where the hell did hell go? part 1
so let's take a shot at some discussion on what i am coming to believe about 'hell'.
i was taught that hell was the place one when if one did not ask Jesus into one's heart. partly because i believed what smarter people than me told me, and partly because i didn't think very far past what was being taught, i accepted this. however, i did struggle, when i thought about it, with the idea of family and friends who didn't believe in Jesus ending up wailing and gnashing their teeth while suffering punishment forever in a lake of fire. and i had a hard time answering questions from believers and non-believers alike. questions like 'how could a God of love allow people to suffer torment forever?' just because they couldn't buy a story that, let's face it, is sometimes a difficult pill to swallow. or 'how could God let people suffer famine, murder, tsunami's, and cruelty at the hands of others?'. or 'why do people who say they believe in Jesus judge others about the same things they do themselves?'. there are answers that are reasonable but sometimes unsatisfactory.
(an unsatisfactory answer doesn't mean that it's wrong. sometimes it just doesn't fit what we want or expect. this has become a bit of an issue in north america. we have been so infected by our society's consumerism that we have made God a commodity that we can buy to suit our perceived needs or reject if we are disappointed in the results. for a discussion on this concept see Divine Commodity - Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity)
my journey has been long. this is largely because of my ease at settling. part of my journey involved being introduced to the idea of 'mystery' as it relates to God, worship, understanding, faith. unfortunately my personality can go there too easily without working it out for myself. now i have worked some of this through. this has involved reading and talking.
the beginning was way back when i read the 'Chronicles of Narnia' the first time. the book was 'the last battle'. ever since then i have been trying to think through some sort of theology around hell. there were a couple scenes that struck me. the first was when lucy saw the dwarfs crouched in a circle not aware that they were 'inside' the land of the Emperor. they were clearly 'in' but they couldn't recognize that they were 'in'. the second scene is as the gates open; some people ran in celebrating, some walked in with family and friends, some walked in because they were curious or even because they were carried along with the crowd. (there were some that stayed outside or even ran into the gathering darkness as Narnia was being eaten up. i'm not clear what lewis was saying about that. then again, this is not a cut and dried theory either.)
more recently i read Samuel Well's book Speaking The Truth - Preaching Pluralistic Culture. this is a book that is actually a collection of homilies he has given in his role as chaplain at Duke University.
i was taught that hell was the place one when if one did not ask Jesus into one's heart. partly because i believed what smarter people than me told me, and partly because i didn't think very far past what was being taught, i accepted this. however, i did struggle, when i thought about it, with the idea of family and friends who didn't believe in Jesus ending up wailing and gnashing their teeth while suffering punishment forever in a lake of fire. and i had a hard time answering questions from believers and non-believers alike. questions like 'how could a God of love allow people to suffer torment forever?' just because they couldn't buy a story that, let's face it, is sometimes a difficult pill to swallow. or 'how could God let people suffer famine, murder, tsunami's, and cruelty at the hands of others?'. or 'why do people who say they believe in Jesus judge others about the same things they do themselves?'. there are answers that are reasonable but sometimes unsatisfactory.
(an unsatisfactory answer doesn't mean that it's wrong. sometimes it just doesn't fit what we want or expect. this has become a bit of an issue in north america. we have been so infected by our society's consumerism that we have made God a commodity that we can buy to suit our perceived needs or reject if we are disappointed in the results. for a discussion on this concept see Divine Commodity - Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity)my journey has been long. this is largely because of my ease at settling. part of my journey involved being introduced to the idea of 'mystery' as it relates to God, worship, understanding, faith. unfortunately my personality can go there too easily without working it out for myself. now i have worked some of this through. this has involved reading and talking.
the beginning was way back when i read the 'Chronicles of Narnia' the first time. the book was 'the last battle'. ever since then i have been trying to think through some sort of theology around hell. there were a couple scenes that struck me. the first was when lucy saw the dwarfs crouched in a circle not aware that they were 'inside' the land of the Emperor. they were clearly 'in' but they couldn't recognize that they were 'in'. the second scene is as the gates open; some people ran in celebrating, some walked in with family and friends, some walked in because they were curious or even because they were carried along with the crowd. (there were some that stayed outside or even ran into the gathering darkness as Narnia was being eaten up. i'm not clear what lewis was saying about that. then again, this is not a cut and dried theory either.)
more recently i read Samuel Well's book Speaking The Truth - Preaching Pluralistic Culture. this is a book that is actually a collection of homilies he has given in his role as chaplain at Duke University.
posted by lareunoia at 3:22 pm
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