Thanks to my sister-in-law, I spent my morning finding out some interesting facts about hell – more specifically as referred to by Christ in the New Testament. I know how eager most people are to hear about a threatening place of damnation, so I thought I would make darkness and gnashing of teeth my topic.
It turns out that the Emergent church doesn’t believe hell is a literal place, only a metaphor of purging or sanctification. They feel God isn’t angry over your sin because He is love, and that you shouldn’t feel guilty or ashamed. Also, and more importantly, they feel that everyone is saved no matter what they believe. I guess they just don’t realize they are saved yet… “?”
Thus, my investigation was spawned. In the New Testament, it is recorded that Jesus used the word Hell 11 different times (Mt 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mk 9:43. 45, 47; Lk 12:5). Each time he used the Greek word Gehenna which is derived from the Hebrew word Hinnom. Hinnom means “Lamentation.”
Just south of Jerusalem there is a steep and narrow ravine that separates Mount Zion (often referred to in the Old Testament as God’s “Holy Hill”) from the “hill of evil counsel.” In the Old Testament, the valley was a place where idolatrous Jews burned their children alive as a sacifice to the gods, Moloch and Baal. It was first referred to in Joshua 15:8. After the Exile, the Jews associated the “Valley of Hinnom” as a place of suffering, filth, and corruption. It became a symbol in the minds of their culture as a residence for the wicked or eternally damned. It was used with no other meaning in the time of Christ than to denote a place of punishment.
I guess it is no wonder to me that Jesus used the word Gehenna as a reference to Hell. He wanted the people to have a very “literal” and “real” understanding of the sort of place that Hell represents. By using a ”literal” location, He helped His audience get a “literal” grasp on the “literal” truth because He wishes for no one to perish and spend eternity in such a place.
Tags: Christ, Emergent, Faith, God, Hell, Jerusalem, Jesus, Lamentation, New Testament, Religion
December 9, 2007 at 6:40 am |
I agree that God doesn’t want anyone to spend eternity in a literal hell. That’s why there is no hell. Hell was created by religious leaders who wanted to scare people into conforming to their rules, and as a way to encourage people to see religion as a way to prevent such a fate.
Before you protest, let me ask you something. God makes the rules, right? So if there is a literal hell, God created it. Why would a loving God do that?
Some say that hell is needed to punish sinners who are not saved. If that is the case, why did God allow sin to exist in the first place? Surely he knew that Satan was in the Garden and he knew that Eve was going to eat the apple. He is the Alpha and the Omega, right?
So, if the Bible is correct, God purposefully put us in a position where we have to accept Christianity or we are doomed to eternity in hell. Gee thanks. What kind of a God would do that when all he had to do was just not create the world at all and leave us all happy and safe in heaven? Or he could have told Satan to lay off humanity and go play in hell.
If free will is the reason God allowed sin to enter the picture, then hell cannot exist. Why? Because if hell exists, we really don’t have free will. FREE will means that we are free to choose from all available options without being coerced. I’d say the threat of hell makes some choices unacceptable, therefore no FREE will.
Religion makes me feel like a lab rat under the control of a sadistic 12-year old. The child has me in the rat maze and if I don’t find the cheese he’ll pour gasoline on me and light a match.
Either we have a very twisted God or we have been handed a bill of goods by the religious leaders. I choose the latter. No loving God would say, “You better love me or I will burn you in a lake of fire.” If that is true then do people really love God or are they just saying that to avoid hell? How would God really know? That seems kind of pathetic.
Just a few random thoughts.
December 9, 2007 at 7:38 pm |
Yep! And that is why religion sucks. The world would be better off without it. Even Jesus said so.
Regarding hell, perhaps we don’t even come close to understanding the concept.
December 19, 2007 at 12:21 am |
It’s a pretty risky thing to characerterize the emergenct church as having only one set of beliefs. I think the Emergent Church is doing some powerful and important work. But I think maybe the reason they call themselves “emergENT” is there is a recognition that it hasn’t actually emergED yet… It’s hard to know what this movement is going to look like in 20 years. (I think it’s fairly inevitable that it won’t in fact be a single movement at all in 20 years but will have splintered.)
Brian McLaren is somebody who is seen as a big wig in the movement, and he’s written about some of the historic/linguistic points you make. I think he’d probably say it’s quite an over simplification, though, to claim there is no literal hell.
He writes quite vividly about how the decisions we make in this life either enhance us or diminish us. That we reach a point of no return, a place from which God won’t be able to build us back up into much of anything… At this point, we are eternally seperated from God… damned, even if there isn’t such a location as Hell.
Rob Bell, the other major voice of the emergent church, had some fascinating things to say about heaven. He said that when we die, we will be eating at a table with people of all races. He asked how this would be for a racist. When we die, we will be face-to-face with the embodiement of love… How would this go for somebody filled with hate?
