Dear Liberal Preacher,
First of all, i love the blog. Great stuff!
I’ve been reading through the posts and you mention a couple of times that you don’t believe Hell exists. Could you dive a little deeper into the theological framework for your belief? I understand the whole “God is too loving for punishment” argument…I was just wondering if there was any more substance behind that. Is there any punishment for no belief and/or complete selfishness?
Thanks
Sincerely,
Dear Concerned Future Seminary Student
First of all,
I’m concerned that you are concerned. I have a track record of not doing well with individuals who are concerned. Believe me, it’s one of my core beliefs. I don’t do well with people who are concerned. No one has ever been concerned that I’m too nice or too Christian or too Buddist or too Universalist or too Baptist or too smart. Or maybe they have.
Concerned sounds like disappointement on steriods. And being trained to be a psycho psychotherapist (kidding about the psycho) my hunch is you tend to be uptight and I know what uptight folk can do to clergy and the church’s soup and the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m not saying the steeples don’t need commitment and integrity, but concern is another matter altogether. So yes, I’m concerned about you being so concerned. Take a walk. Worry about world hunger. Breathe in. Breathe out. Maybe that will help with your concern level.
You ask about diving deeper into theological framework of my beliefs on hell. First of all, I’m not a good diver so I’m not going to dive at all. And as for the deeper, I agree the church needs to get deeper, deeper into the world’s needs, deeper into our hearts, but not deeper into some theological framework. You are going to bore me to death. I’ve set through seminary classes like that. Here’s a clue: all those theological systems are lies. Hate to break it to you so bluntly.
Sounds like you are pretty sure about hell too. I wonder how you got so sure during your short life. My guess is you have lived in your little mind and provincial neighborhood for far too long. Not throwing stones. I did that for years myself.
How many homeless people/transitional people speak with you on a daily basis?
Do you know anybody who is so messed up they are beyond even the repair of God?
Were your parents concerned parents? How do you feel about your momma and your daddy?
Rahter than being too concerned I would submit you nurture a wild curiosity about yourself, your theological framework, your osbession with hell, and with any and all theological frameworks built on sand, which is all of them.
Now on God being too loving. I’m worried about Christians who worry about God being too loving. My guess is such people aren’t very loving of themselves and therefore try to make life hell for the rest of us.
The punishment for no belief and complete selfishness shall be delivered by Christians going on crusades or Christians singing in the choir.
Little or Liberal Baptist Rev.
This is a great dialoge and I’m impressed with some of your non-conventional and honest remarks about the theological BS that is mostly taught and subsequently passed to the ‘followers’. Which, if some would bother to question the validity and authority of the churches, we’d be alot better off and probably alot less confused. In my humble and honest opinion.
Just as an aside, as a result of my spiritual studies and personal background, hell is a myth, used primarily to scare and therefore control the masses, and/or taught as a result of ignorance to truth. It’s hard to question an authority on God, and harder still to prove or disprove. One has to ponder these things themselves and search and find the Truth for themselves, and most are not willing to take the time, or can not due to hectic schedules. The yearning has to be greater than anything of ‘this world’ I imagine. And the allure of this world is monumental.
Back to hell 🙂 I do believe that God is too pure to behold inequity. The discords we witness are results of our ignorance, both as individuals and as a collective, universal humanism. But it’s not our fault; we are born into this mesmeric and materialistic consciousness. We just need to start waking up. Which of course is infinitely easier said than done.
The hell that anyone experiences is either a result of karmic (as ye sow, so shall ye reap), or an ignorance of our identity and how it relates to God. Of course the latter takes a very, very long time to figure out.
If we are being punished, we are being punished by the act itself, which is cosmic law, and has nothing whatsoever to do with God; it is part of the dream. God is not aware of our bad dreams – nor is He aware of our sense of separation from Him.
And the punishments are paid – either immediately or later. But the promise is once we are touched by the spirit, we are ‘white as snow’. Remember, Jesus saying, ‘..neither do I condem you…’ ahhhh but then ‘…go and sin no more’.
The primary sin is ignorance of our relationship to God – if I really knew this about myself I would have no reason to sin or cause harm …
Thank you
I hope in “whatever comes next” (I believe in heaven on earth) you are my next door neighbor.
