Back in 2004, Alex Malarkey was on his way home from church in Huntsville, Ohio; when was nearly killed in a car accident. He survived, but was left paralyzed from the neck down. He’s been confined to a wheelchair and ventilator, and has trouble expressing himself due to severe brain injuries. In 2010, a book, “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven,” came out in which he told of seeing Jesus and other figures in heaven. The book was a sensation in the Christian community, and was even made into a television movie in 2010.
Well, on Thursday, the book’s publisher, Tyndale House, dropped a bombshell–it was yanking the book from print after Alex admitted he never really went to heaven. Two days earlier, Alex reached out to Pulpit & Pen, an evangelical blog, and asked it to publish an open letter renouncing the book and asking for its removal from the shelves. Alex wrote that at the time, he only said he went to heaven “because I thought it would get me attention.” He went on to say that those who were selling the book had “profited from lies.”
It turns out that Alex’ mother and sole nonstop caregiver for almost a decade, Beth, has raised objections to the book for over three years. In November 2012, she wrote a blog post in which she said she and her family did not agree with the book’s content. She also wrote that over the years, dozens of people have visited their house to talk with him. That greatly concerned her, since Alex was “just a boy not a statue to be worshipped or someone with supernatural gifts.” Last Easter, Beth wrote that Alex had tried to raise objections to the book, only to have them ignored. When Alex told a pastor that the book was wrong, he was told the book was “blessing” people.
Beth asked Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace to You, the media ministry of prominent evangelist John MacArthur, to help plead her case. Johnson says that Beth provided letters dating back to 2011 in which she said the account in the book had been heavily embellished. She also said that Alex’ father, Kevin–listed as co-author–had actually written most of the book, and Alex strongly objected to being listed as co-author. Tyndale maintains that it was aware of Beth’s concerns, but that she consistently rejected any offers to discuss them. However, according to Johnson, Beth was more than willing to Skype with Tyndale officials–but Tyndale refused to do so. Beth has publicly refused all interview requests for now, saying she simply doesn’t have the time due to the need to care for Alex and his three siblings (two brothers and a sister).
It appears this book has problems far graver than inaccuracy. Hours after Tyndale pulled the book, Pulpit & Pen detonated another blockbuster. Last spring, Christian apologist Justin Peters wrote Thom Ranier, the president of LifeWay Christian Resources–one of the largest Christian booksellers in the nation–to say that he’d had numerous conversations with Beth Malarkey, and Beth had told him that Kevin has not supported his son with the profits from the book. That email went unanswered. To my mind, that alone should have been enough for any responsible Christian bookseller to pull the book immediately. Accurate or not, you simply cannot defend someone who appears to be making money off of his disabled son and not letting him share in it.
The most benign interpretation of this is that Tyndale and LifeWay were both blinded by green smog. This book was a New York Times bestseller, and at last report had sold over a million copies. Were they so blinded that they were unwilling to discuss the book’s inaccuracies face-to-face, or to address the concerns that Kevin wasn’t using the bonanza he was getting to support his son? Sadly, it looks like the answer to both questions is yes.
