Why we CAN Afford to get Hell Wrong

Lately, this argument about Heaven and Hell has gotten shallow. Our arguments have turned to this finger pointing mockery of our brothers and sisters in Christ… There are two books that are schedule to come out soon, one is by a pastor that I admire for his courage to step away from his church. That pastor is Francis Chan, whose book is called Erasing Hell. The whole point of the book is that we have to re-examine . The second book is really by a pastor whom I have never heard of, but his book is titled “God Wins- The truth about Heaven, Hell and how the good news is better than Love Wins”…. How shallow is that. When did we forget that we are a body, and when did we start being the mouth.

I am discouraged. Not because these pastors are taking on this subject, but because they are attempting to only allow their understanding of scripture to be the right one. When we shape our thinking in only one way, when we define God to a point in which we believe we understand everything about God, we are clearly misunderstanding everything there is to know about God, even if we say phrases that convince others and even ourselves that we don't have God figured out. There are going to be things that we can’t even begin to fathom, so why try to force your own theological theory about topics that have little to do with salvation. I mean, when Jesus called the disciples, did Jesus give them a multiple choice test on certain theology, and if they failed, they would not cut it? I love this quote:

“We evangelicals tend to colonize the text, make Scripture our own possession and in effect make the words of Scripture an idolatry. As a result, we have become a controlling, uninviting, judgmental people losing the ability to encounter the living God and inviting others into such an encounter. We know Scripture but we are untouched by it and so we are insulated from God who seeks to reveal Himself in and through it.”-David Fitch

I am going to not try to use scripture to defend my argument, because in all honesty, I don’t believe we use scripture to win arguments or strengthen our opinions…. No, scripture is meant solely as our insight to Christ, and our defense against worldly living. I believe scripture has power, but even the demons and Satan use scripture to battle…Do we worry about that ever?

The crux of my argument here is that all of us CAN afford to get hell wrong. We can afford to get it wrong because no matter what hell is or isn’t, Christ has disarmed it, is victorious over it, has defeated it, has made a mockery of it, and most importantly made a clear point that states that we are to storm the gates. Our message about sending people to hell, and defining hell does us no good. Our enemy is not the various theologies of hell, our enemy is oppression, darkness, evil, wickedness,  anything that even attempts to rob us of God, and not even pastors who preach that they hope every person goes Heaven..

The doctrine of Hell does not matter to your salvation, and this goes out to all my friends who are new Christians, agnostics and atheists… Because our message is not about destruction, our message is a story of pure love! The Good News is that Jesus has come for you, and is not willing that you shall perish, but often we don’t choose God whom has chosen us through the life, death and resurrection of Christ.

How much money do we waste consuming all of this. I am even at fault. As of 2:15 am May 23rd, 2011 there have been 417,294 suicides this year, as of 2:18 am May 23rd, 2011 there have been 654,177 deaths caused by HIV/AIDS this year, and today alone by 2:20 am May 23rd, 2011 there have been 3,017 deaths due to hunger (2 hours and twenty minutes). We have time to discuss what hell is like, but yet we don’t have time to fight it? Hell has come now, and it has disguised itself as hopeless, painful suffering, life eating, soul sucking misery. Hell is not some far off distant land. Hell is here, trying to convince all of us that the life of mass consumption, self indulgence, self-preservation, minimal community interaction and so many other fleeting feelings and lies are true. We spend so much time saying who can go to Heaven, that we forget that our neighbors are experiencing hell right now.

Just the other day, I listen as a teenager explains to me their personal hell they are going through with their addictions. A few weeks ago, I listen to a close friend share with me some deep pain about his current relationship. Just a while ago, I got to hear about the personal hell of a rape victim.

You ask me why I think it is shallow for us to be defining hell; my answer is because it does no good for the people who are already experiencing hell right now. Jesus told Peter to storm the gates of hell because they can’t prevail against the church… When did we lose sight of this imagery? When did we stop kicking down the walls of child brothels? When did we stop holding the hands of the hopeless? When did we stop mourning with a friend who lost a child to cancer? When did we start thinking that evil and wickedness and treating each other as dumber or satan disguised as light was Christ like? When did we become shallow?

I don’t believe Rob Bell is 100% right. I do believe that Rob Bell believes in Jesus Christ, and the Jesus is whom Mr. Bell strives to be like. I have read his book. I don’t believe Francis Chan is 100% right. I do believe that Francis Chan believes in Jesus Christ and the Jesus is whom Mr. Chan strives to be like. I will probably read his book.

But in all of this we must remember that God’s ways are not like our ways. If God chooses to do something different than what I have been taught to believe about hell, than that is under God’s direction. But at the same time God is not going to teach us about Love and Justice and Compassion just to turn around and do the opposite. To all my conservative Christian friends, this is not even a hint at universalism, I believe there is a hell and God takes NO pleasure in having anyone there, but this is a hint that God is teaching us about Love and Justice and Compassion, and we can’t discredit the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can’t afford to miss the good news of the Gospel for our shallow understanding of the afterlife.

Your job as a Christians is to stop defining God, and start living with God. When you read about the day of judgment in Matthew 25, God does not say to the righteous that because they had such great defined doctrine and that they could define hell clearly and have a clear image of what the Bible says and because they took everything literally that they get into Heaven… No, far from that, God looks at how they lived out their faith. You see, salvation is not contingent on your works, but your belief in God is shown through your works. Gal 5:6b”…for the only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love.”

I have wasted so much time being absorbed by this debate. May we stop that, and may we start being absorbed in the Mercy, Justice and Humility we find in Christ, and may we in turn do that very thing to others.

Much Love.
Casey