🙂 thank you – I guess those in the same spiritual household are neighbors
I have a conviction of heaven on earth too – and maybe have had a teensy, tiny, dot of a glimpse of it – one or two times – through the veil. This is, afterall, the whole point … but I forget and get distracted by the baubles of the world
I get highly distracted. The hawk eats those who are distracted. The birds sing to each other to warn of hawk. I have two hawks flying around my backyard.
Ha! that’s great. Lol
So tell me – Do you run into folks in your Baptist circles that ok with your liberalism, for lack of a better word.
Do they crucify you? What part of the country to you do your thing? Or, more reverently, where has the Creator placed you to be of servitude?
I’m in Charlotte NC. Charlotte, which, for the record, has five outstanding moderate/liberal churches with Wedgewood Baptist being the most liberal. I’ve been pastor at Wedgewood since 1989.
http://wedgewoodbaptist.com
Wedgewood is a zoo. No fundies, but a few conservatives. About 50% GLBTI. Atheists, transgendered, doubters, Buddhists, Jews – I’m telling you a zoo. I love it.
No crucifixon at Wedgewood but I’ve been sent to hell so many times by others I don’t care. Got sent to hell last week, in fact.
There is a case against God. I do affirm a creator God but……………….but a lot is wrong with the world. Maybe God is a mad scientist. Who knows.
I’m glad you are in the world. Wish there were more of you.
Read Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic. I’ve read so much but this book is better than all the other books put together. It’s out of print. Gonna cost you but……….Search for it on Amazon.
yes there is plenty wrong with ‘This World’ but then there always has been and always will be, until all wake up, but then there will be no purpose to this world.
I look upon this world as a giant classroom for us all, each with our own individual assignments. If we learn we go to the next level, if not we get held back until we do. Some of us drop out for a while, some stay in the same grade longer than others. Simplistic I know, but this is the nature of analogy
When Jesus said ‘I have overcome the world’, at that time in history the world was certainly not a very nice place to be, what with the Roman rule and factions fighting, poverty, corruption, etc (kinda sounds familiar, no?, have we progressed that much really? Aside from the tech gadgets?)
So when he said this he was only talking about himself overcoming -and not that ‘this world’ was all of a sudden magically better, right? The masses did not benefit from this, only a few really ‘got’ the teaching
So then it must be an individual thing. Somehow, we have to look beyond this world to see the Truth. If we are solely judging by appearances we can not. If we’re only judging with our senses I dont think we can. If we learn to develop our soul sense then I believe we can. But – that darn gate is very narrow and few there be that find it. But no worries – we eventually do, sooner or later, in our evolution. But it’s not easy for sure. And one of the hardest things to overcome are our concepts. Our concepts are more precious to us than money I think sometimes.
Enough of this novel 🙂
I will check out the book – thanks
I wish there were churches like yours where I live. Unfortunately, noe here in a suburb of a large city located in the bible belt. I’m not sure I’m in the right place. Oh well – guess i have to stay till further instruction
“Concerned” is synonymous with worried…and i am worried that you have been so tainted by the fire-and-brimstone christianity that you have lost your vision of seeing and understanding an honest question without inserting it into the lens of Conservative Christianity.
And dude (and yes..i’ll say “dude” because i’m your semi-stereotypical Floridian college kid)…you’ve got me wrong about being uptight. I have no desire to attack your beliefs or try to expose fallacies within your arguments. Pardon my rhetoric…i suppose “concerned” was the wrong word. Let me try that again…how about “Postulating Future Seminary Student.” Is that any better? We’re liberals – we live in the midst of questions.
All i was wanting was for you to explain your reasons for non-belief in Hell. I’ll go first: I personally do not believe in Hell because i find eternal punishment contradictory to a loving God. That’s using Reason. Because i am not trained in Hebrew or Greek, i was wondering if you had any scriptural reasons/insights for your belief….or if you wanted to touch on any of the other categories in the Quadrilateral (i.e. Tradition, Reason, Experience)
And to answer your other questions:
– Yes, homeless/transitional/broken people speak with me practically every day.
– Yes, i know people who believe they are messed up beyond the repair of God.
– No, my parents are generally not concerned/worried people. Nor have i lived in a box being spoon-fed conservative Christianity.
And for a liberal that says,
“I agree the church needs to get deeper, deeper into the world’s needs, deeper into our hearts”
…you can start by being the church yourself and dig deeper into your own heart before automatically assuming and judging that I am the judgmental one.
-Postulating Future Seminary Student
Well, it was just a post. I’m not worried about you. I’m impressed. I like that you put me in my place.
