will give us confidence in our faith. And what is faith? It is simply believing that what God says in his Word is true. We do not need tales of heaven or stories of those who claim to be there.
"If you struggle believing what the Bible says, but learn to find security in the testimony of a toddler, well, I feel sorry for you. And I do not mean this in a condescending way. If God’s Word is not sufficient for you, if the testimony of his Spirit, given to believers, is not enough for you, you will not find any true hope in the unproven tales of a child. This hope may last for a moment, but it will not sustain you, it will not bless you, in those times when hope is waning and times are hard."
Besides that general idea, the specific things I found disturbing about the book are these:
-Wings. Everyone in Colton's heaven has wings. I don't believe the bible teaches us this. We don't turn into angles when we go to heaven. We're promised new bodies that are like Jesus' post resurrection body. See Philippians 3:20-21. It's higly possible that 'wings' is not really what Colton saw. I believe near death experiences are real, and I've read lots of people's experience with them. It's hard for them to describe what they saw. And that makes sense. Getting a glimpse of the spirit world has to be confusing. I believe Colton saw something, spiritual persons even, but I don't think he was in heaven and I don't think we get wings.
-What Jesus looks like. This is a running thing in the book; Colton's dad will show him classic portraits of Jesus and Colton always says it's not what Jesus looks like. Untill they see a story about Akiane Karmarik (another heaven tourist - she travels in visions without dying) on the news. To Colton, her picture of Jesus looks like what he saw! Akiane is an amazing artist. Here is her picture of Jesus:
First, it's white Jesus, which I have a problem with. Second, he looks pretty good. But we're told in Isaiah 53 that he wasn't particularly hansom (v 2b) and after his resurrection, his disciples and closest friends are constantly failing to recognize him untill Jesus does or says something familiar. (see Mary in the garden John 20:16, the road to Emmaus Luke 24:12-32, Jesus' first appearance in the upper room Luke 24:36-37, Jesus cooks breakfast on the beach John 21:1-12.) This confusion about the identity of Jesus - by his closest followers! - causes me to doubt all the beautiful pictures of Jesus we're so familiar with. Consider Isaiah 52:14, Isaiah 50:6, & all of Isaiah 53. Is it possible that even in Jesus' resurrection body we will have a constant reminder of his love for us: the scars on his hands, feed and side, AND a disfigured face from the beatings he endured in silence for you and me.
-The coming war. Part of Colton's vision is of his daddy wielding a sword along with all the other saints in the final battle at Jesus side as He storms the earth to take over as king. I don't think this is what we're told will happen in Revelation at all. in chapter 19 starting in verse 11 we see that Jesus has an army following him, but they don't really do much to help fight. As soon as the battle lines are drawn, the beast and the false prophet are captured and their army is killed by Jesus himself (v 20-21).
I haven't read a lot of reviews of this book. I really like the way Challies sums it up with the quote I posted. we shouldn't need experiential evidence to trust God. We don't need to fill out the truth of God's word with backing evidence from people's own travels (weather they're to heaven or not).
Challies has a follow up article about the lagiitatimate heaven tourism found in the pages of Scripture: http://www.challies.com/articles/what-the-bible-says-about-the-heaven-books
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