The Burpos' Heaven and Interpretive Assumptions

The son of a pastor in the one-horse town of Imperial, Nebraska, Colton Burpo might seem like your average kid from the Midwest. But as most of America already knows, Colton is far from average. What sets him apart began with the emergency appendectomy he underwent at four years-old. Heaven Is For Real, a memoir written by Todd Burpo, Colton’s pastor father, tells the story of Colton’s brief “death” during that surgery and his visit to heaven. Reportedly, Colton saw Jesus, two of His Apostles, the angel Gabriel, his mother’s miscarried child whom he knew nothing about, and his paternal maternal great-grandfather (does that make sense? perhaps not…in any event, his father’s mother’s father) whom he had never met. Colton’s father finds support for the story by matching Colton’s descriptions of heaven with details found in the Bible. From the Throne of the Lord to Jesus’ garb, four year-old Colton is correct on every count.

Perhaps it’s an unfortunate first reaction, but what stands out to me right away is how frighteningly easy it is to make fun of this book. The text is problematic in immediate ways—some of which I will investigate shortly. But for now, it’s time for an admission. Any ridicule I’m able to heap on the text turns on a key distinction: I’m not Christian. Although raised in an Episcopalian family (read: church on Christmas, Easter, guilty moments), I’ve parted ways with Christianity. If a scale existed, I’d place myself squarely between “atheist” and “agnostic.” I have no foundation of belief, but I have not nixed the possibility of being a believer in some spiritual sense.

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That said, this strange, little book opens itself up to derision from, seemingly, every side. Overlooking the subject matter for now, we can turn to the style. The first page of the Prologue yields this tidbit: “[We] had planned to take the kids to visit…Steve, and his family in Sioux Falls, South Dakota” (p. xv). So far, so good—second paragraph provides the reader with a neat little narrative of a family vacation. But one sentence later, Burpo whacks us with this one: “Plus, our kids…had never been to the falls before. (Yes, there really is a Sioux Falls in Sioux Falls.)” (p. xv). I’ve reread the opening page at least 10 or 12 times and I still cannot understand the snark oozing from that parenthetical. Why would Burpo assume that I would assume that there isn’t a real falls in Sioux Falls?

Maybe I’m being a little unfair; versed in the geography of South Dakota as I am (how far are we from Wall?), I may be underestimating the South Dakotan knowledge of fellow readers. (Yes, I’ve been to Sioux Falls.) I’ll let that complaint go for now.

The criticism that I refuse to back down on is Burpo’s nearly oppressive use of cliché. For the sake of his congregation, I hope his sermons aren’t peppered with these attacks on tastefulness (they probably are—and if you’re all right with that, then imagine one of his deathbed prayers…). In only the first chapter, “time [freezes]” (p. xviii) and Burpo is “rocked…to the core” (p. xxi). It doesn’t help when the third sentence of the first chapter goes off about how the “family had traveled a rocky road” (p. 1). Maybe it’s no worse than any other bestselling potboiler or Harlequin romance. But it’s certainly traveling the same rocky road. Oops.

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A quote from Ron Hall on the back cover: “A beautifully written glimpse into heaven that will encourage those who doubt and thrill those who believe.” I think Hall more or less summarizes the book’s intent and intended audience. The book is an open appeal to belief. If you believe in heaven then you’re already in the club, and if you’re not in the club then…well…you should be!

The fact is that I read this book more or less at my mother’s insistence. She wanted to know what I thought of it. When I finished, my first question to her was not whether she liked it or felt touched by the story, but rather whether or not she believed it. I wanted to know whether or not the story sold itself to her; I couldn’t have cared less if she’d liked the book. Did she believe that a four year-old child died, went to heaven, and came back to tell the tale in bits and pieces over the next few years? (Yes, I’m subtly taking issue with that idea…)

In thinking about these ideas, it would probably be helpful to turn to an article by Stanley Fish that I read for a Lit Theory course, “Normal Circumstances…and Other Special Cases.” Fish begins his article with the example of Baltimore Orioles outfielder Pat Kelly. In May of 1977, Kelly, who had hit only five home runs the season before, knocked two out of the park in the same game and attributed his performance to Divine Providence. In the words of Baltimore Sun reporter Michael Janofsky, who is cited by Fish, Kelly could not discuss the game on a “strictly baseball level.” Fish points out that the conflict between Kelly and Janofksy arises out of their contradictory interpretive assumptions. When Kelly looks back at the events of game, he does so from the perspective of a born-again Christian; his interpretation of the game is preceded by an understanding of the game as influenced by divine intervention. Janofsky wants to hear about the changes in his swing or his attitude at the place, but none of this matters to Kelly. Kelly looks at his performance and sees only the work of God.

