Greetings Friends,
I love a good, healthy congenial debate as much as anyone. I think debate is vital to arriving at the truth. Sometimes it is difficult and we can come across as know-it-alls or as argumentative. I think I succeeded somewhat in doing this in the debate I'm about to describe, but it wasn't all bad. It was a learning experience. In my former church, I was asked the following question (after being lectured and then given a litany of King James passages by a lady who had been taught from a young age that eternal torture awaited all unbelievers) -- "Do you believe that Hell exists? If so then why debate if it is a minute or eternity. Either one is too long."
Notice the tactic here. It's pretty common. She actually wants to debate, but really her side only. That's not the way it works! We need to listen to each other, and I think, ultimately, we did for the most part. She asked the question "why debate?" after having me listen to her make her case for eternal torment for a fairly good amount of time. This well-meaning (I think) lady proceeded to quote another Psalm or two with "hell" in it and a fear-based passage out of Deuteronomy, no less, striving to put a little fear into me, it would seem!
It became very clear that she did not interpret "fear" as it should be interpreted in the Bible, which is a "reverence for" or something along those lines. I truly feel sorry for people who have this actual fear in the sense of dread, which is really a deep mistrust of God, as if he is just waiting to torture 99 percent of the human beings he created forever, without mercy! Can someone really love or trust a being such as that? Does seeing this preached on the TV followed by a plea for money attract people to the faith?
Oh, what a different picture the Bible gives us in Jesus!! This is well-known, and I'm repeating, but it can hardly be said too many times that the harshest words Jesus had were for religious people, those who believed they were right and everyone else was wrong with God and doomed! I had a fellow tell me once that the Samaritan woman at the well in John Chapter 4 was "convicted." He repeated this four or five times as if that was all there was to it. I tried to get in a word or two. He said "she was convicted." This was my good friend who I did not want to argue with and so I changed the subject. But somehow he had crafted in his mind that Jesus just went around convicting people and condemning them. No, Jesus healed and treated people with kindness and mercy. That's what God is like and we can trust him! The Samaritan woman was, in those days, basically an "untouchable." Not only was she a hated Samaritan, but a woman, and for Jesus to speak to her was unthinkable! But that's what he did. He didn't rake her over the coals or judge her. Jesus brought joy to that Samaritan village! Just check out John 4 sometime if you don't believe me :) They partied it up with Jesus in town. The disciples were no doubt astounded, if not appalled, but this was Jesus here.
Now let's go back to that the lady from my former church and her statement here: one minute in "hell" is being essentially equated to of an infinite amount of time! Forever! This, my friends, is clearly irrational and demanded a response. Here is basically what I told her, and I do look back and think about how I could have maybe said things differently, but here it is:
I suppose I do not believe fear should be the factor or the attractor to the faith. The motivation should be out of love and not fear. Perfect love cast out fear! Certainly I believe in a judgment, but I obviously object to something being infinite in duration when neither the Hebrew nor the Greek manuscripts support it. One minute in hell is, by the law of common sense, far more merciful than infinity! I just don't think some of us (i.e. her) have thought about it enough and we are set in our ways. (note: again, maybe I should have refrained from this veiled attack or put it differently somehow) There are clearly gradations of rewards and punishment in the Bible and to say all people - for example, Hitler and the Jews he had killed are all going to suffer equal infinite punishment is unthinkable by any reasonable standard of justice and we know God is more just and merciful than any man.
So, yes, I believe there is a state in the afterlife where some will experience varying degrees of corrective punishment and if people want to use the English word "hell," then so be it. But the punishment, in order to be based on love, is a purifying judgment, like the hot coal that touched Isaiah's lips in Chapter 6. (Note: in this passage Isaiah has a vision where he is transported to the very throne of God and feels bad about himself. He sees an angel bring a BURNING COAL which PURIFIES his "unclean lips," as it is translated).
If punishment has no purpose, I think we need to reflect on the reasons why God would do such a thing and make up our minds while taking a hard look at the original languages behind what has become translated into English. The Hebrew of Psalm 9:17 is "sheol," the abode of the dead. This is not the place where only the wicked go in the Old Testament, it is where everyone goes! Maybe you will not be convinced by this, but it needs to be said for the sake of the truth. Even my most fundamentalist of Professors in seminary would flat out admit that "hell" (as commonly thought of) is not a word in the Hebrew, nor was it even a concept held by the Jews of that time. To go back and translate it that way was one way the Roman Church maintained control over the masses. Thanks be to God for courageous men who stood up to the church, without fear, and helped change things. Otherwise, you might not have any option but the Roman Catholic Church even to this day! Thus, destructive doctrines must be opposed wherever they are found and at whatever cost. We owe it to God, whom we are to love also with all our minds to seek the truth and defend it!
