Movie= Heaven is For Real

Author: Paulo Arieu

Course: SPAN102

Facilitator: Irma Ortiz

It’s beautiful drama, a film based on a true story. Heaven Is for Real is the true story of

the four-year old son of Todd Burpo, a small town Nebraska religious minister, who during

emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters to the beauty and peacefully heaven. The

young boy emerges, from life-saving surgery with remarkable stories of his visit to heaven. Todd

is an evangelical pastor, and a small businessman and volunteer firefighter who struggle to earn a

living in a tough year for her family.

After that Colton, their young and bright child is taken to the hospital for emergency

surgery, Todd and Sonja (his wife), were glad for their miraculous survival. But the kids, begins

to narrate the details of an amazing journey at the sky with childlike innocence, talking about

things that happened before his birth, things he couldn’t know. When Colton was dying, many

Christians throughout the village began to pray for God to heal him.

Colton, the little kid, survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see

the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to

believe but soon the evidence was clear. Colton said he met his miscarried sister, whom no one

had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then

shared impossible to know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride,

about how "really big" God is, and how the Holy Spirit "shoots down power" from heaven to

help us.

At the first time, half of the people of the church were skeptical. But then, Todd was hard

push up and pressed to examine the meaning of this remarkable event and to forget. The board of

directors of the church also doubted the existence of heaven and she pressed the pastor so that he

forgets what happened quickly, and she said the directive staff needs to hire another pastor.

Told by the father, but often in Colton's own words, the disarmingly simple message is

heaven is a real place, Jesus really loves children, and be ready, there is a coming last battle. The

cost of the Colton’s medical surgery worries his mother too. Also, we had seen how the family

pressures affect the emotions and the character of Sonja. In some moments of the film we see

how Sonja throws the dishes to the floor. The film ends with the preacher that beat their doubts

and ends up believing that heaven is real.

I founded in the internet, some interesting peoples critics who have expressed disagree

about the content of the movie and the message. Some critics were because the movies talk about

not biblical scenes; and other were skeptical critics:

1. Berea, a Christian Ministry and newsletter, criticized the book for its "extra-biblical" claims as

well as the absence of any medical evidence that the boy was clinically dead during surgery [0]

2. The famous Pastor John MacArthur has criticized the book for the presentation of a non-

biblical perspective on the most there [1]

And Susan Jacoby, a secularist author, written as "The atheistic spirit" in the Forum "on

faith" from The Washington Post, was critical of the book, and those who accept supernatural,

saying demands that commercial success of the book "testifies to the prevalence of irrationality

among large number of Americans".[2]

I am sure that this movie can move our mind to reflex about the hope of our faith in God

and in the beautiful and peacefully heaven. But it can be suspicious to be critiqued because some

heaven’s scenes relate are not biblical. And it doesn’t have medical probes about the Colton’s

clinical dead.

References

[0] "Is "Heaven Is for Real" for Real?: An Exercise In Discernment". The Berean Call

Refered from http://www.thebereancall.org/content/heaven-real-real-exercise-

discernment-0/

[1] Are Visits to Heaven for Real? John MacArthur. 03-10-2014. Refered from

https://answersingenesis.org/reviews/books/are-visits-to-heaven-for-real/

[2] Jacoby, Susan. ‘Heaven Is For Real' and the Immature American Mind". 03-30-2011.The

Washington Post. Refered from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/spirited-

atheist/post/heaven-is-for-real-and-the-immature-american-

mind/2011/03/30/AFhr112B_blog.html