His eyes lingered on her as she passed. A first look was to be expected, but something kept him rapt. Perhaps it was the subtleness of the sultry confidence that she walked with. Regardless, the temptation was too great to look away, so he kept his eyes on her, unaware of the gravity of his decision.
Unaware that one day he’d be at the pearly gates, watching in horror as this scenario played out on a big screen, leaving him desperate to explain his questionable actions to St. Peter.
But alas, there was no escaping the lake of fire that awaited him.
It’s been more than 30 years since I was a kid staring at the aforementioned black-and-white cartoon imagery on an evangelism tract that Christians left at my home. But it’s still as clear in my mind today as it was back then.
Hell.
Lakes of fire. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. Eternal, conscious torment for those whose names aren’t written in the Book of Life.
And perhaps the ultimate motivator.
Although we often talk about how we’re compelled by Christ’s love and not by fear of burning in hell for eternity, the fact is that the fear of hell can be quite compelling.
Many people in the Christian community aren’t aware that the doctrine of hell has come under careful scrutiny as scholars, theologians, and “average” Christians have all started to realize that the typical understanding and teaching of hell is actually quite problematic.
The word itself didn’t exist when Jesus was walking around Palestine. When Jesus spoke of hell, the Greek word used by the gospel writers was Gehenna and it referred to a garbage dump outside of town. It was an actual, physical dump with a history that included children being sacrificed in the fire to pagan gods.
This certainly adds some perspective and context around the words of Jesus when he spoke of being in danger of the fire of hell.
I’m not going to get into a lengthy discourse about the various aspects of this debate or how the concept of hell has evolved over the course of the last two thousand years. Those who are interested can certainly do their own study on the matter.
But I’ve found it odd that in the midst of this conversation, some people get very defensive – even protective – about hell.
When Rob Bell’s book Love Wins started climbing the bestseller lists, it created quite a furor in the evangelical community, revealing something peculiar.
It seems that many people can’t imagine Christianity without hell.
One concern that I’ve seen rise to the surface frequently is that if there’s no hell, what motivation would there be for people to be Christians? Or for Christians to “reach out” to others?
Wow.
Okay, I understand fully how alarming and even unsettling this topic can be. But let’s back up for a minute and try to objectively consider what these questions imply.
Does this mean that loving for the sake of loving has no value? Serving for the sake of serving has no value? Meeting needs simply because there are needs to be met has no value?
Does this mean that the incredible teachings of the Sermon on the Mount – those that are often entirely counterintuitive in nature and yet simply offer a better way of living – have no value in our lives if there’s no fear of hell?
Does this mean that the hell we create for ourselves and others due to living in ways that are counter to what Jesus often taught isn’t pain enough? Does eternal torment have to be in the equation?
And perhaps most importantly, must Hitler enter the conversation as a clear example of why a literal hell simply has to exist?
Now obviously, if there’s a possibility that we’ve had the whole hell thing wrong, it raises a lot of very valid questions, some of which clearly raise more questions which, in turn, can raise even more questions.
Perhaps the most pressing question becomes what happens to people when they die if there’s no hell? Well, throughout church history, there have been three views. There’s the traditional understanding of hell, which involves eternal, conscious torment. There’s the annihilationist view, which puts forth that the souls of people who aren’t “saved” will simply cease to exist. And there’s the view of universal reconciliation, which says that God will ultimately restore everything and everyone.
I had no idea that these different views even existed, let alone that something like universalism is well supported by scripture.
There are plenty of other questions worthy of discussion. I won’t try to get into those now, but I want to mention a couple things that I find interesting.
First, throughout most of the history of the Jewish people as shown in the Old Testament, the belief was that everyone who died – Jew or non-Jew, righteous or wicked – went to a place called Sheol, also known as the grave or the place of the dead. The exceptions were a few notably righteous people who were said to have gone to be with God (such as Elijah, who was whisked up into the heavens in a flaming chariot).
If eternal torment was a potential consequence for one’s way of life, it seems odd that God wouldn’t reveal this. Not to mention it might’ve also been an effective method for trying to break the chosen people of some of their polytheistic tendencies.
Another consideration is something I started noticing many years ago and that’s the fact that Christians often seem far more concerned about teaching people they’re at risk of going to hell than Jesus ever was. As one of those Christians myself, that was an awkward realization. But it’s true.
Jesus simply didn’t spend a lot of time talking about going to heaven or avoiding hell.
Now, in the gospels, there are a number of references to being saved, for sure. But I started realizing that I was reading the gospels through our modern evangelical lenses, so I was reading into the texts an understanding that assumes “Oh, Jesus is talking about going to heaven.” When I stepped back and looked objectively, though, those ideas usually weren’t clear within the texts at all.
Sometimes it’s easy to assume an understanding of going to heaven, such as when Jesus says “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” But other passages are more obscure, like in Luke 7 when Jesus tells the sinful woman who poured perfume on his feet that her faith has saved her.
One thing that gave me pause to broadly interpreting “being saved” as going to heaven when we die was realizing that the word that’s translated as saved is the same word that’s sometimes translated elsewhere in the gospels as being healed or made whole. Examples include the bleeding woman who thought “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed” (Mark 5:28) and the blind man to whom Jesus says “Your faith has healed you” (Mark 10:52).
This makes me consider the many people I’ve known over the years who have posed questions like “Do you ever wonder if we’ve got it all wrong? If we’re missing the point and focusing on the wrong things?”
Along these lines, many people have pointed out the challenges with what has been dubbed “evacuation theology.”
In other words, theology that not only places an extremely high emphasis on going to heaven when we die, but that also embraces the notion that “this world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through” to such an extreme that we’re not really concerned at all with the things that are happening in this world. Or at the very least, this world is given far, far less priority than helping to “save” people in the traditional evangelical sense.
I’ve always dismissed such concerns over the years because on the surface the Bible seemed to be clear, but it looks like they may be worth considering.
The discussions around these concerns often result in labels and categories. It seems to become conservative vs. liberal. Traditional vs. postmodern. And in extreme cases, orthodox believer vs. heretic.
But I think labels are problematic. They create barriers and can keep the issues from ever getting engaged.
And frankly, people in all camps are realizing these potential challenges in our theology.
It may be easy to label Rob Bell as a liberal or postmodernist who’s merely trying to appeal to a young generation. But then we’ve got N.T. Wright, a highly respected New Testament scholar who I don’t see getting labeled as liberal or postmodern. Wright has written and spoken extensively on some of these very fundamental issues that deeply shape our understanding of God and Christianity.
A couple years ago, I was having a conversation with several other Christians. I mentioned that I’d been reading one of Wright’s books and I floated the possibility that the point of Jesus’ life was about far more than going to heaven when we die.
They looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. I may as well have had 666 tattooed on my forehead.
But I get it. It’s hard and often scary to entertain possibilities that don’t easily mesh with our traditional beliefs. It doesn’t mean these things shouldn’t be engaged and considered, though.
Maybe instead of being so protective about hell, we could consider that if we’ve gotten it wrong and hell doesn’t exist, it might actually provide more motivation for people. Because, as countless people are pointing out, what does the idea of eternal conscious torment say about who we believe God is?
And if there’s such concern that without hell there wouldn’t be any motivation, perhaps we need to take the time to seriously consider what’s at the heart of our own motivation.
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