In a sprirt of seeking out and drawing closer to truth . . .
If I were to say that I wasn’t sure if I beleived in hell, what would you say?
derrak
circuschurch
god, church, creativity, and other crazy things in my head.
In a sprirt of seeking out and drawing closer to truth . . .
If I were to say that I wasn’t sure if I beleived in hell, what would you say?
derrak
5 comments
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July 4, 2006 at 11:15 am
Rob
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?
July 8, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Andy
I would say that you were being provocative.
July 8, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Andy
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.
July 10, 2006 at 7:20 pm
ben smith
Good thoughts, and I am kind of restating my first point, I think ministry changed dramatically for me when I realised my mentality of “Here’s what I believe, take it or leave it, but if you don’t take it, you’ll get whats coming (i.e. Hell).”
Our message can be one of utter urgency, it has to be, but it can’t be strictly one of Ultimate Punishment, as Jesus’ Gospel is a story of our failure and His grace.
God is just, God is love, they do coexist, how it plays out, I don’t know. The good thing is that I can try to live and love as Jesus did and let God worry about the ways that are higher than mine. I do find the discussion fruitful, to be sure.
July 18, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Andy
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.