Undeception

Does hell exist? If so, who ends up there, and why? Featuring an eclectic group of authors, theologians, pastors, social commentators and musicians, “Hellbound?” is a provocative, feature-length documentary that will ensure you never look at hell the same way again!

The official Hellbound? website

This week on the [ad hoc] Christianity Podcast we were privileged to chat with filmmaker (and erstwhile criminal mastermind) Kevin Miller about “Hellbound?”, a movie I’m really itching to see. We discuss the development of his own thinking on the subject while making the film, the most compelling arguments made by his interviewees, and his perceptions about Evangelical Christianity’s receptivity to rethinking hell today. Hope you enjoy it!

Here’s the video:

(link for mobile)

The audio only version can be found at our website: Episode #36: Kevin Miller is [ad hoc]-bound!, or on iTunes.

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.” “Love your enemies, and ye shall be the children of the highest.” It is the divine glory to forgive.

Yet a time will come when the Unchangeable will cease to forgive; when it will no more belong to his perfection to love his enemies; when he will look calmly, and have his children look calmly too, upon the ascending smoke of the everlasting torments of our strong brothers, our beautiful sisters! Nay, alas! the brothers are weak now; the sisters are ugly now!

O brother, believe it not. “O Christ!” the redeemed would cry, “where art thou, our strong Jesus? Come, our grand brother. See the suffering brothers down below! See the tormented sisters! Come, Lord of Life! Monarch of Suffering! Redeem them. For us, we will go down into the burning, and see whether we cannot at least carry through the howling flames a drop of water to cool their tongues.”

Believe it not, my brother, lest it quench forgiveness in thee, and thou be not forgiven, but go down with those thy brothers to the torment; whence, if God were not better than that phantom thou callest God, thou shouldst never come out; but whence assuredly thou shalt come out when thou hast paid the uttermost farthing; when thou hast learned of God in hell what thou didst refuse to learn of him upon the gentle-toned earth; what the sunshine and the rain could not teach thee, nor the sweet compunctions of the seasons, nor the stately visitings of the morn and the eventide, nor the human face divine, nor the word that was nigh thee in thy heart and in thy mouth—the story of Him who was mighty to save, because he was perfect in love.

O Father, thou art All-in-all, perfect beyond the longing of thy children, and we are all and altogether thine.

George MacDonald (from his sermon ”Love Thine Enemy”, published in Unspoken Sermons, Series 1, 1867)

Amidst the current controversy, some are pointing out that, despite being maligned as though they were novel signs of our wayward times, current trends of Christians questioning the negative attributes of God sometimes presented in Scripture, attitudes like jealousy and vengeance that we find intolerable in other humans, are hardly novel in church history. To underscore this, here’s a voice that most influential believers throughout church history have apparently tried to ignore:

That we should imagine that anger, wrath, jealousy or such like have anything to do with the divine Nature is something utterly abhorrent for us: no one in their right mind, no one who has any understanding (at all) can possibly come to such madness as to think anything of the sort about God. Nor again can we possibly say that He acts thus out of retribution, even though the Scriptures may on the outer surface posit this. Even to think this of God and to suppose that retribution for evil acts is to be found with Him is abominable. [p. 162-163]

It is not (the way of) the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction (in punishment) for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, (aware) how they would turn out when He created them – and whom (nonetheless) He created. [p. 165]

Just because (the terms) wrath, anger, hatred, and the rest are used of the Creator, we should not imagine that He (actually) does anything in anger or hatred or zeal. Many figurative terms are employed in the Scriptures of God, terms which are far removed from His (true) nature. And just as (our) rational nature has (already) become gradually more illuminated and wise in a holy understanding of the mysteries which are hidden in (Scripture’s) discourse about God – that we should not understand everything (literally) as it is written, but rather that we should see, (concealed) inside the bodily exterior of the narratives, the hidden providence and eternal knowledge which guides all – so too we shall in the future come to know and be aware of many things for which our present understanding will be seen as contrary to what it will be then; and the whole ordering of things yonder will undo any precise opinion we possess now in (our) supposition about Truth. For there are many, indeed endless, things which do not even enter our minds here, not even as promises of any kind. [p. 171]

[from Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian). ‘The Second Part’, Chapters IV-XLI . Translated by S. Brock]

St. Isaac the Syrian (image via Wikipedia)

For more discussion of these and other related thoughts by Isaac the Syrian, the seventh century ascetic and Orthodox saint, see this good discussion, whence the above quotes.

It is surely significant that although very little of the first-hand writings of heretics and dissidents from early church history (such as Marcion or Arius) were permitted to be transmitted to us, Isaac’s and the still earlier voices of Origen and (Saint!) Gregory of Nyssa were never silenced. In other words, the Church never said “Farewell” to these men. By all means, let’s “reform” — back to a time when belief in an eternal hell wasn’t a litmus test for the right hand of Christian fellowship!

And now, like it or not, these ancient voices are being joined in one way or another by more voices every year.

Here’s a little thought experiment.

Let’s say you heard tell of a ruler of a foreign country who decreed that all citizens of his country who broke even one of that country’s laws deserved to be, and henceforth would be, locked up and tortured for the rest of their lives.

Additionally, he took the most revered, humble, and law-abiding citizen up on his offer to take all the blame and punishment for all crimes great and small that were perpetrated by a select group of citizens, a group chosen neither by the severity of their crimes nor by any discernible merit on their part (the others were out of luck).

This left pardoned jay-walkers and murderers alike to roam the street and continue doing what they wanted with virtual impunity, although it was hoped that many would turn over a new leaf out of gratitude and the promise of a fatter retirement check. Everyone else would be tortured the moment they committed the most minor infraction, which was hard to avoid given that the laws of the land were intricate and formulated in direct opposition to basic human nature.

What would your response be to such a report?

1. “Injustice! Barbarism!”
2. “The real story here is grace. The demands of the law must be satisfied. Transgressors know what’s coming to them before they commit a criminal act. Justice must be served. The guilty must by no means go unpunished. After all, there’s nothing in Scripture that this violates, and his authority is guaranteed by Romans 13. But what grace the ruler shows by executing vengeance on the innocent, saving (some) from their punishment!”
3. Something else?

Would the report about this ruler’s policies seem more believable or less so if you discovered through close observation that the king otherwise seemed to be a good, tenderhearted man whose ideology and policies were upheld by fair-minded folk to be the very model of fairness? What if, after your own examination, you concluded that his other demonstrations of kindness and even personal affection for his people were unparalleled throughout the world? What if his pardoned citizens upheld his chief virtues to be “justice” and “grace”?

C.S. Lewis once said (on another subject), “…nonsense remains nonsense, even when we say it about God.”

I realize I’m taking on a few different evangelical narratives here, especially penal satisfaction, eternal conscious torment, and election. I also realize that many of my brothers and sisters on an entirely different theological page will answer none of those questions I posed, but will first scramble to make fine distinctions between this hypothetical ruler and God. To them I say: you know very well what I’m getting at, and if you dismiss the legitimacy of my analyzing your doctrine of God’s justice in this way, then it shouldn’t be a problem for you to come right out and honestly answer these questions within this hypothetical  construct. Right? Would such a ruler be a good, just, wise, and merciful ruler?

If you answer, “Your analogy is crude, limited, fanciful, and breaks down at various points,” I will congratulate you. I think this is exactly what happens when we try to weave together the various human approximations of the meaning of the atonement and salvation found in the NT and hold to our construct as the only inviolable doctrine.