Hell! What is it good for?

The rough guide to hell: How to find your way around.

I have a distinct memory of sitting in a meeting about fifteen years ago and being ‘taught’ that one of the Reasons for Evangelism was ‘the reality of hell’. I can’t remember whether it was the idea of evangelism or eternal conscious torment that I was finding more distasteful at the time but I’m quite confident that the idea of mixing them up must have had some effect on me! At around the same time, I heard there were other ideas about eternal destiny knocking around in Christian thinking and I was quite glad. I didn’t feel a particular urge to pick or prove one; other people had done some homework and decided that eternal conscious torment was a bit made up. I was pleased because, to be honest, it had always seemed a bit churlish to me. I’m by no means an expert, but here are two alternatives to what are known as the ‘traditional’ views. I had expected them to both be fairly recent schools of thought, but they’re not (particularly Universalism). Trust me that they are both well argued, and comprehensively argued about. Just for the tab though, here are the main ideas summed up in less than 100 words each!

ANNIHILATIONISM:

This is basically the view that that eternal life isn’t everyone’s fate. If God judges a person negatively, they are just destroyed (with or without a period of punishment first, depending on your perspective). Annihilationists reckon that when the bible talks about the destruction of those who fail at judgement, it means destruction (!). I remember being taught that the lake of fire etc is for demons and the like, and not for people at all.

UNIVERALISM (wiki did so well at explaining it I’ve quoted that!):

“In Christianity, Universalism refers to the belief that all humans will be saved through Jesus Christ and eventually come to a harmony in God's kingdom… Universalism was a fairly commonly held view among theologians in early Christianity… In later centuries, Universalism has become very much a minority position in the major branches of Christianity, though it has a long history of prominent adherents”.

(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalism)

K. Chalk 2007]

Another Place….[Webster]

A ghastly grotesque prison, chains, manacles, and red hot fire. And in the middle, a young girl reaches her hands up to heaven, offering prayers for those who seek her intercession. The “Anima Sola”, a lonely soul trapped in a spiritual realm between this world and the next. A superstitious tale, possibly still held to by some devout Christians, which combines the most imaginative elements of Mediaeval Christianity, with elements of many folk religions. A fanciful notion of “Purgatory”, so removed from any reasoned reading of scripture that it seems to epitomise why Protestants protested against Roman Catholicism and its teachings.

Except, whatever the embellishments of the Mediaeval period, from the earliest days of Christianity, and in the pages of the New Testament itself, there is the definite recognition that, somewhere, or sometime between this world and the next, there is ‘somewhere’ else.

“Christ, put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.” St. Peter’s writings may draw heavily on Jewish mythology (perhaps, as Moffatt’s translation suggests, it was Enoch who went to preach to these spirits), but St. Peter is not alone.

In his letter to Ephesus, St. Paul writes: “[Christ] ascended” - what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth?”
[Check your concordance and Greek Dictionary – the lower parts of the earth refer to a “Spiritual” underworld, not just the tomb].

And, whereas some popular translations may speak of a physical “Grave” in Acts 2:27, when St. Luke quotes from the Psalmist, he chooses the word “Hades”: “For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption”

Try to prove “Heaven” or “Hell” from the pages of scripture, and one is left interpreting allegory and poetry. So much the more is this ‘other place’ obscure.

However alien this notion may be to many Christians, whether it be Purgatory and/or Limbo, and however much it may be hidden in Jewish mythology and Mediaeval fable, to some, this vague, hidden, ‘other place’ all the more reinforces the hope offered by Christ: Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter me. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden. At our age, the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable to him?

The well-read will recognise this hard-line, fundamentalist, and Romish teaching coming from the pen of … C.S. Lewis.