One big problem with the internet is I don’t get to know you and I rip off these blog posts. But……..
One of the things my transitional friends have taught me is that we do need to judge. We better judge or we will get eaten alive. What we need to avoid is condemning.
I judge that the world is in good hands with seminary students like you.
Don’t let any preacher or professor or ………………….ever make you into a student and not a teacher too. You are my teacher.
One more thing. I’m always guessing. I never assume I know someone until they tell me what is true about them. Curiosity is a great teacher. Thanks for letting me know my guess about you was dead wrong.
well now that we’ve had our discourse…we can do the right thing an be friends now. You’ve got a link to my blog now…
But i hardly ever update it. But if you have facebook, you could search Nelson Cowan. there’s only 2 of us. I’m the UNF / Jacksonville, FL one.
Friends.
I’ll add you on Facebook. Also, check out my group page for a book, The Sex Education of a Baptist Minister. Encourage your friends to join that and visit my blogs. liberalbaptistrev has more stuff on it.
Ayers – The problem hell or eternal perdition presents is God’s relationship to all of us, not just those given up on.
What kind of relationship can we have with a God who creates a hell? Ever walked on pins and needles? Ever tried to be intimate with someone who crucifies you at every corner?
From The Faith of a Heretic by Walter Kaufmann:
“Even the Nazis were able tod evise subtler torments and, for examle, made a woman’s hair turn white overnight by falsely telling her that the screams she heard form the next room were those of her son under torture. If there were an omnipotent god, intent on inflicting piteous sufferings on some of this creatures he could certainly improvie on physical fire. Teh serious question which one would expect the theologians to discuss is how they propose to reconcile eternal torment, no mater how ‘spirtual,’ wtih divine perfection.” (p. 96)
“Lessing once said somehwere that if even a single soul were in torment he would certainly refuse to go to heaven.” (p. 97)
Chris Ayers – If you take away the church’s threats, what is left? What the hell is left?
Read Catholic theology/church history and you find diversity on hell and the dammned. There appears to be surface clarity but if you dig. And sometimes you don’t even have to dig.
Check out infant perdition.
Chris Ayers – Perhaps once again the church is not really concerned about human beings but is concerned about preserving its power through threats and punishments and creedal agreement. May the church die a quick death.
A reply to the question asked by Concerned Future Seminary Student: There are many Bible references to support a belief in universalism. In the book “If Grace is True – Why God Will Save Every Person” by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland there is an Appendix in the back of the book that has a LIST of Universalist Themes and Verses in Scripture. There are too many to list here.
Bible quotes – chapter and verse – listed by Hebrew Scripture and Christian Scripture that support universalism.
I hope this helps!
On a personal note: If God DOES save every person, why CAN’T you have a heaven and not have a hell? There is no need for a hell if no one is there.
Amen and amen.
That book got Gulley in trouble with the Quakers of which he belongs. If you get the Quakers upset you’ve done something.
I certainly agree with Rosy too. In my humble opinion, hell is a creation of both long ago superstitions of ignorance that judges soley by appearances and has no spiritual discernment, and that of the church using it as a control mechanism to keep the masses from harm (I’m being kind here :)) and to help perpetuate the church. If you have no followers thinking they need you for their salvation, many churches would dry up and vanish.
I dont think we need the latter anymore, that is, to be controlled for ‘our own good’; hopefully we’ve started to evolve a bit in realizing this superstition, and to take responsibility for our own uncovering of Truth.
But we’re sort of socially tied to hell through intertia and blind acceptance through the ages. Sort of like how they used to resist the notion the earth was not flat …
True, when one studies and ponders the nature of God, it starts to dawn on one, ‘how can that which created us also destroy us’ and based on what? Man-made rules – nothing of which God has any knowledge of or participation in. ‘God is too pure to behold inequity’. The hell that anyone of us experiences is our veil of reality. God is Love (not human attraction kind, a higher love, sort of like a parent for a child x infinity). God is Infinite. Therefore God is Infinite Love. Therefore there is no room for discord .. in Infinity, is there? But we’re creating 2nd genesis all on our own, without the help of God. So let’s not blame God for our ignorance. Just my 2 cents
But I think the conversation is about sex. And it’s really not the point whether or not gays or anyone is going to hell. I think our concentration should be on each individual searching for God. It’s not really our place to judge others and it also distracts us by putting the attention on others instead of where the attention needs to be. If all of the energy devoted to judging and worrying about others were re-channelled into our individual search for Truth, more would be benefitted. “I – If I be lifted up will draw all men unto me”
Thanks and have a nice day
Forgive me for being so disagreeable but I strongly disagree with the idea that we are “socially tied to hell through intertia and blind acceptance through the ages. Sort of like how they used to resist the notion the earth was not flat.” The Church finally gave Copernicus a decent burial this year. If we think we are socially tied to any thing then it may take that long to conquer hell. We’ve got work to do. Resignation is not the answer.
