Hell

Before I answer, explain your question a bit more. Are you considering rejecting hell as it is popularly understood, and moving toward a different understanding of hell, or are you thinking about rejecting the whole idea of hell entirely?

One other thing. I think after reading the TAL blurb on “heretics”, that it once again illustrates that folk like to pit God’s love against his justice. We forget that God MUST be just or else he would stop being God. But there is no absolute rule that says that if you are going to be God, you MUST be so “loving” that you are required to let everyone off the hook in the end.

Your sensitivity to the way ministry is done is indispensible — you’re right, it does little good to be a hellfire-brimstone preacher in the classic sense.

But part of being a faithful and seasoned ambassador of the Word of Christ is knowing how to distinguish between a bruised reed/smoldering wick type and Pharisaical type. To be sure, neither are out of the reach of Grace, but one needs a severe grace and the other a softer one. It’s all about correctly dividing the word of truth and giving to each his due portion. If you love people, you’re going to care as much for their particular apprehension of and embrace of truth as you care for truth in and of itself. I love the gospel, but that alone doesn’t make me love to see the gospel impact folks outside of me (it probably should, but often doesn’t).

Back to the original question, though. Philosophy of ministry and the dogma of hell itself are two distinct things. Related, but distinct. We, of course, oughtn’t revise dogma because it’s not palatable to certain folks (indeed, it’s not supposed to be palatable!). That’s called Liberalism with a capital “L”. But we ARE obligated as Christ’s emmissaries (sp?) to know when a person needs milk and when they need strong beer and beef — or maybe even to go to bed w/o dinner.

There’s my thoughts.