A Few Words on Hell

I once was asked to sing a few songs at the funeral of a man I did not know. Apparently, he was not a believer. The pastor of the little church got up and preached for twenty minutes about how this man was in hell and probably screaming as the fire tortured him. I will never forget the agony of that funeral. There was no hope given. Several people walked out. Those who remained were groaning and crying uncontrollably. I was asked to play soft music on the piano as the preacher, a manipulative jerk, tried to get the family to come to the alter and get saved. I felt terrible, having played a part in this tragedy. That day was one of the pivotal points in my journey out of classic Pentecostalism.

I have lost all interest in debating the subject of hell with my evangelical friends. This used to be one of my favorite subjects. But at some point, I just realized that anyone who does not at least question the evangelical version of hell is not being intellectually honest. And they are ignoring obvious logical and theological inconsistencies. So why waste the energy.

I believe that the evangelical concept of hell is a creation of third century Catholicism and was significantly enhanced by people like Dante and Jonathan Edwards. The dark, eternal abyss, burning with fire and brimstone, that tortures, but does not consume its victims is a hideous myth perpetrated by the Catholic Church to keep the masses in line. And it is time for evangelicals to come, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century. I find it funny that evangelicals pride themselves on having thrown off all Catholic tradition. But this most Catholic of all traditions is held onto so tightly. I think they feel the need to manipulate their congregations with this craziness.

First, let me address how I think we got here. Bible translators, especially those creating the Latin Vulgate translation, combined several separate and distinct concepts into one. The words Hades, Gehenna, Sheol, and Tartarus were all translated as one word, the English Hell. These words mean different things and are sometimes translated into totally different words, where the context could not possibly mean hell. But by combining all these words into one, we created the concept of hell that is still taught in most evangelical churches and denominations. For an excellent breakdown of all this information, I suggest clicking on the link above titled, "What the Hell is Hell?". The chart of words translated "hell" is an eye-opener if you will examine it with an open mind.

Let's examine the obvious question. All evangelical denominations have in their statements of faith a belief in an eternal hell without the possibility of annihilation or liberation. Yet no one preaches it anymore. Why? I think it is because those who have examined this doctrine do not believe it anymore. Yet the one thing evangelicals fear over all else is being called a heretic. So they go along with the crowd, never actually preaching on hell, but never denying the horrendous implications of its existence. The most obvious implication is that God comes off looking worse than Hitler or Stalin.

Let's examine the eternal aspect of hell for a moment. This comes from a sad misinterpretation of Mark 9:43-50. First, it says that the fire is eternal and is not quenched. It does not say that a man lives on in a state of eternal punishment in the fire. Second, and most importantly, Jesus is speaking of Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinon, where a continuous fire burned and served as Jerusalem's garbage pit. Those he was speaking to understood the word Gehenna as that physical place near Jerusalem.

And most importantly, Christians need to examine their adoration of a God who would create the world from nothing and come up with a system whereby most of humanity ends up in unspeakable horror and torture for millions of years. I think even the hardest of humans would give Hitler a break after a period of watching him suffer in the fire. The evangelical god comes off looking like the crazed husband who tells his wife that he loves her so much he will have to kill her if she rejects him. I wholeheartedly and absolutely reject such a concept of god. I would not worship such a god.

And if evangelicals are going to take Mark 9 literally, they absolutely must teach their people to literally cut off body parts and pluck out their eyes to avoid ending up in hell. I know of a man who emasculated himself after taking these verses literally. A few weeks later, he committed suicide. There is no Christian pastor anywhere who teaches this literally.

Then there is the inconsistency of physical torture of a spiritual body. The physical body is able to feel pain. But the physical body dies. So we are to believe that God miraculously provides the unrighteous dead with an eternal body that is able to feel burning pain without being consumed. Once again, we have to reject this brutal, sadistic god.

Then there is the inconvenient fact that Judaism has no tradition of hell like Christianity. Are we to believe that God revealed his plan to Moses and the prophets and left out this most important of facts about the afterlife?

I have spent hundreds of hours studying this subject. I challenge all Christians to do the same. Read Jonathan Edwards horrendous sermon titled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". Read what he said about "reprobate infants" being held over the flames of God's wrath. It paints God in the most hideous light any Calvinist could ever dream up. The sermon can be found here:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.sinners.html

Read Dante's Inferno. I believe Edwards and Dante had much more influence on our concept of hell than anything the Bible ever said about it. This is a doctrine that must be purged from Christianity. It is wrong. It is sadistic. And it is giving God an undeserved bad reputation.