Posted on 02/09/2014 8:05:52 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
According to recent polls, some 81 percent of adult Americans believe in heaven, and fully 80 percent expect to go there when they die. By comparison, about 61 percent believe in hell, but less than 1 percent think it’s likely they will go there. In other words, a slight majority of Americans still believe hell exists, but genuine fear of hell is almost nonexistent.
Even the most conservative evangelicals don’t seem to take hell very seriously anymore. For decades, many evangelicals have downplayed inconvenient biblical truths, neglecting any theme that seems to require somber reflection. Doctrines such as human depravity, divine wrath, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the reality of eternal judgment have disappeared from the evangelical message.
The trend has not escaped everyone’s attention. Thirty years ago, for example, Martin Marty, religious historian, professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and critic of all things evangelical, delivered the Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality at Harvard Divinity School. The title of his message was “Hell Disappeared. No One Noticed.” Marty’s research had failed to turn up a single scholarly article dealing with the subject of hell in any significant theological journal over the previous century. Citing the dearth of attention being given to so large a topic, Marty suggested that if evangelicals really took seriously what Scripture says about eternal punishment, someone with a voice should notice.
Almost no one did. Eighteen years later, The Los Angeles Times featured a front-page article titled “Hold the Fire and Brimstone,” pointing out that many style-conscious evangelical church leaders were purposely omitting the theme of divine retribution:
In churches across America, hell is being frozen out as clergy find themselves increasingly hesitant to sermonize on … a story line that no longer resonates with churchgoers. [According to] Harvey Cox Jr., an eminent author, religious historian and professor at the Harvard Divinity School, “You can go to a whole lot of churches week after week, and you’d be startled even to hear a mention of hell.”
Hell’s fall from fashion indicates how key portions of Christian theology have been influenced by a secular society that stresses individualism over authority and the human psyche over moral absolutes. The rise of psychology, the philosophy of existentialism, and the consumer culture have all dumped buckets of water on hell.
The article profiled an evangelical pastor who said he believes in hell, but (according to the Times) “you’d never know it listening to him preach… . He never mentions the topic; his flock shows little interest in it.” Asked why the doctrine of hell has gone missing, this pastor replied, “It isn’t sexy enough anymore.”
The article also quoted a well-known seminary professor who more or less agreed. Hell, he said, is “just too negative… . Churches are under enormous pressure to be consumer-oriented. Churches today feel the need to be appealing rather than demanding.”
The article closed with a quote from Martin Marty, almost two decades after his famous lecture on the subject. He agreed that market-driven concerns are the main reason hell is being expunged from the evangelical message:
Once pop evangelism went into market analysis, hell was just dropped. When churches go door to door and conduct a market analysis … they hear, “I want better parking spaces. I want guitars at services. I want to have my car greased while I’m in church.”
Years of indifference finally paved the way for open hostility. In the first decade of the new millennium, certain prominent figures in the “emergent church” declared war on the biblical doctrine of hell. The groundswell seemed to crest a couple of years ago with the publication of Rob Bell’s bestselling book Love Wins. Bell argued that it’s absurd to think a loving God would ever damn anyone to eternal punishment. He portrayed God’s love as a force that clashes with and ultimately eliminates the demands of justice. In the storyline Bell envisions, God requires no payment or punishment for sin. The divine response to evil is always remedial, never punitive. Furthermore, the wages of sin are mild, temporary, and reserved only for grossly malevolent villains—mass murderers, child rapists, tyrants who engineer genocide, and (one supposes) Christians who tell unbelievers they should fear God. When it’s all over, everyone will be together in paradise.
In such a system, God’s righteousness is compromised, repentance is optional, atonement is unnecessary, and the truth of God’s Word is nullified. In other words, nothing of biblical Christianity is left. Once anyone sets out to tone down or tame the hard truths of Scripture, that’s where the process inevitably leads.
Only a few leading voices in the evangelical movement have lobbied boldly for a more orthodox approach to the doctrine of hell. They seem to be outnumbered by those who think the disappearance of hell is a positive development.
Some have proposed alternative ways to speak of sin and judgment in gentler, toned-down, and more refined and socially acceptable terminology than Scripture uses. Sin is deemed wrong not because it is an offense against the righteousness of God, but because of the hurt it causes others. Hell is described not as a place of eternal punishment but simply as a realm apart from God. In the reimagined eschatology of stylish evangelicals, no one is ever “sent” to hell; sinners actually choose to spend eternity apart from God—and the “hell” they suffer is merely an abundance of what they loved and desired the most. Hell is necessary only because God is reluctant to overrule anyone’s free will. Therefore, with a more or less benign acquiescence, He ultimately defers to the sinner’s choice. God’s righteous indignation has no meaningful place in such a scenario.
