Last night I sat through a showing of Heaven Is For Real for the second time in my life. I’m not sure why I did. I honestly don’t like the movie. Since I already saw it the first time I used the second time to figure out what exactly I did not like about it. Here is a point form list.
1. The little Kid, Colton, cannot act. All he does is dead pan things and everyone thinks he’s a cute, adorable angel.
2. The book and movie is theologically incorrect on so many levels. How can Colton be allowed to know what Jesus looks like when in the second commandment, God tells us that He does not want us making images of Him. Also when Moses asked to see God’s face, God told him he wouldn’t be able to handle it and only showed him his back.
3. The pastor does not preach from scripture but more so from his heart. Wouldn’t he know that his heart only wants to sin though? Where else would lions, bears, and unicorns come from? He also openly admits that he doesn’t know if he believes any of what he is preaching himself. How can you pastor a church if you don’t believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ or anything else you read in the Bible for that matter?
4. All through the movie we are bombarded with the message that God is love. While that is very true, it seems we have forgotten that God is holy, righteous, just and cannot tolerate sin as well. (If sin was not a big deal like most of us claim, then Jesus would not have had to die for all of our sins.) It’s not as much fun for people to talk about those attributes of God in a movie I guess.
5. How are we to assume what heaven will be like? It will be wonderful, but movies like this may spoil it because we’ll go into heaven with expectations and if they’re not met we will be disappointed. Who wants to be disappointed with heaven?
Over all I think this movie has brought more confusion into the mix than good. For those of us who follow Jesus, there will be much to straighten out.