I think my mention of the Reformation and a couple other statements in there may have hit a little harder than I wanted to, looking back, with her being a Baptist. But sometimes things need to be said when people engage us in debates, or the other way around. I look back on this and do not believe I did a particularly good job of being like Jesus there, but I'm a fallible human being and can learn from mistakes and some of the veiled attacks I made there to maybe be a little nicer. It depends on the person we're dealing with, of course. In any case, I thank God there are people who are standing up to the malicious doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell.
For an example of a man who has stood up to this doctrine of a malevolent God for years with great courage, please check out Gary Amirault's Tentmaker website if you haven't already. I know many of you have. Here it is anyway:
http://www.tentmaker.org/
And, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me and engage me at any time! I also invite you to check out more about the Christian Universalist Association to do more searching at:
http://www.christianuniversalist.org/
God bless!
David
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Discoveries!
Greetings Friends!
First I wanted to share this link to Eric Stetson's article that addresses so well some of what has been on my mind recently:
http://www.ericstetson.com/2011/03/the-unsung-heroes-of-christian-universalism/
I am truly grateful for Rob Bell's book, although as Eric points out, this has been written about a great deal recently and, in fact, was the predominant view of the early church. John Wesley Hanson has thoroughly documented this, for one, back in 1899. The book can be ordered or read for free at the following link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=fzARAAAAYAAJ
I'm also very grateful to Scott Wells for posting a link to my blog on his very resource-rich and interesting blog at:
http://boyinthebands.com/
Also Naomi King's "The Wonderment," and "City of Refuge" blog (and others!) have been a blessing to me:
http://thewonderment.typepad.com/the_wonderment/
http://www.cityofrefugefl.com/
Last but not least, thanks again my friend Chuck for sharing this blog on Facebook! What a discovery of honest writing and a story that hit me very close to home. I wrote to friends that reading Elizabeth here caused me a momentary twinge of unholy envy at her writing ability :) I would encourage you to go back into the archives and check out what else she has written. Prolific!! Thank you all. Here is the link to Elizabeth's story:
http://ellisabethe.wordpress.com/about/
Thank you all, and God bless!
First I wanted to share this link to Eric Stetson's article that addresses so well some of what has been on my mind recently:
http://www.ericstetson.com/2011/03/the-unsung-heroes-of-christian-universalism/
I am truly grateful for Rob Bell's book, although as Eric points out, this has been written about a great deal recently and, in fact, was the predominant view of the early church. John Wesley Hanson has thoroughly documented this, for one, back in 1899. The book can be ordered or read for free at the following link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=fzARAAAAYAAJ
I'm also very grateful to Scott Wells for posting a link to my blog on his very resource-rich and interesting blog at:
http://boyinthebands.com/
Also Naomi King's "The Wonderment," and "City of Refuge" blog (and others!) have been a blessing to me:
http://thewonderment.typepad.com/the_wonderment/
http://www.cityofrefugefl.com/
Last but not least, thanks again my friend Chuck for sharing this blog on Facebook! What a discovery of honest writing and a story that hit me very close to home. I wrote to friends that reading Elizabeth here caused me a momentary twinge of unholy envy at her writing ability :) I would encourage you to go back into the archives and check out what else she has written. Prolific!! Thank you all. Here is the link to Elizabeth's story:
http://ellisabethe.wordpress.com/about/
Thank you all, and God bless!
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Study Bibles?
Greetings Friends!
Back quite a few years ago, before I became a convinced universalist, I amassed quite a number of Bibles. I would say it was somewhat of an addiction. This included the Study Bibles. I picked up everything from the Harper-Collins Study Bible to the MacArthur Study Bible and just about everything in between! I joke, although it's pretty accurate, that when I want to find out what I do not believe on a particular issue, I reach for my MacArthur Study Bible! But what to do with it? - I'm sure not going to give that thing away to anyone with it consigning everyone to eternal conscious torment for infinity!
