Say Hello to Heaven: Why People Want to Believe in Near-Death Experiences

Credit: Donika Sadiku

When 6-year-old Alex Malarkey told his parents he went to Heaven and saw angels, they had no desire to doubt him. Malarkey had just woken up from a coma after being seriously injured in a car crash. Who would accuse an injured child of lying?

Certainly not his parents or his publisher. With the help of his father Kevin, Alex Malarkey wrote a book about his supposedly true experiences called The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven. Many Christian bookstores gobbled up thousands of copies, and it quickly became a Tyndale House bestseller.  

Credit: Amazon.com

Earlier this week, Alex Malarkey wrote an open letter to Christian bookstore chain LifeWay admitting that he made the whole thing up. He explained that he was young, had gone through a traumatic experience and that he thought his tale would get him attention from adults.

At six years old, Malarkey was onto something. His story got him attention from millions of adults looking for definitive proof that Heaven exists.

Anyone who has been around children shouldn’t be surprised that a six year-old lied about something. What’s more surprising about this story is the number of people who bought and distributed copies of the book without taking a critical eye to its claims.

This book isn’t alone. It’s part of the “heavenly tourism” genre, where authors write memoirs about visiting Heaven after a near-death experience.

One of the most popular books currently circulating in the genre is Heaven Is for Real. Lynn Vincent, co-writer of Sarah Palin’s memoir Going Rogue: An American Life, helped pen the novel with Todd Burpo. According to the book, Todd’s son Colton Burpo had an emergency appendectomy as a toddler. After nearly dying during the operation, Colton told his family that he had gone to Heaven and back.

Heavenly tourism books have recently been under fire from an unlikely source. Many orthodox Christians are lambasting these memoirs, claiming that they take away from the role of the Bible. According to orthodox religious leaders, if the Bible claims that Heaven is real, then Christian followers must take the text at its word without relying on eyewitness accounts.

Credit: Amazon.com

The reason for Heaven Is for Real‘s popularity runs deep. These memoirs feed a culture that is terrified of death and dying. No one knows what happens after death, so stories about “dying” and coming back to life are a calming thought for many people. This is the same reason many find their religions so comforting. Religion provides a simple explanation for life and death.

Having a strong orthodox religious conviction requires having complete faith in what religious texts say about death. To require proof is to subtly question these texts, as Alex Malarkey claims in his letter:

“They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible.”

A combination of naturally fearing death and being told to have unwavering faith has led to the popularity of heavenly tourism. After all, when a child tells a story that proves the existence of a place every Christian wants to go after death, it’s easy for Christians to want to believe.

As Alex Malarkey’s story shows, millions of people still want to hear about what happens when we die. It’s a source of comfort in a chaotic world.