Bell’s implication is that the racist or the hatefilled person experience heaven as a sort-of hell.
I’m not invested in either of these views. I think you’re wise to suggest we may not even come close to getting it.
I do think there’s a charicture of the emergent/post modern church that begins with the claim that this group speaks with only one voice. This charicture then moves on to claim that this group wants to overlook sin, downplay the horror of damnation, and remake God in its own image.
December 19, 2007 at 4:46 am |
There is a reason why we need/ed a SAVIOR.
And concerning the question “Why would a loving God do that (create hell)?” I think that the same question could be posed for AIDS or hunger or murder or trials or tribulations or getting a bad grade on your last exam. Why would a loving God allow that?
I’m not sure if you see the Bible as innerant but you may want to check out John 17…
December 19, 2007 at 4:52 pm |
First of all, I definately believe that God exists in some form. I don’t believe anyone really knows for sure what God is like or what he wants.
That being said, I am SURE the Bible is full of errors. If we need a savior, it is because God knowingly put us in a very dangerous position. Do you really believe that someone who is born, lives, and dies in India, having never heard the name Jesus, is going to a literal hell? (Makes you glad you were born in a Christian nation I guess.)
Let me ask you this. According to the Bible, what is the penalty for sin? Is it not death? Does that mean death for just a little while or does it mean eternal damnation in hell?
Now, Jesus died and paid the price for our sin, right? So, Jesus must have died and gone to hell. And if he paid the price for our sin, he must still be there and will always be there, otherwise he didn’t pay the full price.
The Bible clearly says Jesus rose from the grave on the third day after his death and eventually went back to be with the Father in heaven, right? What, the son of God gets a break? Only three days of hell? Hey, can I get that deal? So, either the Bible is errant, or Jesus did not pay the price for our sin (or maybe there is no literal hell).
As far as your other point, I think murder and getting a bad grade on your last exam are the result of people’s choices. The existence of AIDS, hunger, trials, and tribulations I struggle with. I think it has something to do with free will and mankind’s flagrant abuse of it, but how that applies to a small child dying of AIDS or hunger I don’t know.
Maybe you can shed some light on that for me.
December 20, 2007 at 1:12 am |
First off, I’d like to say it’s a really good thing to struggle with these questions. I think God is pleased when we really wrestle with these questions.
I’ll be as brief as I can as I try to toss out some responses to your questions:
Many people agree with you that Jesus went to Hell. But I don’t believe it to be the orthodox position that Jesus’ journey to Hell was the payment that Jesus made for us. If it was, you are quite right: it would seem that we should expect Him to spend eternity there.
The most orthodox position that resonates the most deeply with me is the position that Jesus actually paid the price while on the cross. The agony of the crucifiction is a sort of physical, visual depiction of something which ran much deeper and might have even been more terrible: Jesus’ seperation from God the father for the first (and only) time in eternity.
The outward depiction we see of this is Jesus quote of a psalm, (sorry, forgot which one) “My God, why have you forsaken me?”
I actually would like to suggest you pose a false dichotomy between tragedies resulting from people’s choices and tragedies not resulting from people’s choices. These appear to be quite valid independent categories. But the thing is this:
all of them are results of the natural world interacting with people’s choices.
Though a bad grade on a test appears to be all about the test taker, there are numerous outside factors: the prior education of the test taker, the skills of the teacher, the biochemistry of the students brain, the social system that is in place which creates the import of the test in the first place.
Murder: Again, on one level it’s the murderer’s choice. But on a deeper level it’s systemic problems. These systemic problems which lead to the murder include things as banal as gun control and things as grand as the construction of the physical laws of the universe.
Aids, on the other hand looks like it’s entirely a systems issue. However, there is the personal choices involved for some people (not all) who got Aids; but more significantly there are the personal choices of all of us to support research and AIDS releif, as well the personal choices we make which impact the overall structure which allows AIDS to propogate itself in some communities. For example, when we act as responsible world citizens we see to it that African workers are fairly compensated for there work. When fairly compensated, they are able to seek out education for there children. When there children are educated, they understand how to avoid AIDS.
It is really hard for me to accept the idea person A suffers for the actions (or inactions) of person B. But it seems to me that this is unavoidable… If our actions impacted only ourselves there would be no possibility of altruism or acts of love; there would also be little possibility of spiritual maturity.
Every alternative scenario (that I’ve scene) to ours– where others suffer for our moral failings– ends up with major flaws. Because I believe in the goodness and power of God, I have to believe that the difficulties of this world are preferabble to some other set-up… God would have chosen a better option if there was one!
February 11, 2008 at 4:21 pm |
A lot of interested people. Why are people so interested? hmmmm.