Now let’s head back to me and my mother. To make this discussion easy, let’s say that I am Janofsky and my mother is Kelly. Instead of a baseball game, we have a book. We both read the same text within weeks of one another in the same house. Neither the text nor the physical context changes, but we both seem to read a different book, arriving at radically different conclusions. My mother trusts the text and believes every word. I, on the other hand, have qualms about Burpo’s account. While the point might seem obvious, my mother believes the text because she already believes in heaven. That’s not to say that every Christian who read the book believed Todd Burpo. But I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that they’re more likely to.

According to Ron Hall, the book “will encourage those who doubt.” Does it? If I count myself as a skeptic, as one “who doubt[s],” then why has the book failed to work its magic?

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The book, as I just noted, requires some interpretive assumptions on the part of the reader. While these assumptions of belief or skepticism are important, more important is the underlying assumption of credibility (the elephant in the text, so to speak).

For one, you don’t need to be Jean Piaget to know that children at the ages of three and four may have difficulty comprehending dreams (not to mention a concept of the self in relation to others). It’s not too hard to imagine that Colton had a vivid dream and then backed it up with bits and pieces of information over the years.

Those rushing to the defense of Colton will point to his eerily specific knowledge about subjects like his mother’s miscarriage. But who’s to say that he doesn’t know? Burpo and his wife “explained it to Cassie” (p. 95), Colton’s older sister, but thought the issue was “beyond a four-year-old’s capacity to understand” (p. 95). Does that mean that Colton had no idea? Don’t get me wrong—I’m not advocating that parents tell young children about miscarriages—only saying that it’s not impossible or even improbable that Colton overheard a conversation at some point and wove it into the story of his dream.

The real issue for me is that Colton does not tell his own story. How can we trust Colton’s father? How can we know that all these details are correct? The only verification that takes place, takes place within the story. Colton’s mother and his babysitter both participate in Colton’s recollections of heaven.

But on top of that, there is the delicate line between fact and fiction. Burpo must make things up. Burpo cannot write as if he hasn’t already lived through everything. He has. His name on the cover says that much. This is and always will be an issue with memoir and autobiography. What is actually true? The back cover emphasizes that Colton’s story has been “retold by his father, but using Colton’s uniquely simple words.” I don’t doubt that Todd Burpo transcribed some of Colton’s statements verbatim, but every line of dialogue (and certainly not ever action) is verbatim.

Some will accuse me of being nitpicky. Of course I’m nitpicky. You have to be nitpicky about these things or else you forget about them altogether.

I’ve so far overlooked this detail, but it would be remiss to ignore the clear “with Lynn Vincent” on the front cover (and other places within the book). My take on multiple authors, particularly so-called “ghost-writing” co-authors, is that when you have more than one person is lurking in the text things start to get dicey. Who really said what? Which author wrote which sentence? I doubt that Vincent was charged with merely cleaning up syntax and rearranging sections. I wouldn’t be surprised if Vincent worked hand-in-hand with Burpo throughout the process. So what does that do to credibility? The purported author is Todd Burpo, but Lynn Vincent is also lurking somewhere in the text. In the case of this book, the presence of a ghostwriter only serves to undermine the book’s intent. This isn’t like Vincent’s other famous project—Going Rogue, which she wrote for/with Sarah Palin—this project is not about interest or curiosity or mass appeal or election polls. This is about belief and I don’t believe it.

A distinction: in choosing not to believe it, I don’t deny the book any element of truth. Colton probably thinks he went to heaven and came back. So be it. I fundamentally disagree about the reality of that, but Colton’s story and the way it has been presented don’t do much in a search for truth.

See more:

Stanley Fish, "Normal Circumstances...and Other Special Cases" - full text available on JSTOR if you have access: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1342948 or see Interpretive Social Science: A Reader, ed. by Paul Rabinow and William M. Sullivan (pp. 243-265).