In Heaven Is For Real
(2014), a film based on Todd Burpo’s best-selling non-fiction book of the same
title, the evangelical Christian minister becomes convinced that his son,
Colton, actually visited heaven while in surgery. Todd cannot make his
faith-held belief intelligible to even his wife, Sonja. She misunderstands her
husband and questions his obsession and even his sanity until Colton tells her something
about heaven that applies to her uniquely. Then both parents are uniquely
related in an absolute way through faith to the absolute—to the absurd, in
Kierkegaard’s parlance. How Todd deals with his realization can be unpacked by applying
the work of the nineteenth-century European philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard.
The full essay is at “Heaven
Is For Real”
