Why the hell?

A woman whose podcast I listen to recently asked, in a deeply honest fashion, why is it that if religious people want you to be part of their group, they approach you and/or live in such a negative manner? Primarily with the “you’re going to hell because you don’t believe what I believe” mentality. I’ve thought on this a lot since listening to her podcast a few days ago.

As a Christian having grown up among Christians, I went to Sunday school. I learned all the stories there and many of the dogmas and precepts of the church that we attended. Truly, that is where I learned about the concepts of heaven and hell—mostly heaven. We didn’t really talk about hell that much. We just knew it’s where non-believers went when they died. I say “knew” because I believed what I was taught. I trusted that adults knew what they were talking about. I was no different than a child who was raised to believe that nothing is created and that life simply came to be as a chemical reaction of some sort. To that kid, a kid who believes in wild theories like heaven or hell is just as much a weirdo as the reverse.

It takes people time and effort to address the issues of their faith apart from what they’ve been taught. Age brings you to that place. It’s a frightening but adventurous journey of the mind and the spirit. However, some folks don’t want to take that journey, don’t want to question the beliefs they were given and never do. That’s their prerogative. And they’re going to believe that if you don’t believe the same as them, you’re going to hell. Or at least get reincarnated until you do believe the same as them.

I’m not one of those people. The closer I get to Jesus, the more I realize that I have no clue what I’m doing. Not only that, but more and more I realize just how unrighteous I am. In light of my own unrighteousness, his directive to not judge others becomes crystal clear. Why? Because judging others takes me away from loving, and being loved by, him. Looking around for how other people are messing up and telling them to get their lives together is not my job. Hell is not in my purview. It is not anywhere near my life purpose to determine who (if anyone except those who choose it with eyes wide open) might end up in a place completely separate from the presence of their Creator, which is what I imagine “hell” to be.

Focusing on hell, to me, would be a ridiculous way to spend one’s life. I don’t love Jesus because I’m terrified that if I don’t, I’ll get thrown into hell. That’s not how love works. The whole point of God becoming human was to take hell out of the equation. I believe he lived a human life so that he could go to hell blameless and therefore own it and gain the right to free anyone who was stuck there. The whole point of his coming was to save souls, not destroy them.

So why do people preach and speak hellfire and brimstone? Honestly, I’m not sure. I think it is born out of a genuine concern to help people, to scare them straight (for want of a better term). I don’t think it works particularly well.

Thanks, sweet Nessa, for a thought-provoking podcast. I will continue to blog about this as thoughts come to me.