Hell is really a horrible concept. The idea of punishing someone for missing something easy to miss is impossible for me to accept coming from a loving god. But here's where it gets worse; a careful reading of current evangelical doctrine (as opposed to, say, the Bible?) leads us to believe a few things:
First, all humans who don't accept JC as their personal bud and savior will burn in hell in unimaginable pain for billions of years.
Second, human life begins at birth.
You see where this is going? We had a miscarriage years back, and I never felt the loss of a child, just an unfortunate medical event. What modern Evangelicals believe is that my son, who only existed for a week or two as a small cluster of undifferented cells is as we speak suffering unimaginable torment at the hands of Satan's army. He will spend billions and billions of years there and then start over.
How anyone can believe this and try to say their god is loving and merciful is beyond me. I know one thing for sure; my son doesn't get it.
3 comments:
“The idea of punishing someone for missing something easy to miss is impossible for me to accept coming from a loving god.”
Jeff, I don’t know if it’s feasible to say that Jesus Christ is “easy to miss.” I think there is a greater difficulty in sorting through all the misinformation and misleading teachings about him (much of which I think you do a good job documenting and deconstructing on this blog). Maybe I should just ask, what do you mean by “easy to miss.”
On your second point, if God is a God of eternal judgment then it follows that His grace must extend to both believer and non-believer right now. The world did not end at the cross. Therefore grace, common grace, sustains us, gives us the ability to be in and enjoy the world.
I don’t dare offer up an explanation for your lost child. The only thing I’d offer is that the “common grace” I mentioned falls into just such a situation. I believe there is common grace for an unborn child just as there is for an isolated tribe in Brazil that has never heard of Jesus Christ.
Just to add on to that, as you know from the Bible, evoking the name of Jesus Christ is not a ticket to heaven. The knowledge of God and eternal judgment are much more about a trajectory that begins in life in which we choose between God and ourselves. In the case of the baby and the tribe this fact gives me even more hope of grace. I’m not saying that to an extent it doesn’t matter if you worship the name “Jesus Christ” or not. I think that is very important. But what I am saying is that I’m less sure we have the right idea of what it looks like all of the time. Jesus seems to always be correcting people on this very point.
A question for your current series (one you’ve probably heard before): Which is more outrageous: A God lets everyone do as they please or a God that judges those who disobey?
it is irrelevant because there is no heaven or hell. this is an uninteresting question and you should think more about why you believe in hell in the first place. i hope you're not voting.
Um, Rollin, maybe you should have read it.
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