It is a serious mistake to imagine that we improve Scripture or enhance its effectiveness by blunting its sharp edges. Scripture is a sword, not a cotton swab, and it needs to be fully unsheathed before it can be put to its intended use. “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). The gospel is supposed to be an affront to fleshly pride, offensive to human sensibilities, foolishness in the eyes of worldly wisdom, and contrary to all carnal judgments.
No Christian teaching exemplifies those characteristics more powerfully than the doctrine of hell. It is an appalling truth. We rightly recoil at the thought of it. The doctrine of hell thus stands as a warning and a reminder of what a loathsome reality sin is. No reasonable or godly person delights in the reality of eternal damnation. God Himself says, “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek. 33:11).
Yet the severity of God’s wrath and the woes of hell are prominent in Scripture. The New Testament speaks more vividly and more frequently about hell than the Old Testament does. In fact, Jesus Himself had more to say about the subject than any other prophet or biblical writer. Far from smoothing over the difficulties that seem to embarrass so many evangelicals today, Jesus said:
Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! (Luke 12:4–5)
If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. (Matt. 18:8–9)
We do no one any favors by downplaying the truth of God’s wrath or neglecting to mention the severity of His judgment. We certainly don’t eliminate the threat of hell by refusing to speak or think of it. If we truly believe what the Bible teaches about the eternal fate of unbelievers, it is in no sense “loving” to remain silent and refuse to sound the appropriate alarm.
What, after all, is the good news we proclaim in the gospel? It is not an announcement that no one really needs to fear God or fret about the possibility of hell. As a matter of fact, there would be no glad tidings at all if God merely intended to capitulate to the stubborn will of man and forgo the demands of His perfect righteousness.
The good news is even better than most believers understand: God made a way for His righteousness and His love to be fully reconciled. In His incarnation, Christ fulfilled all righteousness (satisfying, not nullifying, the demands of His law). In His death on the cross, He paid the price of His people’s sin in full (assuring the triumph of perfect justice). And in His resurrection from the dead, He put a powerful exclamation mark on His own perfect, finished work of atonement (thus sealing the promise of justification forever for those who trust Him as Lord and Savior).
That is the message we must declare to a worldly culture utterly lacking any real fear of God. We cannot do it faithfully or effectively if from the very outset we have omitted the harsh truth Scripture declares about “the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Rev. 19:15).
Do you believe the Bible?
This guy mentions one verse. In Luke.
Most people get their theology from the media, like in this article and the opinions of others which is based on nothing but random thoughts.
Insane.
Most parents entrust school (which excludes God - where BTW because of this there is no protection from evil sandy hook is just one exhibition of the evil that roams unopposed) for the religious education of the gifts God gave them to return to him
People don’t like the Catholic Church teaching on this . After mass we used to cover the stations of the cross and pull the curtain over the crucifix. We shred the base chapel with the Protestants
The heresy is: Suffering is a thing of the past, it is to be avoided, it is unnecessary Americans are immersed in this false philosophy
The Catholic Church is very clear on this. Most Catholics choose to forget this and that the catechism is what they must base their personal tenets on in order to gain heaven
No catholic (basically) can receive the sacraments past baptism without knowing through year long classes and promises from their parents to perpetuate this, that there is hell and that we are to know the life of Christ, we are to have a relationship with Him in order to live right and gain heaven
When parents baptize their children in the Catholic Church they and the Godparents promise God to reinforce this teaching, based on the teaching that God loves us and wants us with him for eternity
Catholic teaching states that everyone is judged by what he knows, by his own faith
The gospels can be read as easily as any novel or biography
People think Catholics don’t read the bible. It’s as untrue as anything can be
People ignore the precept of setting aside Sunday as Gods day. They think people’s work is so much more important than giving praise to God. The cure d ars a confessor priest and now a saint said on his arrival to France that he had a vision of Gods anger at people’s not keeping holy the sabbath
If Catholics would do so, they would have bible study, which is included in every Mass. And they would remember he’ll and they’d use confession and Gods grace as means of staying out of it
In fact, not going to Mass on Sunday is a mortal sin.
Living in mortal sin, for a catholic, deadens the conscience. But these people are the ones terrified of death
No one who understands hell is terrified of death
The old Irish women used to say, before Catholicism was made into a silly laughingstock by the media, and a way of thinking to be mocked by the culture of control, that the devil you know is better than the one you don’t know
“If I knew God I’d be Him.”
We shared the chapel
We interpret scripture as it was intended to be understood.
If there is metaphorical images then it is metaphor (hide my under his wing), if it is literal (don’t steal) it is literal.
What Jesus said about hell is hard to dismiss as metaphorical. And if we believe in authority of scripture then we must take what he says seriously.
It could be that when Jesus used the word hell, he was using a word that referred to a city garbage dump.
Jesus said don’t let your sin turn your life into something that is no better than garbage and at the judgement must to tossed out. Don’t waste your life by refusing to turn to God now to receive a remedy for your sin sickness.