A quick side note on MacArthur: one fellow at my former church who opposed me when I was raising questions at a Bible Study on some pretty clear universalist-supporting passages loaned me a MacArthur book. I couldn't even finish it; the thing was just filled with venom! It was downright mean. This same fellow at church would also show Rob Bell videos at the Mens' Breakfasts. I hope now he reads Love Wins because I suspect deep down he was troubled by what he was essentially brainwashed into believing since he was a small boy. He needs someone he really looks up to like Rob Bell to help free him from the likes of MacArthur. In spite of some criticisms of Bell's book, I thought it was very welcome coming from someone with the following that Rob has.
But back to the Study Bibles, I just had to have that Cambridge NIV Study Bible in the goatskin leather. It felt good in the hands, smelled good, holy even! This is allegedly the most widely selling Study Bible and I had yet to really examine it. What I found was shocking. The Bible goes out of its way to say that verses (and there are a lot of them!) don't say what they fairly clearly say! Just a couple examples.
1 Timothy 4:10 (NIV) states: "...we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe." (those who believe have a wonderful, albeit subjective hope, unlike those who do not believe; this may explain the word "especially," but the point here is God is "the Savior of all men," whether they know it or have this hope currently or not.)
Here's the NIV Study Bible's note: "Obviously this does not mean that God saves every person from eternal punishment, for such universalism would contradict the clear testimony of Scripture. God is, however, the Savior of all in that he offers salvation to all and saves all who come to him."
WOW. They have the "clear testimony of Scripture" right in front of their face and contradict it. That passage does not say "exclusively" no matter how much they wish it did! It says "especially" or "specially" in the King James.
One more: 1 John 2:2 (NIV) states of Christ: "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." Debates on the atonement, how it operated and so forth aside, the verse seems pretty clear in that it includes the sins of the whole world! That is wonderful news! And now for our helpful study note to rain on the parade! -
NIV Study Bible note: "...In this way the Father's wrath is satisfied....Forgiveness through Christ's atoning sacrifice is not limited to one particular group only; it has worldwide application....It must, however, be received by faith....Thus this verse does not teach universalism (that all people ultimately will be saved), but that God is an impartial God."
The Father's wrath was satisfied in this way? Well, that's a train-wreck of a statement right there. It portrays a cruel God satisfying his bloodthirstiness on Jesus. I, for one, totally understand people who want nothing to do with such a God. But even if we give them that, if the Father's wrath was satisfied, where do they find that people must DO something ("receive") in this lifetime necessarily, in order to avoid eternal conscious torment? The study note teaches substitutionary atonement, but if the penalty for sin is eternal conscious torment, and Jesus needed to bear this to satisfy "justice," or "wrath," then by their reasoning, Jesus would still need to be in hell, suffering eternal conscious torment to "satisfy" God. What a miserable, wretched misunderstanding of the grace and love of God. There are no strings attached in this verse that warrant this disgraceful study note.
Let us reject this portrait of a sadistic cosmic dictator with all of our being, and pray that the truly good news that this verse and many others (specific texts abound, but we should look to Jesus to see what God is really like! -- healing, forgiving, blessing, and loving his creatures, all of them with special attention to the outcasts) teach will resonate in the hearts and minds of people everywhere so they may be freed from fear, "religion," hatred, and other evils that abound in the notes in some of these Study Bibles and churches today.
I think we need another Study Bible. Perhaps another translation even. But more important than all this is that we strive to be like Christ, that we follow him in blessing poor people, comforting people in pain and just being a friend/loving the outcasts among us today. We are told not to judge others, or we will reap judgment ourselves. We all fall short! God knows this and looks at the heart; it's how we treat others that really matters! - It's absurd to think that God is waiting up there (very, very mad still) with a pencil (and an eraser) in one hand and an eternal hot poker in the other just in case people don't say the sinner's prayer in this lifetime.
Imagine that, Jesus with a hot poker, tormenting someone who never heard of him or for some reason or another didn't "receive" him in this lifetime, over and over again forever without mercy. Unthinkable!! The holocaust is over! Prolonging the torment for infinity to satisfy retributive wrath?? God forbid! Of course, this is what many churches today actually, in effect, are propagating about our merciful God! They have made God into a monster! I would go so far as to call this doctrine of eternal conscious torture "satanic."
