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ponch22 's review for:
First, a little background. I grew up with Christian parents who took me to Assemblies of God church my whole childhood. Went to a Christian college (mostly Wesleyan actually, although I never knew what that meant) where I struggled with some of the faith vs fact struggles a lot of religious people probably struggle with. I proposed in my senior paper that I felt that I became a Postmodern Christian--one with faith in God, Jesus, Heaven, Hell, etc. but who didn't believe that it was the ONLY truth.
My fiancée grew up Catholic for only a few years. By Middle School, her family stopped going to church and she's pretty much an agnostic. She believes in a sort of afterlife (one of her favorite shows is Long Island Medium) but she has difficulty with the specifics (e.g. God, Jesus, Heaven, Hell). However, she loves me and comes to church with me every Sunday.
Several months ago, our pastor mentioned a book about a little boy's near death experience, titled Heaven Is For Real and plugged a Greg Kinnear movie that was coming out soon. My fiancée became interested and bought this on Kindle and read it in a few days/weeks.
We saw the movie month's ago, but I was busy reading a few other books which I just finished over the July 4 holiday. Decided to start reading this on the long drive home.
Four days later, and I'm done! It's written very conversationally; it's super easy to read with short chapters. It's better than the film (which cast young Colton horribly and was written very heavy-handedly) but still I had trouble with some of the story.
It's not my place to question whether this is true nonfiction (or as Neil Degrasse-Tyson wants to call it, faction) or a man exploiting his child in order to get a book & movie deal (wouldn't be the first time "Christians" were found deceiving people for money, sadly) but when reading nonfiction (which is where I'm placing it) the only way to judge the book is how well it's written, how easy it is to read, and how well it tells the story.
Like reviewing a documentary, does the media portray a series of events in a skilled way, an interesting way, and does it take an unbiased approach to the subject?
For the first two criteria, I think Burpo and Vincent (cowriter of Going Rogue?!?) do a pretty decent job. I'm always a fan of bite-sized chapters so I can easily put it down if I need to but also have the chance to read "just one more" before doing so...
With the last criterion, it feels too "golly gee" simple at times. Am I surprised that a pastor's son may have images of Jesus dressed in white & purple with a golden crown? Definitely not as much as Burpo seemed! Sure he wasn't even four years old but he was a pastor's kid! I'm sure there may have been a chance he had heard/seen that imagery before.
But the Akiane Kramarik piece of the story and Colton's declaration (after being shown dozens, if not hundreds of portraits of Jesus) that, "that one's right" does amaze me. Is her painting the actual image of Jesus?! Or is this just one image God shared with the two children? Would he look like Vishnu to a Hindu version of Colton?
I still wonder if there's any chance my Postmodern Christianity holds any water. I worry I may be turning my back on everything my parents taught me. The book gave me some comfort but also gave me some trepidation... In the end, I'm glad I read it but I realize all the more how much I'm struggling right now. I guess that's a good result of the book.... Right?
My fiancée grew up Catholic for only a few years. By Middle School, her family stopped going to church and she's pretty much an agnostic. She believes in a sort of afterlife (one of her favorite shows is Long Island Medium) but she has difficulty with the specifics (e.g. God, Jesus, Heaven, Hell). However, she loves me and comes to church with me every Sunday.
Several months ago, our pastor mentioned a book about a little boy's near death experience, titled Heaven Is For Real and plugged a Greg Kinnear movie that was coming out soon. My fiancée became interested and bought this on Kindle and read it in a few days/weeks.
We saw the movie month's ago, but I was busy reading a few other books which I just finished over the July 4 holiday. Decided to start reading this on the long drive home.
Four days later, and I'm done! It's written very conversationally; it's super easy to read with short chapters. It's better than the film (which cast young Colton horribly and was written very heavy-handedly) but still I had trouble with some of the story.
It's not my place to question whether this is true nonfiction (or as Neil Degrasse-Tyson wants to call it, faction) or a man exploiting his child in order to get a book & movie deal (wouldn't be the first time "Christians" were found deceiving people for money, sadly) but when reading nonfiction (which is where I'm placing it) the only way to judge the book is how well it's written, how easy it is to read, and how well it tells the story.
Like reviewing a documentary, does the media portray a series of events in a skilled way, an interesting way, and does it take an unbiased approach to the subject?
For the first two criteria, I think Burpo and Vincent (cowriter of Going Rogue?!?) do a pretty decent job. I'm always a fan of bite-sized chapters so I can easily put it down if I need to but also have the chance to read "just one more" before doing so...
With the last criterion, it feels too "golly gee" simple at times. Am I surprised that a pastor's son may have images of Jesus dressed in white & purple with a golden crown? Definitely not as much as Burpo seemed! Sure he wasn't even four years old but he was a pastor's kid! I'm sure there may have been a chance he had heard/seen that imagery before.
But the Akiane Kramarik piece of the story and Colton's declaration (after being shown dozens, if not hundreds of portraits of Jesus) that, "that one's right" does amaze me. Is her painting the actual image of Jesus?! Or is this just one image God shared with the two children? Would he look like Vishnu to a Hindu version of Colton?
I still wonder if there's any chance my Postmodern Christianity holds any water. I worry I may be turning my back on everything my parents taught me. The book gave me some comfort but also gave me some trepidation... In the end, I'm glad I read it but I realize all the more how much I'm struggling right now. I guess that's a good result of the book.... Right?