A book written about an eleven-year old boy, Heaven is Real,  who allegedly went to heaven during surgery when he was four, is sitting at the #1 spot on the New York Times best seller list.

It’s a sad commentary when the subjective speculations of a child, under the influence of anesthesia, conditioned by four or more years of growing up in a Christian home and church, the son of a pastor, are given more credence than eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Christ: the apostles and their testimony recorded in the Scriptures. Apparently Jesus’ and Paul’s word isn’t good enough for us anymore. Apparently, we need mystical experiences of a four year-old to convince us that Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles are reliable.

The modern fixation on things mystical is, in part, a reaction to centuries of dead, cerebral religion that may be orthodox in creed but has the spiritual vitality of a limp noodle. Therefore, at one level, I understand the drive in the human soul to touch and experience something of eternity that is real.

However, there will never be a sign or wonder big enough to convince people who refuse to be convinced. Should someone even be raised from the dead, that would not be enough. Oh, wait a minute. That’s already been tried.

Jesus spent thirty years making furniture in a carpenter shop. No mystical experiences. No trips to heaven. No visions. Just living and growing in relationship and favor with God and man. I suggest that as Christians, we actually practice our own rhetoric. The esoteric speculations of an unconscious eleven-year old regarding the hereafter, have very little bearing on how I am living today in right relationship with God and humanity, the sum of which, Jesus said, is the fulfilling of all God’s requirements.

Heaven is real, not because an unconscious boy says so. It’s real because Jesus is alive. The story of “Jesus is alive” has already been written in the all-time best seller. However, that simple story doesn’t sell religious pop-culture books. “Four-year old boy goes to heaven” does, and it is a tragic commentary on the infantile spirituality of those who call themselves . . .  “Christian.”

Copyright 2011 Dr. Stephen R. Crosby www.drstevecrosby.wordpress.com. Permission is granted to copy, forward, or distribute this article for non-commercial use only, as long as this copyright byline, in totality, is maintained in all duplications, copies, and link references.  For reprint permission for any commercial use, in any form of media, please contact stephcros9@aol.com.