Please, Not Hell!

"Oh, PLEASE! Don't go looking into whether Hell is real! If we question hell, we will NEVER find a church!" This was my response to my hubby bringing home printouts on the history of the ideology of hell.

How sad for me. What are we coming to if we can't look honestly at the faith we profess and promote? What is the point of our gathering if we can't talk about ideas like these? I think that the branding of Christianity is one of the biggest stultifiers of growth. Branding--the idea that you can put a Baptist or Episcopal or Presbyterian sticker on a church and know what they believe. There can be little dynamic growth and revelation. It is assumed that by the time a man is old enough to graduate seminary that his beliefs are in line with orthodoxy and will not require any major adjustment until Jesus returns. This idea borders between optimism and arrogance.


The creeds that we all mouth do little for maintaining orthodoxy. What do you mean by One? What do you mean by Created? And what the heck is up with "I believe in God the Father, maker of Heaven and Earth" when John says Jesus was the creator--and without him nothing was made that has been made?

The real application of this is the idea that if you are part of a body, and discover the denomination is "holy cow" wrong about some big things, what do you do? If love and unity are the highest laws, perhaps it does not then matter if we functionally preach "another gospel," so long as we are generous and kind to one another.

This all hinges on what the Main Things are. Obviously, Christ is central. It is the essence of being in Christ that makes a Christian and creates fellowship. But there are lines around what this means. A Mormon will tell you that they believe that Jesus Christ died for their sins. Does that mean we have fellowship with them? They may go on to quote you the book of Mormon where it says that once you are REALLY good, THEN you will be given the Holy Spirit--a complete violation of the gospel, as I understand it. And shades of this same heresy are ubiquitous in religious circles. God can only act if you do X. To receive the Holy Spirit, you must not eat for three days, then pray for six hours, then mumble incoherently for an hour to prove you are serious. And make sure you really are sincere, because like a horse, God can smell fear.

In more conservative circles, independence is encouraged by books like The Purpose Driven Life, which tells you figure out why God made you and walk in it. Christians cry for this kind of book, like the Israelites chafed against the theocracy God gave them. They want a King: a visible standard to follow so that they can follow and measure how they are doing. God would lead our hearts, but we want something we can see. It's the difference between feeling the beat of the music and moving to it and following the numbered footsteps on the floor. If we are possessed by the Great Dancer, why are we stomping through numbered footprints?

I believe Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. Most people believe the Bible teaches that if you don't put faith in Him, the result is eternal, conscious suffering. Is this a main thing? If I look in the Bible and find more evidence that the damned are destroyed, do we have fellowship? In my mind, we have fellowship if we remain grounded in Christ. If we are more attached to our denomination than we are to seeking what is true, we will be torn. If we are more attached to being right than we are to loving each other, we will be torn. If you believe in hell and I don't, we can still share Christ. And really, it ends up being a very secondary issue. Because the foundation is faith: are we walking in our own strength and wisdom or by the Spirit's leading and power. You can violate or fulfill that AND believe or disbelieve in hell, I think.

It feels very vulnerable and dependent to stay open to God rewriting my inner story. I would like to camp on a denominational standing--or even my own--and stop asking if it is true and how the pieces fit together. I just don't think I have that freedom.