Pay attention, David Bentley Hart!! Heaven is for real, and it’s beautiful and Jesus is there and we see all our friends and relatives as young people!

About two years ago I wrote about a publishing phenomenon, the book Heaven is for Real, recounting the story of Colton Burpo, who, at the age of four, had a “near-death experience” after his appendix burst. Colton later began coming out with some strange stuff—stuff that supposedly gave evidence for God because it could not have been known to Colton. I quoted the New York Times story on the piece:

He had died and gone to heaven, where he met his great-grandfather; the biblical figure Samson; John the Baptist; and Jesus, who had eyes that “were just sort of a sea-blue and they seemed to sparkle,” Colton, now 11 years old, recalled. . . . . . At first, [Colton’s father Todd] and his wife, Sonja, were not sure if they could believe their son’s story, which came out slowly, months and years after his sudden illness and operation in 2003. The details persuaded them, Mr. Burpo said. Colton told his parents that he had met his younger sister in heaven, describing her as a dark-haired girl who resembled his older sister, Cassie. When the Burpos questioned him, he asked his mother, “You had a baby die in your tummy, didn’t you?” While his wife had suffered a miscarriage years before, Mr. Burpo said, they had not told Colton about it. “There’s just no way he could have known,” Mr. Burpo said. And the Burpos said that Colton painstakingly described images that he said he saw in heaven — like the bloody wounds on Jesus’ palms — that he had not been shown before.

Inevitably, the story was made into a book, co-written with Colton’s mother, father, and writer Lynn Vincent, and the book shot up to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Now, coming April 16, is the movie the American public has been waiting for: a movie that proves the existence of God and Heaven. And everybody’s young there—just what we want to hear. Here’s the official trailer:

The official movie site is here.

The American public has an insatiable appetite for “proofs” of Heaven and God, so eager are they to believe that death is not the end. Ergo Eben Alexander’s questionable bestseller, Proof of Heaven, which has been severely questioned as a possible piece of fraud.

One thing we know for sure: the movie “Heaven is for Real” is gonna do a lot better at the box office than the movie “The Unbelievers,” an atheist flick starring Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. More’s the pity. And don’t forget the upcoming “Noah”!

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