LifeWay Pulls All Heaven Tourism Books over Doubts of Authenticity

Carrie Dedrick | Updated: Mar 25, 2015

LifeWay Pulls All Heaven Tourism Books over Doubts of Authenticity

Christian bookstore chain LifeWay Christian Resources has made a decision to pull all books in the “heaven tourism” genre from its shelves. Christian Today reports that the store’s decision came after Alex Malarkey, subject of the book “The Boy Who Came From Heaven,” admitted that his story was a work of fiction. 

LifeWay spokesman Marty King said that the chain had considered removing heaven tourism book even before Malarkey said his story was made up.

"Last summer, as we began developing LifeWay's new structure and direction... the role of heaven visitation resources was included in our considerations. We decided these experiential testimonies about heaven would not be a part of our new direction, so we stopped re-ordering them for our stores last summer,” King said. 

"Now that we've begun implementing the new direction, the remaining heaven visitation items have been removed from our stores and website and will not be replenished."

A Southern Baptist Convention resolution to use scripture alone as a description of heaven also influenced LifeWay’s decision. Christians were warned against "the numerous books and movies purporting to explain or describe the afterlife experience" to "become their source and basis for an understanding of the afterlife.” 

Instead, Southern Baptists were pointed to “the sufficiency of biblical revelation over subjective experiential explanations to guide one's understanding of the truth about heaven and hell.” 

Publication date: March 25, 2015



LifeWay Pulls All Heaven Tourism Books over Doubts of Authenticity