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“Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife” by Eben Alexander won’t be released until Oct. 23, but it is already No. 5 on Amazon’s bestseller list — right between the “Fifty Shades of Grey” soft-porn trilogy and “How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You.”
“Proof of Heaven” joins two other books with similar themes. “To Heaven and Back: A Doctor’s Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again: A True Story,” by Mary Neal, came out in May and “Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back” by Todd Burpo, was published two years ago and had sold over a million copies since. It’s still in the top 30.
Americans are big fans of heaven. In a 2008 poll, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 74% of us believe in heaven. Among evangelicals, that number is as high as 86%; among members of historically black churches, 91%; and among Mormons, 95%. Even among those who are unaffiliated with any faith, 41% believe in heaven.
Perhaps it’s just self-interest. Few of us want to think that our lives are really over when our bodies hit the ground. But there are other factors that make these kind of books popular.
David Campbell, co-author of “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us,” says, “For all the talk about the growing secularization of America, we should remember that this remains a highly religious country. Even among the many people who don’t have the label of organized religion.”
Not having a religious affiliation, he says, “doesn’t mean you don’t believe in God or an afterlife.”
In fact, he notes that “at a time when people seem unmoored from the faith of their childhood they might be looking for some other way to learn about the afterlife than from a pastor or a rabbi or reading the Bible.”
But these books are not simply about how to get to heaven. Or at least not in the way most religious figures would advocate. One reason Campbell speculates that these books are so popular is their “ecumenism.”
The stories of these near-death experiences often use the imagery that is common to a variety of faiths. Says Campbell, “Each tradition thinks that their idea of moving toward the light is unique,” but it’s not.
Even Americans who do subscribe to a particular faith apparently find much to like in these universally accessible heaven tales.
In the current issue of the New Yorker, Lynn Vincent, who ghost-wrote “Heaven is for Real” on behalf of the young boy Colton Burpo and his father, said that she was initially reluctant to include Colton’s description of people in heaven having wings. “If I put that people in Heaven have wings, orthodox Christians are going to think that the book is a hoax.” She did and they didn’t.
There is plenty of evidence that even relatively religious Christians in America like to think heaven itself is universally accessible.
Another 2008 Pew poll showed that 65% of us think “many religions can lead to eternal life.” A majority of Christians (52%) actually said that some non-Christian faiths can lead to an afterlife.
Dismaying though that may be for some religious leaders, the idea that God is a mountain and there are many ways up has become more and more popular in recent decades. As R.R. Reno, the editor of First Things, a magazine published by the Institute for Religion and Public Life, tells me, “This is a consequence of pluralism.” As we live with and work with and go to school with members of other faiths, it becomes harder and harder to suggest that our fellow citizens won’t be able get through the pearly gates. Reno notes, “it also gets to the modern concern about fairness and equality.” How can we deny people entrance to heaven just because they have not been exposed to Christianity?
Still, Americans also have a healthy sense of skepticism about these metaphysical matters. Two of the books are by doctors. Campbell notes that it has always been in the American style of religion “to have the desire for some sort of empirical validation of our beliefs.” You can see that in the whole cottage industry of biblical archaeologists. People are endlessly searching for scientific evidence of stories depicted in the Old or New Testament. Their findings make for bestselling newsmagazines and TV specials.
Reno says that especially in the wake of the Richard Dawkins and the rise of the new atheism, which essentially used science to attempt to debunk religious belief, readers may find it “compelling to have scientists testify otherwise.”
“Heaven is for Real,” the story of a 4-year-old boy who claims to have died and met Jesus, is by far the most successful of the genre, though. Perhaps even more than we want to hear the testimony of scientists, we believe that a child’s witness is wholly innocent of self-interest. Out of the mouths of babes, and all that.
Heaven, not surprisingly, is much more popular than hell. Only 59% of us consider the fiery pits a reality. And so far as I can tell, no one has offered an account of a journey there. That cat book might come close.
Naomi Schaefer Riley’s book on interfaith marriage, “’Til Faith Do Us Part,” will be released in the spring by Oxford University Press.