After death we experience time differently. Everything that we have ever done is present before the judgement seat. Each sin is there for all of heaven and the angels to take a look at. Even our hidden impure or devious thoughts and plans are perfectly revealed, perhaps for the first time even for us.
Without the salvation of Jesus, we are stuck having God’s wrath examine that sin before everyone. That would be hell.
But, after salvation in which the work of Christ permits a way to satisfy the payment for sin then at the judgement seat God’s observation of our life is pure joy. That is the good news of heaven.
So, make sure that you let God change your soul by accepting him in prayer.
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/how_to_be_saved.html
exactly. and to add to it, since there IS a hell and that would have been our punishment, Jesus did our time there. God is just and Jesus experienced our wrath of God there. Everyone dies in our present human form and many have died on the cross.
“No one who understands hell is terrified of death”
Excellent points. Thanks for sharing.
Unfortunately it is not all about you. There are unsaved people who may listen to you and figure there is no reason to be saved, since "there is no hell". Are you willing to live with that guilt?
That comment needs some clarification. Before the cross, Sheol was divided into 2 parts, the bosom of Abraham and the place of torment. When Jesus died He went down to Sheol, to the bosom of Abraham, and took those who were there up to heaven with him (Eph 4:8). But He never spent any time in the place of torment, His job was done when He said on the cross "it is finished" (John 19:30).
What exactly is he saving you from, if Hell is a myth?
Do you think the Lord of creation left Heaven, left the right side of the Father, to take on human incarnation and to suffer horrible torture & death to save us from....nothing?
If you believe Hell is a myth, you are on a slippery slope, indeed. You may decide any part of the Bible is a myth, if you decide you don't like it or agree with it, or if you can't comprehend it as being "logical." And then what are you left with?
It’s an old and common misunderstanding that Christ spent three days in Hell. I know why many believe that, but it’s simply incorrect. His atoning work was finished on the cross, so he did not need to spend three days tormented in Hell. Yes, his physical body died, but remember what He promised the thief on the cross.
“And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
None of us really know and we can only speculate. I do believe the notion of "burning in a physical fire for eternity" is a bit much. I believe that concept of hell was invented by man thousands of years ago so as to keep his fellow brethren in line. By instilling the fear of eternal hellfire and an all-seeing, all-knowing God, well that is a sure-fire way to maintain order in an undeveloped society. Now that's not entirely a bad thing. If people felt there were no consequences for bad behavior, we would have had a barbaric society indeed and likely we would never have developed civilization to where it is today.
So do I believe that hell is an eternal fire in which souls are condemned to burn forever and ever? No, I do not believe that at all. Like you, I think that God would be more merciful than that. Perhaps hell is more like a purgatory where you are given a chance to eventually redeem yourself of previous sins. Sometimes I wonder if our life here on Earth is not some kind of purgatory (or even hell) in itself where we are sent to work out some issues from a previous existence. Of course, that does not explain why many of us die in the womb or as children. Unless there is a purpose for that I am not aware of.
Again, I can only speculate and attempt to reason logically with the brain that God has provided me. Perhaps I will find out different when I exit this particular mortal coil.
Death.
I think the vast (vast) majority of people are dissuaded from doing things because they fear Hell....or at least retribution in the afterlife. They just don’t talk about it. Kind of like when an Atheist will call out to G-d for help when they think their life is in real jeopardy.
True, "it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (Heb. 9:27). But saved people are judged in order to receive rewards for anything good they did, their salvation was assured beforehand. I like to compare it to Awards Day at school, some students get several awards, others only one or two, but even those without any awards can still be promoted to the next grade. The unsaved have to wait for the resurrection after the Millennial Kingdom (Rev. 20:11-15) where their actions are judged also, but we know that if they had to wait until this time it means that their names are not in the Lamb's Book of Life and they are going to be thrown in the Lake of Fire for eternity.
I understand you completely.
Those are my fears, as well.
Then no one dies. And Satan was correct.
This is your first mistake, assuming that you can redeem yourself. If you could, what would be the point of Jesus's atoning death on the cross? Or are you saying that He can only save you 90%, 95%... and the rest is up to you? I believe that when He said "it is finished" He meant it.
I can only speculate and attempt to reason logically with the brain that God has provided me
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. (Isa 55:8)
What kind of death---physical or spiritual? And how would you define it?
I think mere "physical fire" is the concept that trips people up. They do not understand the nature and holiness of Almighty God.
The Lord appeared to Moses as fire that did not consume the bush (Exodus 3:1-6). He appeared as a "pillar of fire" to guide the Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 13:21). He appeared as fire come down from heaven to consume the sacrifice offered by Elijah that the false god Baal could not consume (I Kings 18:36-40).
"See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. His voice then shook the earth; but now he has promised, 'Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.' This phrase 'Yet once more,' indicates the removal of what is shaken, as of what has been made, in order that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:25-29)."
His fire consumes all evil, everything contrary to Him.
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