"Last week, a young man named Alex Malarkey made news when he publicly retracted his story that he'd been to heaven. This, understandably, may not seem like news to some people. But Malarkey's story, based on the tragedy of an auto accident when he was just 6 years old, became a best-selling book called The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven."

"More important, his book, along with others such as Heaven Is for Real — written by Todd Burpo based on the story of his then-young son, Colton — have come to form their own literary genre. Sometimes called "heavenly tourism," these volumes have proven quite lucrative for their publishers. The details of Malarkey's religiously motivated decision to tell the truth can be found elsewhere. But for me, his story raises a deep question about the origins of humanity's very deep anxiety about what happens after death."