Hell?

There is the story in our newspaper and apparently all over the Internet about an evangelical preacher who has written a book. That is not the news. The news is that this preacher is raising questions about the existence of Hell. Or maybe about how long one stays in Hell. I have not read the book. The stories report that this preacher does not believe that a loving God would consign people to eternal hell fire and damnation. Nothing a person could do would deserve eternal punishment.

Our local paper carried the story because a local pastor, a student at Duke Divinity school, who was preaching at a small Methodist church in our area lost his job because he posted on the Internet his agreement with the evangelical preacher. The local Bishop claims that this was not the only thing that caused the young preacher to lose his job, but it was a major piece of it. His congregation could not accept that their preacher may not believe in Hell.

Certainly Hell has played a major part in Christian history and theology. If there is a Heaven for those who are good, then logically there is a place for those who are bad. Jesus says that the thief on the Cross with him will be with him in paradise. There are a number of references to an after life, a paradise, a glorious setting for the faithful and redeemed. There are images of a painful, burning punishment for those who have unfaithful and evil. The Scriptures do have a number of passages that speak of a glorious place for the redeemed and a painful place of sorrow for the lost.

Heaven and Hell have been significant and powerful images that satisfy our human desire that there is some final reckoning that "makes things right." The cliche that "Life is not fair" is so obvious that we all hope that there is some place where those who have suffered so much here on earth get some "reward," some compensation, some extra that they did not get on earth. There is also the great desire that those who have been selfish, cruel, evil, mean, and indulgent will somewhere finally "get theirs" They will receive the kind of punishment for their evil that they never seemed to get here on earth. "Why do the wicked prosper?" It is a good question and the only hope we have is that somewhere they will have to "pay" for their evil. Everybody thinks Hitler ought to never get out of torment.

But like so many doctrines we can get rather dogmatic about what we do not know. I remember one minister who came into Presbytery and during the examination, when asked about eternal life, would only say,"In life and in death, I believe in God." He said he knew nothing about what would happen after this death, but he believed he was in the hands of the God who made him and would trust that God to do what was loving and just for him and for all others.

When I commented once that God would have to answer a lot of questions for us in the next life, another of my friends asked, "Do you really think that these questions you have now will matter in the next life?" That so many of our concerns and our complaints against God will dissolve and become completely forgotten in whatever that new condition is.

But right now, here in this world, Yeah, I hope that there is some kind of accounting and sorting, judgment and compensation for those who have had to suffer and struggle in this life. There is a sinful part of me that does hope that the bad guys get it in the neck in the next world. But whether Dante or Milton are right about the nature of hell, whether Heaven has gold streets, I do not claim to know and do not expect others to be certain either.