I don’t think it’s just about sex either. Hell is separate from sex and gender identity but the church does have a way of swishing all its shit together.
Well, not that we have to agree. I learn mostly from disagreement and challenge. Understand the spirit of my humble remarks. I am mostly a student. And I agree with 90% of what you wrote. That’s more than I usually agree with myself.
You are a good person. We are counting on you. I hope you are young.
Hmmm – ok. Question: where exactly is your hell located? Where is it physically?
Is it not within your own consciousness .. and no one else’s? Is it not a product of your own beliefs and what you’ve been taught by man? Is it truly a place where God told you “there is a place … somewhere below the ground where little red men with pitch forks breathe fire and you are destined to live here for eternity unless you ….” unless you what? Follow man-made rules? Hmmmm. Interesting.
I’m not saying this is you of course, but many seem to blindly follow this sort-of vague line – “well I’m not sure if there is a hell or not but just to be on the safe side I’ll believe what they tell me because I’m too busy to try and figure it out on my own’ Again not you I know. I know you feel your hell within and it’s not a place, per se
And to be fair, not everyone is ready to study deeply enough and seriously enough to have Truth revealed for themselves. They will in time though so it’s ok. Any readiness I myself have had has been by being dragged along kicking and screaming, for sure.
In my experience any hell that I experience is a result of me (my ego, self-will, etc…), not getting out of the way enough to let the Spirit out into the world and into my life. This for me is the battle between the Spirit and the flesh. Ahhh but there really is no battle is there? But only in our beliefs. We believe we have to fight and we really dont. We just have to ‘open out a way for the imprisoned splendor to escape …’ – Browning i think.
After all – where has fighting gotten us ? I mean really, throughout all ages …. where has fighting really gotten us? We dont need wars and especially the war within ourselves. I believe when we wake up we will see that we were fighting a phantom. Of course I am a long way and believe me – I still think I have to fight. Fight something – lack, ill-health, all the discords of human living. But we’re not really getting anywhere with it – in my opinion
And I must say – that if I were to be perfectly honest with myself here, we can not debate Truth. If it’s us writing down words … we can debate philosophy but not Truth. And this is fine to do – but for me at least, it can become ego-driven. I know that one of the most difficult things for us to surrender are our concepts. We hold to these dearly; I know I have through the years. My experiences in recent years have drastically changed many of my concepts.
Truth is discerned from within – within our inner Temple. This is the only place we can ‘… know Him aright’
I’m not younge or old – apparently I am eternal!!
Sorry couldnt resist
You are so good (of a person) and so smart. I love your humor. Your insights make my old brain strained. Give me some time to think on these matters (not to win an argument but to digest your insights).
Now to argue with me. I do think SOME of the people concerned about sex stuff are concerned about hell. I have a relative who is one of God’s most loving beings. She finds GLBTI folk weird but she is very accepting of weird. She has been brainwashed by the church and Bible and her main concern is that folk get into heaven. So………..so for some folk sex orientation stuff is directly related to hell.
I don’t have a hell to locate anywhere. I don’t believe it in. I do know more than a few people who love lives with a lot of suffering, some of which is self-inflicted and worsened by self.
I believe, as did at least some version of Jesus, that heaven is on earth. The hell he described was on earth. Ghenna. May have been referring to another place too but Ghenna he had seen (think I’m right on this. Got to check myself.)
I’m not excusing people who aren’t willing to think deeply. No excuses.
Life is a journey. We can go forward or backwards on the journey. I don’t expect people to arrive or to always move forward.
Most of our fighting is within. If we can work on that we can deal better with the other stuff. However, liberals need to accept that there is real evil in the world and it is dangerous and scary.
I hate the suffering caused by Christians and the church. Don’t let the steeples mess up your short life.
You are honest. That’s why I find you refreshing.
Experience – worth a million words or more.
our inner temple – I smell a poet.
don’t resist ever