This Heaven is NOT for Real

This is going to be painful for some of you to read, but so be it. 

When I first learned of the story of Colton Burpo, as told by his dad Todd Burpo in the book Heaven is for Real, I thought what a great testimony this young man will have for the Kingdom.  After spending time with this book, I am now saddened at what appears to me to be a manufactured story.

I don’t take this review lightly, but rather feel compelled to state my honest opinions – even in the face of the tremendous success of this book.  It is more than a stretch for me to accept some of the “recollections” of Colton, especially when they directly contradict scripture!

·        Colton describes Jesus’ horse as being rainbow colored.  I refer you to Revelation 19:11 – notice the white horse.  With the symbol and the colorscheme of the rainbow being co-opted today, is the anything more offensive?

·        Jesus has many crowns, not just one

·        The gates of heaven are made of pearl, not gold and pearl

I could go on and on, but if you don’t want to accept these three as proof of a manipulated story, you wouldn’t trust 100 discrepancies. 

If you are a new Christian, stay away from this book!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through their bloggers review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Do you KnoW Stealing??

"Every man lives by exchanging." -  Adam Smith

Not that I would endorse all of the writings of Adam Smith, but I find this quote to be a very appropriate opening statement for this review.

I've known Shane for several years now, and, over the time our acquaintance has grown, so has my respect for his scholarly approach to things of significance in his (our) life.  Such is the case whenever our morning discussions would turn to the topics of sound money.  I have not encountered many people that have the command of the principles of logical reasoning that Shane posesses.  When I found out that my friend had finally published a book (some of us knew this day would come), I could hardly wait to get my hands on a copy - and I'm so glad I did.

I am forced to say that in all my years of formal education, I had never learned of the Austrian School of Economics.  All of those good 1970 era dollars spent in vain sitting in micro and macro economic classes, principles and theory of banking, all culminating in a degree in accounting and I never heard of Ludwig Von Mises until I met Shane.

In his book, Shane has taken just the approach I knew he would take in laying out this material.  There is a God Principle in effect that is the foundation of a pure economic system and the author takes deliberate measures to detail this principle to the unitiated.

Complete with charts and illustrations, readers are led on a journey to rediscover the elementary fact that words have meanings, or, more specifically, accurate meanings!  I was pleasantly surprised that even a old goat like me could still discover some words with a nuanced meaning a little different than what I had thought.  Who knew??  Once the foundational understandings of the key words are in place, topics are explored to weave together the knowledge that will allow you to KnoW Stealing.

One of my favorite chapters, although hard to favor one over the other, deals with the issue of relative truth - something about as tangible as Nessie the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot.  There are many discussions daily that rely on relative truth, but in the exposure of a white-hot light we find that relative truth is really a poster child for oxymorons!  Relative truth is no truth at all.  Truth exists independent of a belief system.

We have come to a place in America that some say is unprecented, but I submit, not unpredictable.  There are several of Hamilton's writings included in this book that would indicate we have arrived at his central banking dream of Shangri la.  Hamilton knew, along with others, that dreams and fortunes could be controlled if you only had control of the money system thru central banking.  The question for our generation is how do we stop this degradation of society by the destruction of our economic system.

Well, in order to be effective in the battle, you first have to KnoW Stealing!