Let's pray that God motivate more people to get together, stand up and demonstrate, write about, preach and teach what God is really like and bring glory to his name, instead of the shame and, frankly, evil that is being attributed to him so widely today. And then let us live out what we know to be true to the best of our abilities, with God's help! Let's strive to have mercy and be kind towards all God's children.
God bless,
David
Back quite a few years ago, before I became a convinced universalist, I amassed quite a number of Bibles. I would say it was somewhat of an addiction. This included the Study Bibles. I picked up everything from the Harper-Collins Study Bible to the MacArthur Study Bible and just about everything in between! I joke, although it's pretty accurate, that when I want to find out what I do not believe on a particular issue, I reach for my MacArthur Study Bible! But what to do with it? - I'm sure not going to give that thing away to anyone with it consigning everyone to eternal conscious torment for infinity!
A quick side note on MacArthur: one fellow at my former church who opposed me when I was raising questions at a Bible Study on some pretty clear universalist-supporting passages loaned me a MacArthur book. I couldn't even finish it; the thing was just filled with venom! It was downright mean. This same fellow at church would also show Rob Bell videos at the Mens' Breakfasts. I hope now he reads Love Wins because I suspect deep down he was troubled by what he was essentially brainwashed into believing since he was a small boy. He needs someone he really looks up to like Rob Bell to help free him from the likes of MacArthur. In spite of some criticisms of Bell's book, I thought it was very welcome coming from someone with the following that Rob has.
But back to the Study Bibles, I just had to have that Cambridge NIV Study Bible in the goatskin leather. It felt good in the hands, smelled good, holy even! This is allegedly the most widely selling Study Bible and I had yet to really examine it. What I found was shocking. The Bible goes out of its way to say that verses (and there are a lot of them!) don't say what they fairly clearly say! Just a couple examples.
1 Timothy 4:10 (NIV) states: "...we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe." (those who believe have a wonderful, albeit subjective hope, unlike those who do not believe; this may explain the word "especially," but the point here is God is "the Savior of all men," whether they know it or have this hope currently or not.)
Here's the NIV Study Bible's note: "Obviously this does not mean that God saves every person from eternal punishment, for such universalism would contradict the clear testimony of Scripture. God is, however, the Savior of all in that he offers salvation to all and saves all who come to him."
WOW. They have the "clear testimony of Scripture" right in front of their face and contradict it. That passage does not say "exclusively" no matter how much they wish it did! It says "especially" or "specially" in the King James.
One more: 1 John 2:2 (NIV) states of Christ: "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." Debates on the atonement, how it operated and so forth aside, the verse seems pretty clear in that it includes the sins of the whole world! That is wonderful news! And now for our helpful study note to rain on the parade! -
NIV Study Bible note: "...In this way the Father's wrath is satisfied....Forgiveness through Christ's atoning sacrifice is not limited to one particular group only; it has worldwide application....It must, however, be received by faith....Thus this verse does not teach universalism (that all people ultimately will be saved), but that God is an impartial God."
The Father's wrath was satisfied in this way? Well, that's a train-wreck of a statement right there. It portrays a cruel God satisfying his bloodthirstiness on Jesus. I, for one, totally understand people who want nothing to do with such a God. But even if we give them that, if the Father's wrath was satisfied, where do they find that people must DO something ("receive") in this lifetime necessarily, in order to avoid eternal conscious torment? The study note teaches substitutionary atonement, but if the penalty for sin is eternal conscious torment, and Jesus needed to bear this to satisfy "justice," or "wrath," then by their reasoning, Jesus would still need to be in hell, suffering eternal conscious torment to "satisfy" God. What a miserable, wretched misunderstanding of the grace and love of God. There are no strings attached in this verse that warrant this disgraceful study note.
Let us reject this portrait of a sadistic cosmic dictator with all of our being, and pray that the truly good news that this verse and many others (specific texts abound, but we should look to Jesus to see what God is really like! -- healing, forgiving, blessing, and loving his creatures, all of them with special attention to the outcasts) teach will resonate in the hearts and minds of people everywhere so they may be freed from fear, "religion," hatred, and other evils that abound in the notes in some of these Study Bibles and churches today.
