Tim Challies: 'I Regret to Inform You That Heaven Tourism Is Back'

Posted at @Challies:

I regret to inform you, dear reader, that heaven tourism is back. The genre possibly never went away entirely, but it did at least disappear from the bestseller lists for several years. Sadly, it has returned in Gabe Poirot’s 18 Days in Heaven, which was one of the bestselling Christian books last month and even made its way to the New York Times list of bestsellers—a feat most authors can only dream of. Out of sheer magnanimity (and perhaps a morbid sense of curiosity), I read it so you don’t have to.

Before I tell you what it’s all about, here’s a brief history of heaven tourism. Don Piper kicked off the genre in 2004 with 90 Minutes in Heaven, and it proved a surprise hit that quickly dominated the sales charts, eventually tallying upwards of 8 million copies sold. Todd Burpo’s Heaven Is for Real followed in 2010 with over 10 million copies sold. That same year brought Kevin and Alex Malarkey’s The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, which sold more than a million copies before Alex recanted his story and the publisher pulled it. The genre went on to deliver many more heaven books and a handful of less-popular hell books like Bill Wiese’s 23 Minutes in Hell, though none ever reached the same heights as the first few—no pun intended. My contribution to the genre was little more than reviewing several of the books and coining the snarky phrase “heaven tourism,” which, much to my delight, soon caught on.

The genre inevitably ran its course, but has now returned in Gabe Poirot’s 18 Days in Heaven: I Left My Body. I Met Jesus. What He Told Me Will Alter Your Eternity. Sadly, but not surprisingly, it is just as bad as its predecessors, mixing truth with errors and documented facts with spurious speculations until it is as confusing and unreliable as any of them.

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