Adhering to the 2014 Southern Baptist Convention resolution on “the sufficiency of Scripture regarding the afterlife,” officials at LifeWay Christian Resources have said that the organization will stop selling all “experiential testimonies books about heaven,” baptistpress.com has reported.
LifeWay’s decision to do so is connected with an inquiry into the book titled, 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper. The book details Piper’s supposed experiences in heaven after suffering an auto accident. The book sold 6.5 million copies.
LifeWay spokesman Marty King told Baptist Press that the decision to pull the books from the shelves is part of LifeWay’s “new structure and direction” it is undertaking.
“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 told Baptist Press in written comments. “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.”
The Southern Baptist Convention’s resolution, implemented last June, gave a staunch warning to believers about movies and books like 90 Minutes in Heaven, that those entities should not “become their source and basis for an understanding of the afterlife,”baptistpress.com reported.
A movie version of 90 Minutes in Heaven, produced by Giving Films, has completed filming and is set to release later this year. Hayden Christensen of Star Wars fame and Kate Bosworth star in the film.
