What the Hell?

If you pay attention to religious news you will have seen some serious controversy over hell. Is it real? Is it literal? Who is going there? Is anyone?

Rob Bell is the pastor of one of those new mega churches and he has written a book that implies that maybe . . . just maybe . . . God is not going to send everyone to eternal punishment. Maybe . . . just maybe . . . God’s love is bigger than we ever imagined.

“What a grievous error!” Shout out some sincere defenders of the faith. The issue is, if we don’t take hell seriously, then we grow slack in our efforts to evangelize the world, and thus the world, as they say, goes to hell (assuming hell is an actual place/existential reality). Point well-taken. We wouldn’t want anyone going to hell because of our theological fuzziness or the complacency of our witness.

A Methodist colleague and student pastor in the eastern part of North Carolina recently was removed from his appointment at the church’s request because, among other things, he agreed with Rob Bell. Obviously, it doesn’t pay to not take hell seriously.

I think Rob Bell has gotten so much attention because of his popularity. He is not saying anything that hasn’t been said before (Phillip Gulley and Robert Mulholland, If God is Love, and If Grace Is True). For that matter, in the early centuries of the church’s history a man named Origen also explored the possibility of universal salvation, and was proclaimed a heretic for his trouble.

Most of us have a vision of hell that is shaped more by Dante’s Inferno, written in the 14th Century, than the hell of scripture. Medieval art gives us vivid images of souls enduring eternal punishment.

Modern sensibility denies such literalism. Jesus did tell parables of judgment, but the argument goes that the images he used were for the purposes of instruction. He used metaphor and hyperbole to make a point. Gehenna, often translated as “hell” was a reference to the Hinnom Valley outside of Jerusalem where everyone took their trash to be burned. You can imagine the smoke always rising from Gehenna, a graphic way to envision an unrepentant life – selfish, sinful, good for nothing but smoke. But did Jesus mean that people were going to literally burn forever in a lake of fire? I find that hard to believe from the same Jesus who in John’s Gospel (3:17) came, “not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.”

Here’s the heart of the matter for me. It is not for me to decide the nature of hell. I have had experiences that felt like hell, and I know people who seem to be going through hell, so I know that much about the reality of it. I also am not in the position to decide who goes to hell and who doesn’t. The whole point of John 14:6 seems to be that it is Jesus who decides (no one comes to the Father but through me). Will Jesus save everyone? I doubt it. Some people are so stubborn they will bite off their own nose to spite their face.
Evil is real. C.S. Lewis said not to take the devil too seriously, but he also reminds us not to take him too lightly, either.

I believe Jesus doesn’t force himself on anyone. There is no vestige of hyper-Calvinism in me. We are always free to reject or accept – to obey or not. That was true in the Garden of Eden, and I assume it is true eternally. No one is brought into the kingdom against their will. Does that mean they are going to hell? I don’t know. Maybe it means they are already in it. Does that mean they will eventually be saved. I don’t know. Jesus is the one who decides. Meanwhile, I keep sharing the good news about a man who is like no man history has ever known – someone who came not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. There is fullness of life in him. I do know that much.

“Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us (Romans 8:34).” Perhaps as long as Jesus is interceding for us there is hope for all of us, come hell or high water.