I think we need another Study Bible. Perhaps another translation even. But more important than all this is that we strive to be like Christ, that we follow him in blessing poor people, comforting people in pain and just being a friend/loving the outcasts among us today. We are told not to judge others, or we will reap judgment ourselves. We all fall short! God knows this and looks at the heart; it's how we treat others that really matters! - It's absurd to think that God is waiting up there (very, very mad still) with a pencil (and an eraser) in one hand and an eternal hot poker in the other just in case people don't say the sinner's prayer in this lifetime.
Imagine that, Jesus with a hot poker, tormenting someone who never heard of him or for some reason or another didn't "receive" him in this lifetime, over and over again forever without mercy. Unthinkable!! The holocaust is over! Prolonging the torment for infinity to satisfy retributive wrath?? God forbid! Of course, this is what many churches today actually, in effect, are propagating about our merciful God! They have made God into a monster! I would go so far as to call this doctrine of eternal conscious torture "satanic."
Let's pray that God motivate more people to get together, stand up and demonstrate, write about, preach and teach what God is really like and bring glory to his name, instead of the shame and, frankly, evil that is being attributed to him so widely today. And then let us live out what we know to be true to the best of our abilities, with God's help! Let's strive to have mercy and be kind towards all God's children.
God bless,
David
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
A Couple Links
Greetings Friends! Just in case you haven't seen it, here is a link to Mars Hill pastor Rob Bell's short video on his upcoming book which is creating quite a stir! I am looking forward to the book. I believe we need to pray for Rob and support him however we can.
And thank you, my friend Chuck, for sharing the following piece from Carlton Pearson on Facebook. Sometimes I find myself not agreeing with Carlton on every single point, but we agree on what is most important. This man has sacrificed a great deal and takes a lot of heat from people who hate him now. I hope we will remember Carlton in our prayers as well and that God will continue to strengthen and give these men perseverance in spreading the good news!
God bless,
David
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Quake, Annapolis Friends Meeting Report and a Surprise Meeting!
Greetings Friends!
Hope you are getting along OK. I'm just horrified by the tragedy in Japan. It's even more devastating since I lived there for about seven years and my wife's hometown was Sendai. Luckily for the city itself, they had an earthquake in the late 70's that scared my wife badly. She was pretty young at the time and it seemed like everything was collapsing. Well, that's because it was! They had to rebuild a good portion of the city and they did it to withstand earthquakes such as this one. Still, the tsunami is a force of nature that even the engineering skill of Japan couldn't reckon with. Any and all prayers for Japan would be appreciated. If we feel powerless we can still pray hard and I believe it can make a difference although I do not for one second believe God "caused" the quake.
Anyway, I did visit the Annapolis Friends Meeting on Sunday. It was something like I've never experienced before. A couple of the folks greeted me and invited me to enter the sanctuary and have a seat. And there we sat, for about 50 minutes in complete silence! I will say the place smelled nice, a strong scent of wood like I was out in nature and so I got so relaxed in there I just about fell asleep! After about 50 minutes then, two ladies stood up and said what they felt led to say. I do feel welcome to come back there and may visit them again sometime. They are just down the road from the Unitarian Universalist Church, which I'm instinctively more cautious against but that will not keep me from visiting one of their services. I'll let you know what it was like! I'm sure I will meet some good people there, as I did at the Quaker service. That's where we need to start, meeting people, forming relationships and then getting the Christian Universalists among us together! That's what we are going to do, I have no doubt about this, although it will take time.
Next, I received a surprise email on Saturday from the wonderful man who runs the Tentmaker website, Gary Amirault! I had been communicating with him via email and he let me know he was in town for a few days. We had a nice chat at a Barnes and Noble (one of my favorite places for having church and/or fellowship right now!) and I felt privileged and even blessed to be able to speak with Gary since his website with all its information and articles that were so helpful to me when I was learning about universal salvation. One thing I particularly remember from our conversation is his desire to present the message as Christ Victorious! I think this is a great idea. If 90% (or even one person, really) is going to suffer forever with no hope of repentance and no hope that God will ever have mercy on them then how can the churches call that a victory? Of course, they have it dead wrong. Jesus is the Savior of the whole world, not just a select few who happen to be born in the right place and taught the right beliefs during this lifetime. That is the message, the truly Good News!