To quote…
Go to heaven for the climate, hell for the company.—Mark twain
Hell is other people.—Jean Paul Satre
Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.—Aldous Huxley
Coffee should be black as Hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.—Turkish proverb

Matthew chapter 13 47 "The Kingdom of heaven is like this. Some fishermen throw their net out in the lake and catch all kinds of fish. 48 When the net is full, they pull it to shore and sit down to divide the fish: the good ones go into the buckets, the worthless ones are thrown away. 49 It will be like this at the end of the age: the angels will go out and gather up the evil people from among the good 50 and will throw them into the fiery furnace, where they will cry and gnash their teeth." Revelation chapter 21 8 "But cowards who turn away from me, and unbelievers, and the corrupt, and murderers, and the immoral, and those who practice witchcraft, and idol worshipers, and all liars - their doom is in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur.

Matthew 12:40, Jesus Christ says:"For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly: so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Jonah "In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry. Hell

Hell

[Chris Coffey Oct 2007]

St Peter turned the page and found the name. He opened the draw beneath the desk, took out a ticket and handed it across. John noticed its weight; striking gold in colour it wore the phrase “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of eternal life”. Lifting his eyes from his treasure he looked St Peter in the eye, smiled and said, “Do you mind if I ask you something?” The saint moved almost imperceptibly, he was different from what John had read, a gentle face now studied him. “I’m worried about my friends and family, my wife, you see, I still don’t know how this works. I’m worried that, well, they might not make it here”. He rubbed the ticket nervously with his finger and thumb, as if expecting the ink to come off and reveal it as a fake. “Some of them have had a faith, or struggled to, but life’s hard, they’re reasons why people walk away, and, well, I’m not sure what that means. What I’m asking is, erm, what’s going to happen to them?” St Peter said nothing, indicating not that he was ignoring John but rather listening more intensely than people living and breathing often do. “I’ve got friends born into different religions, or some who’ve had bad, even abusive experiences at the hands of so-called Christians. I know you must get these kinds of questions all the time but I’ve always trusted God you see, I always thought it’d work out in the end. And this is, I guess, my end and...they’re good people you see”. John thought about his own struggles, the days when he wondered if it was all a lie. Peter looked sympathetic. “Why am I a Christian? Said John desperately, “Did I stand more of a chance because my parents were? Or what if I hadn’t had that encounter, or such and such conversation?” Is it really so reliant on all that (he thought but didn’t say) so finely balanced? St Peter raised an eyebrow and John felt certain that he was just a few seconds away from crying in front of a dead saint and a now rapidly forming queue. John thought back, at first he’d believed that good people went to heaven and bad people, hell. Then he grew up and realised that life doesn’t draw such stark lines, that it was impossible to sort people into piles that way. He started to believe that it was a question of faith – that that became your ‘ticket’ in. John had always hoped there was some compassionate end that had to be seen. John started to cry and Peter got up from his chair and came around to lay a hand on his shoulder. He met his gaze and asked “What am I supposed to do?’” “Go through that and forget why I’m crying? Can you have an absence of pain without an absence of memory?” Peter had returned to his seat by the time he spoke. What he said brought little comfort to John but it was said with great compassion and understanding. John knew that if he had the faith to take the first step it would be ok, that in life the rules were the same as in death, God wanted us to have the faith to make the first move. He felt certain that if he asked Him for strength to take the first step, that he wouldn’t let him down. “God show me how to do this” he prayed. With a surge of courage he slid the golden ticket across the desk, turned and walked away. John stepped up his pace before either Peter or the crowd could say a word, before his brain could catch up with him and went head-down back in the direction he had come from. After walking for some time he found the fork in the road and the bus-stop. He hadn’t noticed it before but the shelter had no boards, or times, instead someone had scratched two words where the routes would usually be. He looked closely but didn’t recognise either. John wept. He had never felt so alone or confused. Had he thrown away the chance to see Him face to face? He thought about the times his faith had carried him through life’s tough times. Looking down his eyes fell on something lying in the dust, picking it up he saw the letters WWJD, a discarded bracelet left by some believer who decided they didn’t need it anymore. For the first time ever he felt the urge to put one on and tied it to his wrist. He wiped his eyes and sat down to wait for his loved ones.