These days Christians rarely assert that hell is a place where people get burned alive. It's become de rigueur for Christians to instead say that hell is "the absence of God." We've all heard that a million times; Christians -- especially of the emergent/leftist/progressive persuasion (my peeps!) -- fairly love saying it. The idea (whether explicit or implied) is that existing outside of the presence of God is a kinder, gentler fate than is having one's mortal body burned alive.
But is it? I sure hope so. I would hate to think of any Christian anywhere simply adapting as their own an unexamined, easy party line about something as important as what happens to non-Christians in the afterlife.
So let's take a moment to look at the statement "hell is the absence of God," shall we? Let us see whether or not it is, in fact, any sort of improvement over the traditional notion of hell.
Okay, I'm back from thinking about it. And I've definitely concluded that the new Christian line does not describe a kinder, gentler hell. If anything, our new hell is worse than our old one.
Saying that the old version of hell is cruelly passé and that the new one is somehow more humane is like saying that things have really improved since cops stopped beating suspects with clubs, and started instead Tasering them in the nuts. Sure, it's a new approach. And it's more efficient, and less messy. But it's hardly a preferable way to suffer.
Christians believe that God informs and sustains all of life. You permanently remove from life the substance, intention, and infinite expressions of God, and you've got yourself an existence so horrible none of us can even begin to imagine it.
A place where God is absent is a place where everyone is stripped of love and the possibility of it. In such a world no one can be trusted; everyone, overtly or otherwise, is reduced to a craven animal. All is chaos: there are no patterns of behavior, of properties, of time, of light.
No rhythms; no warmth; no comfort. No peace.
Nothing to depend on.
Nothing to hope for.
Fathers rape their daughters; beaten old ladies are shat upon; gaping flesh wounds never heal. Everyone's a cannibal. Screams are music.
Or perhaps in a world absent of God everyone is in complete and total isolation. Dark. Cold. Soundless. Here on earth, after all, if you really want to punish a prisoner, you put them in solitary confinement. (Of his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, John McCain wrote, "It's an awful thing, solitary. It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.")
Maybe it's violent, horrifically degrading chaos. Maybe it's complete isolation. Who knows?
What we do know, however, is that when Christians say that hell is the absence of God, what they mean, apparently, still, is that hell is the absence of God throughout eternity. I've never heard anyone say, "Hell is the absence of God -- for awhile," or, "Hell is the absence of God for four of five months, and then things generally start picking up."
The part about hell that's so grossly and ridiculously unfair -- the part where, no matter if you're Hitler or a six-month old Muslim baby, you're maximally punished forever -- remains. It's still about forever; it's still about an eternal negation of the possibility of redemption.
"Hell is the absence of God" is an extremely ... unhelpful thing to say. A while back, in How Is Being Gay Like Gluing Wings on a Pig?, I wrote about the new Christian line on gays. "Hell is the absence of God" reminds me so much of the new Christian meme, "Love the sinner; hate the sin." It makes the person who says it feel better. It sounds spiritually evolved. But it's nothing but the same old vinegar in a brand new bottle.
If you're a Christian who does, stop saying that hell is the absence of God. Either have the spine to radically reconsider the entire concept of hell, or get in line with the fundamentalists you now look down upon, grab a Bible, and start thumping away like mad.
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While Christian fundamentalists, specifically, and republicans get the brunt of the blame for sending us there, democrats and liberals are just as guilty, no matter their religious or not persuasion.
An example of hell is waiting for congress to create jobs, when the power to create and sustain jobs lays not only in the hands of Americans, but is the responsibility and obligation of Americans, NOT, congress.
Hell is the USA government selling weapons to drug cartels who in turn shoot border patrols, and use such weapons of mass destruction to continue their war on our children; drugs (as do the pharmacuetical companies and the medical community).
When common sense dies we find ourselves in hell. When patriotism dies, we find ourselves in hell. When justice dies, we find ourselves in hell. When rational laws die because they are not upheld, we find ourselves in hell.
Hell is a very real place. It is fire and brimstone, and gnashing of teeth in a dog eat dog country when civic and national obligations and responsibilities are abandoned.
Yes, hell is very real for many Americans when it needn't be.
Of course, lots of people try to redefine terms nowadays. It may be popular, but it ain't Christianity. Then again, there is an awful lot of pretending out there, and it shows.
The only thing you can say with any certainty is that it is not your Christianity. For others the Gospels are the Living word of God, not dead. Iow's they shrug off traditional interpretations handed down for thousands of years, and rediscover Truth as is their right.
In Heaven, God's approval is on His people. They can draw close, comforted by the knowledge that God in all his awesomeness on the Throne views them favorably. In Hell, God is pouring out His wrath on those who are not approved. Those in Hell want to get away from being punished, but there is no place to hide from God. The writer of Hebrews asserts that "Our God is a consuming fire."
In the fundamentalist view of God, God is love is only one side of the coin. God is also fierce anger, jealousy personified. Isaiah has God saying that He creates evil.
The notion that God is only "good" ignores the idea that the face of God one sees depends on whether you please Him or not.
Assigning omnipotence to God is something that must be comprehendable to the human being or it is a useless description, accept for those who would seek to utilize it's understanding for ill gotten gain.
If God is omnipotent, God is, by default capable of good and evil, right and wrong because good and evil, right and wrong are forms of potency with measurable, empirical effect. God is capable of the irrational and rational, logical and illogical, valuing and disvaluing. If God is omnipotent God is aware and unaware, present and not present. God is both ignorant and knowledgeable.
God is a dichotomy.
That said, God is also capable of mistakes and corrections, and if not, then God is stone, dead, not a living God, and mankind, not just God, is doomed given the God we had been given. God is capable of rising above his own ignorance, unconscious awareness, the illogical and irrational, and he does so through and in conjunction with humankind, indiviudally and collectively.
If God is not omnipotent, then God is one or the other; God is Good or God is evil. Perhaps it is that which caused the separation of God and Satan in ancient thought; heaven and hell.
This presumes an unattainable apex to human intellect. The presumption seems to be that all things in the universe are apprehensible by logic or reason otherwise the analogous monikers we use to delineate a concept are fallacious. The problem with this is that there are many things that transcend the labels we ascribe to them. What color is white or black? Is it actually a color or the absence of all colors of presence of all colors? Or why do the colors we observe have the names they do? Is blue really blue for instance? Essentially all language is analogous seeking to explain concepts that are often times beyond comprehension.
Its not really supposed to be eternal at all.
I was even thinking of getting a restraining order, just in case
Take one (1) otherwise intelligent fundamentalist Catholic.
Ask them to explain the trinity.
Hours of fun.
Sheesh.
That's where your statement should have ended.
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
~ John Lennon