The Problem with Hell (Again)
This is a re-post I thought might be appropriate in light of recent events in the "evangelical" and "emergent/emerging" world (and I just don't have the time at the moment for a new post).
Hell.
The word "hell" is mentioned only 13 times in the Bible (that is the New Revised Standard Version of the Old and New Testaments, excluding the Deuterocanonical books, for those of you keeping tabs). Eleven of those times it is in fact Jesus who speaks the word, which is the Greek word Gehenna (if you'd like to learn more about Gehenna and the history behind the word, you can click here). To give you a sense of perspective, while the word "hell" is translated some 13 times in the entire Bible, the word translated "poor" is used some 25 times just in the four gospels of the New Testament (of course in both cases this excludes allusions to the ideas of hell, poverty, etc.).
Hell has been the topic of some of my more "theological" discussion as of late, so I thought it might be useful to put some of my own thoughts on the subject down if for no other reason than to simply sort them out. I have to say I'm not "thrilled" about either side's (theologically conservative or liberal) approach to the whole issue about hell. For one thing, the fundamentalists have often used hell as a sort of "scare tactic" for faith, a sort of bully when it comes to theology: "If you don't get saved you'll go to hell, and nobody wants to go to hell and suffer in fire for eternity." Truthfully, I don't necessarily disagree with such a statement, but for one's entire approach to missions, evangelism, and faith in general to revolve around hell, creates a delinquency which cannot easily be repaired. As for the theological liberal who tends to cast hell aside as some relic of mythological antiquity, that too seems (at least to me) to leave a great gap in the teachings of Jesus.
So where does that leave me? It leaves me right about here: I believe hell is a real place, where (in Jesus' words) there "will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" caused by grief/pain/etc. beyond our comprehension (not necessarily literal fire); I believe hell is for all intents and purposes the opposite of heaven (i.e., the absence of God); I believe hell should not be the crux of one's theological persuasions and thus the very doctrine upon which to hang one's hat (I think love is probably a good one though!).
There you go; that's the gist of it. Of course I have other thoughts about hell--what it looks like, smells like, what happens there--but like so many others' opinions about hell, they are based on little more than cultural tradition and my own imagination.
CPT
Hell.
The word "hell" is mentioned only 13 times in the Bible (that is the New Revised Standard Version of the Old and New Testaments, excluding the Deuterocanonical books, for those of you keeping tabs). Eleven of those times it is in fact Jesus who speaks the word, which is the Greek word Gehenna (if you'd like to learn more about Gehenna and the history behind the word, you can click here). To give you a sense of perspective, while the word "hell" is translated some 13 times in the entire Bible, the word translated "poor" is used some 25 times just in the four gospels of the New Testament (of course in both cases this excludes allusions to the ideas of hell, poverty, etc.).
Hell has been the topic of some of my more "theological" discussion as of late, so I thought it might be useful to put some of my own thoughts on the subject down if for no other reason than to simply sort them out. I have to say I'm not "thrilled" about either side's (theologically conservative or liberal) approach to the whole issue about hell. For one thing, the fundamentalists have often used hell as a sort of "scare tactic" for faith, a sort of bully when it comes to theology: "If you don't get saved you'll go to hell, and nobody wants to go to hell and suffer in fire for eternity." Truthfully, I don't necessarily disagree with such a statement, but for one's entire approach to missions, evangelism, and faith in general to revolve around hell, creates a delinquency which cannot easily be repaired. As for the theological liberal who tends to cast hell aside as some relic of mythological antiquity, that too seems (at least to me) to leave a great gap in the teachings of Jesus.
So where does that leave me? It leaves me right about here: I believe hell is a real place, where (in Jesus' words) there "will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" caused by grief/pain/etc. beyond our comprehension (not necessarily literal fire); I believe hell is for all intents and purposes the opposite of heaven (i.e., the absence of God); I believe hell should not be the crux of one's theological persuasions and thus the very doctrine upon which to hang one's hat (I think love is probably a good one though!).
There you go; that's the gist of it. Of course I have other thoughts about hell--what it looks like, smells like, what happens there--but like so many others' opinions about hell, they are based on little more than cultural tradition and my own imagination.
CPT
That's interesting...not quite what I might have expected from you. I'd be interested in hearing you flesh it out sometime.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, to be frank, it's not really the best clarification of my point of view (I usually write these things late at night, so...). I'd love to flesh it out with you sometime.
ReplyDelete