We needn't worry that God will not have mercy on so-called "lost" loved ones because we know that it is God's mercy (or "love" as the new translations of Psalm 136 have it) that lasts forever and not his anger. It is true that God's ways are higher than our ways, and you may have fundamentalists (by this I mean those who insist you believe just as they believe, literally and precisely, just as they do -- anywhere from around five to fifteen beliefs they insist are mandatory in order to escape being tortured forever by God) resort to stating this as a tactic while they stubbornly hold onto their belief that God is tormenting most of his creatures for infinity. If they can overcome religious pride enough to discuss it with us at all we need to remind them that in Isaiah 55 the prophet was speaking in the context of the mercy of God, not somehow justifying any kind of eternal torment. All will be saved (1 Timothy 4:10; 1 John 2:2), God will have mercy on ALL (Romans 11:32); God will win and restore all creation to him - no more sickness, no more tears, no more death. Now THAT is good news. We have a lot to look forward to!! Never give up! And please remember Japan in your prayers.
God bless,
David
Hope you are getting along OK. I'm just horrified by the tragedy in Japan. It's even more devastating since I lived there for about seven years and my wife's hometown was Sendai. Luckily for the city itself, they had an earthquake in the late 70's that scared my wife badly. She was pretty young at the time and it seemed like everything was collapsing. Well, that's because it was! They had to rebuild a good portion of the city and they did it to withstand earthquakes such as this one. Still, the tsunami is a force of nature that even the engineering skill of Japan couldn't reckon with. Any and all prayers for Japan would be appreciated. If we feel powerless we can still pray hard and I believe it can make a difference although I do not for one second believe God "caused" the quake.
Anyway, I did visit the Annapolis Friends Meeting on Sunday. It was something like I've never experienced before. A couple of the folks greeted me and invited me to enter the sanctuary and have a seat. And there we sat, for about 50 minutes in complete silence! I will say the place smelled nice, a strong scent of wood like I was out in nature and so I got so relaxed in there I just about fell asleep! After about 50 minutes then, two ladies stood up and said what they felt led to say. I do feel welcome to come back there and may visit them again sometime. They are just down the road from the Unitarian Universalist Church, which I'm instinctively more cautious against but that will not keep me from visiting one of their services. I'll let you know what it was like! I'm sure I will meet some good people there, as I did at the Quaker service. That's where we need to start, meeting people, forming relationships and then getting the Christian Universalists among us together! That's what we are going to do, I have no doubt about this, although it will take time.
Next, I received a surprise email on Saturday from the wonderful man who runs the Tentmaker website, Gary Amirault! I had been communicating with him via email and he let me know he was in town for a few days. We had a nice chat at a Barnes and Noble (one of my favorite places for having church and/or fellowship right now!) and I felt privileged and even blessed to be able to speak with Gary since his website with all its information and articles that were so helpful to me when I was learning about universal salvation. One thing I particularly remember from our conversation is his desire to present the message as Christ Victorious! I think this is a great idea. If 90% (or even one person, really) is going to suffer forever with no hope of repentance and no hope that God will ever have mercy on them then how can the churches call that a victory? Of course, they have it dead wrong. Jesus is the Savior of the whole world, not just a select few who happen to be born in the right place and taught the right beliefs during this lifetime. That is the message, the truly Good News!
We needn't worry that God will not have mercy on so-called "lost" loved ones because we know that it is God's mercy (or "love" as the new translations of Psalm 136 have it) that lasts forever and not his anger. It is true that God's ways are higher than our ways, and you may have fundamentalists (by this I mean those who insist you believe just as they believe, literally and precisely, just as they do -- anywhere from around five to fifteen beliefs they insist are mandatory in order to escape being tortured forever by God) resort to stating this as a tactic while they stubbornly hold onto their belief that God is tormenting most of his creatures for infinity. If they can overcome religious pride enough to discuss it with us at all we need to remind them that in Isaiah 55 the prophet was speaking in the context of the mercy of God, not somehow justifying any kind of eternal torment. All will be saved (1 Timothy 4:10; 1 John 2:2), God will have mercy on ALL (Romans 11:32); God will win and restore all creation to him - no more sickness, no more tears, no more death. Now THAT is good news. We have a lot to look forward to!! Never give up! And please remember Japan in your prayers.
