A quick search at Amazon yields a bevy of these "heaven tourism" books. The oldest I noticed was the Bantam paperback Embraced by the Light by Betty J. Eadie and Curtis Taylor (1994). The "modern" evangelical trend may have been jumpstarted by Southern Baptist minister Don Piper with his 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life in 2004. There is even at least one "hell tourism" book -- 23 Minutes In Hell: One Man's Story About What He Saw, Heard, and Felt in that Place of Torment by Bill Wiese in 2006. The "quick search list" of other "heaven tourism" books available from Amazon include:
- My Descent Into Death: A Second Chance at Life by Howard Storm (2005)
- My Time In Heaven by Richard Sigmund (2009)
- Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo (2010)
- Flight to Heaven: A Plane Crash...A Lone Survivor...A Journey to Heaven--and Back by Dale Black (2010)
- Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander (2012)
- To Heaven and Back: A Doctor's Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again: A True Story by Mary C. Neal (2012)
- My Journey to Heaven: What I Saw and How It Changed My Life by Marvin J. Besteman and Lorilee Craker (2012)
- Waking Up in Heaven: A True Story of Brokenness, Heaven, and Life Again by Crystal McVea and Alex Tresniowski (2013)
Several of these books are self-published, but others are from notable Christian publishers such as Bethany House, Revell, Thomas Nelson and Tyndale House (as well as one from Simon & Schuster). “Heaven tourism” is lucrative business. Now the most notable of these books is The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life Beyond This World by Kevin Malarkey in July 2010 (supposedly telling the story of his son, Alex). Its notability turns on the repudiation of the heaven tourism and subsequent book – the story retracted by the very boy who supposedly went to and came back from heaven, Alex Malarkey. There is currently no evidence that the father, sole copyright owner, and the party contracted with Tyndale -- Kevin Malarkey -- has "repudiated" the book; but the publisher has withdrawn it from publication. The book copyrighted by Kevin is supposedly Alex's experience, and clearly Alex's to repudiate.
Alex's repudiation of the book goes back to at least August 2011, barely over a year after the book was published. On a Facebook fan page for the book Alex commented, “1 of the most deceptive books ever.” (The comment was subsequently removed by the owner of the fan page.) Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times writes, "Alex Malarkey and his mother, Beth, have been trying to get his book withdrawn for two years, despite his father's resistance." There is credible and visible online evidence that the concerns about this book have been actively made for about three years. Yet the publisher and some Christian booksellers (such as Southern Baptist's LifeWay) act as if they have just heard about it.*
E-mails prove correspondence between Alex's mother and Tyndale as early as April 2012 -- over 2-1/2 years before Tyndale decided to take the book out of publication. No doubt part of the problem was the fact that the contracting party, Kevin Malarkey, had not repudiated the book. Jan Long Harris, a publisher with Tyndale House, wrote to Beth Malarkey in 2012: "Also, I’m sure you can understand that we can’t break a contract with an author just because someone else – even if the someone else is the author’s spouse – makes accusations about him." Having issues with breaking the contract, however, is not the same as NOT KNOWING about the problems with the book.
In light of the breaking news last week, Tyndale House spokesman Todd Starowitz stated, "It is because of this new information that we are taking the book out of print. For the past couple of years we have known that Beth Malarkey, Kevin's wife and Alex's mother, was unhappy with the book and believed it contained inaccuracies." The "new information" cannot be the fact that Alex had repudiated his trip to heaven. They already had that information. The new news must have been that the retraction had become big news!
LifeWay has chosen the same approach. They issued a statement January 15th. Director of Communications Martin King stated, “LifeWay was informed this week that Alex Malarkey has retracted his testimony about visiting heaven as told in the book The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven. Therefore, we are returning to the publisher the few copies we have in our stores.” It is not clear what changed for LifeWay. They already had information that "Alex Malarkey has retracted his testimony about visiting heaven" and Alex did not directly contact them with this information. That leaves them looking like they have egg on their faces -- that what changed was that this book had suddenly become big big news! Baptist Press, the news arm of the SBC, has remained silent as a mouse.
The revelation is presently bad news for Tyndale, booksellers such as LifeWay, and the "heaven tourism" business in general. Whether it continues to be so remains to be seen. Tim Challies says, “I am hoping that this allows the genre to die out.” That is probably too much to hope for!
More links on this topic
* After recantation, LifeWay withdraws ‘The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven’ -- "LifeWay Christian Resources issued a statement Jan. 15 in response to an inquiry from Patheos blogger Warren Throckmorton."
* Don Piper Did Not Go To Heaven -- "I haven’t read a single book in the heaven-and-back genre, but it does chap my hide every Sunday when I see them atop the NY Times Bestseller lists."
* Heaven Tourism -- "I’ll grant that the cost of this type of journey is rather steep (you’ve got to die, though only for just a few minutes), but it’s a sound investment when you factor in the sales figures."
* Southern Baptist Convention resolves that heaven tourism books & movies are antithetical to scripture -- "...the messengers to the 2014 Southern Baptist Convention has addressed the issue through a resolution which states these accounts cannot be corroborated, are self contradictory and are antithetical to Scripture."
* The boy who didn't come back from heaven: inside a bestseller's 'deception' -- "No true evangelical ought to be tempted to give such tales any credence whatsoever, no matter how popular they become."
* The boy who didn’t go to heaven — and how ‘heaven tourism’ conquered the publishing world -- "Heaven is a swell place to visit, the books’ authors say."
* The book is still available from Amazon, and no doubt will be until copies run out. That is a shame, but I am not aware that Amazon claims to conform their business practice to Christian ethical standards. It would be interesting to know which Christian booksellers will not remove it from their shelves and their lists! It is as frustrating as the Christian Aggie fans who could overlook the antics of Johnny Manziel, and as unbelievable as Tom Brady not knowing the footballs he was throwing were under-inflated.
Update: At the time I wrote this, Baptist Press had not reported on it. By the time the scheduled post posted, they had. Yet they were late to the game -- for example, the independent Baptist News reported on it on the January 16th, but Baptist Press did not get to it until the 23rd. Further, they reported that LifeWay had removed the books but did not question the 2-year or so window in which they had known about the controversy and did nothing. In very interesting contrast to Tyndale and LifeWay, Ambassador Speakers Bureau removed Kevin Malarkey from their roster of speakers nearly three years ago, because they "believed Beth was telling us the truth."
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