Hell and the Emerging Church

hell and the emerging church
A discussion between Tony Jones and Sean McDowell

(An installment of the column “Sparks: Iron Sharpens Iron” appearing in

The Journal of Student Ministries)

www.thejournalofstudentministries.com

sean says:
Tony, I’ve got a topic that’s sure to create some sparks. So, here it is: I think the church needs to reclaim a balanced biblical approach to eternal judgment. It seems to me that we have given in to cultural pressures and softened the reality of hell.

Hell is undoubtedly repulsive to postmodern youth. It is certainly easier to persuade young people to believe in a God who accepts everyone than it is to persuade them of a God who sends people to eternal hell where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 8:12), and eternal torment (Rev. 20:10). But are we as youth ministers marketing God to our contemporary culture, or is our task to stand in continuity with biblical truth—regardless of the cost?

As youth workers, we should be wary of the temptation to dilute the reality of hell and make it more tolerant for the contemporary mind. Naturally, we do not want any young people to reject the gospel because of a misunderstanding of hell. Yet, we also want teens to truly understand what they were saved from. So, what does the Bible teach?

Jesus spoke of hell more than any other New Testament figure. He used it to motivate his disciples for ministry (Matthew 10:28) and also as the destiny of his opponents (Matthew 23:13). Even the Sermon on the Mount, known mostly for its emphasis on love and the kingdom of God, includes some grim teaching about the reality and nature of hell (5:20-30; 7:13-27). The author of Hebrews considers it a foundational “elementary teaching” (6:1-3). Future punishment is addressed in some way by every New Testament author. This is not the case for many important biblical truths.

The point, Tony, is that we must get back to preaching and teaching the entire character of God. While God’s love is central in Scripture, it should not be taught independently of sin, the atonement, and eternal judgment.

Hell is not merely an academic issue, but a personal one. For all of us have family and/or friends who do not know Jesus. That is why we must speak of hell, but we must do it with gentleness, compassion, and balance.

tony says:
Sean, the idea of “hell” has been a touchstone of human religiosity for as long as there have been humans. The Old Testament concept of Sheol, for instance, can be understood as a primitive version of Hell. And, as you say, Jesus did a lot to sophisticate the understanding of Hell and the afterlife in the ancient world. Before Jesus and the early church, both Hebrew and Greco-Roman understandings of the afterlife were fuzzy at best.

So, why is a place of eternal punishment central to our human imaginations and to Jesus’ teaching? I think it’s because, as we make our way in the world, we realize that there is something seriously screwed up. Many of us have a deep sense that this worldly existence is unjust, and that there most be a different reality of justice somewhere.

This, of course, is what Jesus came to preach and to exemplify with his own life: there is a perfect justice, and it lies with God. You and I, 2,000 years later, might call that “biblical justice.” It’s the idea that in God’s realm, goodness, love and mercy reign. And, in God’s realm, evil does not prosper—indeed, evil is punished.

I’m writing this the day after visiting the Nelson Mandela Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. I walked out of that experience with the same feeling in my gut that I had a couple years ago walking out of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. And that feeling is that I’d just had a taste of hell on earth. The injustice of the apartheid system of segregation and discrimination came to life via videos of bloody police beatings, photos of murdered children, and a room full of nooses representing the dozens of apartheid resisters who were hanged by the government.

So, honestly, Sean, I don’t have a very hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of Hell. Nor do I have a difficult time talking to students about Hell.

But, I want to argue that the New Testament concepts of eternal recompense for evil and biblical justice are inseparable. To talk of God’s “love” in distinction from God’s “judgment” is a false dichotomy. “Love” and “justice,” theologically speaking are one and the same.

Jesus comes with good news, particularly to those who are living in hell. He comes promising them that in God’s economy, a perfect love/justice prevails.

sean says:
When I visited the Holocaust museum in Israel, Tony, I was aghast like you at the atrocities. Evil acts demand justice. As the moral ruler of the universe, God is the one who will bring ultimate justice to the world. Yet, it is because of His love that “He gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

God’s acts sometimes reflect his love (1 John 3:16) while other times his acts reflect his justice (Genesis 18:25). To speak of God’s love and His justice is to emphasize two different attributes of His character. Theologically speaking, God’s love and justice are not one and the same. If they were the same then they should be interchangeable, but they are not. When we minimize, maximize, or even blend these then we are no longer teaching our youth a biblical view of God.

My concern is that we often soft peddle the reality of hell (God’s judgment) so as not to offend students. I have heard countless messages about the love of God, but I can’t remember the last message I heard a talk on the reality and gravity of hell. Jesus taught a joyful message of hope and transformation, but he also gave severe warnings about hell. If we truly desire to be faithful to his example we can do no less.

tony says:
At the risk of sidetracking the conversation, Sean, I’m concerned about the second paragraph in your last response. “Two different attributes” of God’s character? Divine acts that reflect God’s love or his justice? One of the great theological traps into which human beings fall is to anthropomorphize God—that is, to make God subject to human attributes.

But I’m afraid that you’ve committed a worse theological offense, for you’ve segregated God’s love from God’s justice (and in the name of theology!). In fact, I can’t separate the two in my own life. For instance, when I’m punishing my kids, am I loving them or teaching them justice (that “evil demands justice,” in your words)? I think it’s clearly both. As the great theologian Mr. Rogers often said, we love our children the most by giving them boundaries.

When I read the Bible, it’s nearly impossible for me to categorize acts of God into containers labeled “love” or “justice.” And to do so, I think, would be to make God some kind of categorizable being, when God is in fact beyond our human categories.

What we do have, thankfully, is the person of Jesus Christ. And, as you noted, he both promised heaven and warned about hell. While I think his warnings about a “lake of fire” are metaphorical—similar to his description of the Kingdom of God as “like a mustard seed”—I believe that both of these descriptions should be wholeheartedly taught to our youth. But they should be taught in their context, as Jesus meant them, as far as we can tell.

What I never see in the life of Jesus or the teachings of the Apostles, however, is any attempt to use hell to scare people into heaven.

sean says:
Tony, I agree with you that from a divine perspective God’s love cannot be separated from his justice. God cannot exercise one attribute at the preclusion of another because each is true of who God is in his basic character. God’s love is just and his justice must be loving. As you stated, the judgment of hell is not independent of God’s love.

But my point is from a human perspective. God has chosen to reveal himself through human language. The Bible tells us that God is just, loving, merciful, righteous, omnipotent, and so on. God revealed himself through the written word with all of its limitations so that we could know him. Human language may not be able to capture God fully but it does capture him truly.

Thus, when we speak about God it is important that our language reflects the biblical message as a whole (not ignoring certain difficult truths such as hell). Sometimes the Bible talks about justice while other times it talks about love. The point is to help us come as close as humanly possible to understanding the true nature of God.