God bless,
David
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Plans and Literature
Tomorrow I plan to visit the Annapolis Friends Meeting. Their website indicated a kind disposition towards all God’s creatures and I have high hopes of meeting people there who share the view that God is not going to eternally torment his own creatures for sins committed in this short lifetime. What a difference this stance is compared to the website of a local Baptist church I received literature from last week. The literature, interestingly, completely avoided the important topic of the afterlife. Why would they do this, I wondered, when their purpose was, I suspected, to pluck me from the everlasting fires of “hell.” Note that there is no such word in the Greek language – that will be a topic later – but if you would haven’t investigated this I would highly recommend you check out Gerry Beauchemin’s book Hope Beyond Hell, Kalen Fristad’s Destined for Salvation, or Eric Stetson’s Christian Universalism for excellent information on this topic.
So, somewhat curious as to what the Baptist’s church’s true beliefs were on the issue of hell, I decided to check out their website. Why would they hide their views on “hell” from their door-to-door literature if not to conceal their view of God as an essentially merciless being who plans (and logically, planned this even when he created people) to torment his own creatures forever with no chance at repentance? Anyhow, sure enough, down at the bottom of their belief statement I found the following horrific confession:
“We believe that the souls of unbelievers remain, after death, in conscious misery until the second resurrection, when with soul and body reunited they shall appear at the Great White Throne Judgment, and shall be cast into the Lake of Fire, not to be annihilated, but to suffer everlasting, conscious punishment (Luke 16:19-26; Matthew 25:41-46; II Thessalonians 1:7-9; Jude 6-7; Mark 9:43-48; Revelation 20:11-15).”
Note the common technique of making a dogmatic statement and then picking out a few verses that they think supports this belief. Most people probably never look up such laundry lists of verses. Note, however, that this is a VERY short list, and it is pretty much complete. That’s all they have. What’s more, each one of these passages can be shown to be incorrectly interpreted without much difficulty. Again, the books cited above deal with each of these passages in detail and I will be posting interpretations of these passages that will show clearly that they do NOT teach that anyone will “…suffer everlasting conscious punishment.” Horror of horrors! No wonder the church has hidden this hideous belief from their evangelical literature. This makes the concentration camps of Nazi Germany and the holocaust seem like relatively minor events if one thinks of billions upon billions of God’s creatures being put into the furnaces, not to be destroyed, but to be subject to his eternal wrath! May it never be.
Thank God, this is not what the Bible really teaches about the nature of God. It says God is Love in the book of 1 John, twice. Jesus demonstrated to us what God is REALLY like. Can you imagine Jesus tossing live human beings into a burning pit? Jesus commanded us to love our enemies and forgave his own enemies even hanging on the cross, by all the accounts we have available. Can anyone who has read of the love of God and Jesus really believe that he will not have mercy when people ask for it, even after death? Unfortunately, it seems, many people can – generally a good number of kindhearted people in the eternal torment churches believe this because they incorrectly think this is what the Bible teaches and they don’t think it is all that important, perhaps. But it is. Well, we have good news for them – this is not what the Bible says about God or “hell” at all! God’s mercy endures forever, his “wrath” lasts only a moment, and there are many more passages that show that God will have all creatures to be saved ultimately, with punishments fitting the crime. I will not give a laundry list of verses (but there are a LOT more than just five of them) to support what I have said here, in future posts.
To conclude, this portrayal of God as one who runs a cosmic torture chamber that never ends because his creatures didn’t believe in him, or pray to Jesus to “receive” him (or something to that effect) during this short life is a horrific misrepresentation of our merciful Creator, our Father in heaven, who cares about all people and will have all people to be saved in the end. Everyone may get a little fire or a lot of fire which means punishments and rewards appropriate to perfect justice tempered with mercy that endures forever. Punishment is for REMEDIAL purpose. That’s what the Greek word for punishment in the Matthew 25 passage above really means – it means “chastening” or “chastising.” THAT is the good news. No wonder the Baptist church hid their terrible view of hell in their literature. Their tactics are reminiscent of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They put a shiny, happy face on their literature when underneath they believe in a God who will keep people alive in torment for NO PURPOSE. It should be noted that the Jehovah’s Witnesses at least believe that the wicked will eventually be put out of their misery! We believe this is an error, but it is infinitely better than the alternative: eternal conscious misery for infinity. There is probably no more damaging doctrine to the image of a loving God than this doctrine that he is going to eternally torture his own creatures for all infinity with no mercy. We need to be more vocal and aggressive in standing against this doctrine!
“For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.” (Lamentations 3:31-32)
God bless all of you and please feel free to respond with comments or questions, anytime.
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