Colton Burpo is a special child. At the age of 4 his appendix burst and doctors told his father Todd, that his toddler would not survive. Did we mention that the Burpo family are devout Christians? What happens next is one of those things that would make Richard Dawkins pretty agitated and has the Bible Belt of the American Mid-West in tears of joy as now they can officially say that the gospel of the bible is indeed scientific FACT.

Colton Burpo survived his ordeal and came back to tell an extraordinary tale of his brief trip to ‘Heaven’. The child awoke from his surgery to regale his family as well as the doctors of his brief experience of dying on the operating table whilst his soul teleported heaven. On his arrival at the pearly gates he claimed to have had interactions with the Virgin Mary, John The Baptist AND the one and only Jesus Christ. Yeah, it’s remarkable enough that a 4-year old was able to articulate such things, but how amazing really considering that his Christian family was probably teaching him such things since birth? Okay, there is more though, and we urge you to remove your skeptics cap for a brief second: Colton DID come back from death not only speaking of biblical characters that he had a rip-roaring time with in the ‘Christian’ heaven – but actually spoke of deceased family members by name whom he met whilst up there who his family had allegedly never mentioned to him in person in his 4-year existence.

So this incredible tale has not only been turned into a book which was written by Colton’s pops, Todd Burpo ( and has subsequently been a best-seller for, well, a REALLY long time) , but now the story has been turned into a major motion picture  entitled, ‘Heaven Is For Real’ and starring Greg Kinnear, of course. And here for you right now are the numbers: “Opening on Easter weekend, the movie was an instant hit, taking $22.5 million (£13.4 million) in its first three days and easily overshadowing Transcendence, a blockbuster starring Johnny Depp which had been expected to dominate the box offices.”

Okay. So for the sake of saying it, has anyone actually questioned how much the Burpo’s have profited out of little Colton’s ordeal at the expense of the Christian community who in these times of science and technological advancements need more proof than ever that a celestial realm of angels and a Holy Trinity responsible for the creation of everything actually does exist?  Sure they have. But hey, it’s not our opinion that counts, right? What counts is that a lot of people out there are making a lot of cash out of this story. And hey, if it makes thousands of Christians really, really happy at the same time, then who’s counting, surely?

We feel that Susan Jacoby sums it up pretty nicely though in her saying  on her blog for the Washington Post, “Only in America could a book like this be classified as non-fiction.At age four, an inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality is charming. But among American adults, widespread identification with the mind of a ­preschooler is scary.”

[SOURCE] Telegraph