Bestseller “ Boy who came from heaven” – admits he made it all up…

 

Alex Malarkey was in a car accident that left him paralyzed and in a 2 month long coma when he was 6 years old. The book he wrote with his father is the “true story” of events that unfolded during that time where he went to heaven.

In an open letter for the Pulpit and Pen blog, the now teenaged Alex stated, “I did not die. I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible.” I will not go into the fact that the bible was also written by man.

A great deal of profit was made from this book and others like it – what Alex experienced is something called “heavenly tourism” and the Christian industry is cashing it in. People find this very interesting and with good reason, because nobody knows what happens when we die and to read about brings comfort. But even if you did believe this account of Alex’s story to be the absolute truth – it should not be a surprise that it was a lie. Alex was a 6 years old kid and suffered major brain trauma.

From salon article:

“…Pulpit and Pen has posted emails suggesting that LifeWay president Thom Rainer received direct information months ago that “Alex does not support this book.” Note that Alex’s mother Beth – who is now divorced from his father — wrote last April that “Alex was a kid with major brain trauma which alone should raise questions as to validity,” and that “Alex’s name and identity are being used against his wishes (I have spoken before and posted about it that Alex has tried to publicly speak out against the book), on something that he is opposed to and knows to be in error according to the Bible.”” –

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/16/boy_who_came_back_from_heaven_he_didnt_go_to_heaven_after_all/

I am not going to go into the delusion of religion – my main point here in this blog is that here you have a Christian publishing industry exploiting a child and then trying to keep the poor kid from coming clean – all for the profit motive. People made allot of money using this child by exploiting people’s beliefs even though they knew the book was a lie. As long as the book sells it’s all that matters.

The writer of the salon article ended with a very cool question:

“And if heaven were real, I’d question today who, in the very lucrative and dubious world of Christian celestial tourism, would actually deserve a ticket to it — and who would be turned away.”