I get accused of heresy a lot, simply because I don’t believe in a lot of what ‘mainline’ Evangelical Christianity believes in. This of course depends entirely upon my accusers’ presupposition that they are in fact right, and anyone who disagrees with them is wrong. But when you’re talking about an infinite, intrinsically unknowable Being, it stands to reason that anyone who claims to have all their ducks neatly in a row is by definition wrong.

But the biggest heresy of all is the huge slur on the character of God that is perpetrated by that same group. Here’s a far better take on it, from Kevin Carter:

I truly think the great heresy of the church is the attack on the character of God that began with Augustine, continued with Anselm, and was finalized with Calvin.

God became a tyrant, who saw humanity only as worthless rags, worthy of destruction… God’s holiness wasn’t something to love, but something to fear because we could never live up to it, and it’s not our fault, because God created us with that flaw, but we’re the ones to be accountable.

God, in a moment of regret, recognizes the flaw and decides to give us an escape route, but He does so by requiring the greatest, most painful and bloody death possible, then fragments the story in numerous ways, fills it with some myth, and requires you to believe a great number of ridiculous claims that work against the fabric of what we’ve come to understand to know about the Universe. And if we simply aren’t convinced by one particular sect of people who call themselves His followers, then He torments us gleefully in Hell for infinity?

I’m sorry, but that God is not Holy, Righteous, or Pure. That God is more evil than Thanos.

Luckily, that’s not who God is, nor is that what the church believed for the first 400 years or so… There is a more ancient truth of God’s love for all humanity, Gods suffering because of the sin condition, God’s desire to conquer the sin condition and offer us a way out of that system while we live, but with complete plans to fully reconcile ALL of it eventually.

That’s a God worth loving… The first is something to be feared and reviled.

– Kevin Carter, shared with his kind permission.

Header image shows three of the Monty Python team (left to right: Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam) in their well-known and oft-quoted sketch ‘The Spanish Inquisition’. No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition, of course 😉 But unfortunately the reality was nowhere near as funny: The real Spanish inquisition were a bunch of church-approved heresy hunters who began their work in the late fifteenth century and continuing for some 300 years. Nasty people they were, and of course their heirs are still in existence today. Seriously, they were horrible. Here’s a link to the the Wikipedia article on them.

I don’t know if you know this, but the most commonly-used phrase in the entire Bible is this: “Do not be afraid”. Usually (although not always) it is used in the context of humans being scared of God or His angels.

Funny, then, isn’t it, how so much of today’s church activity focuses on fear. The doctrines, the practices, the terminology, the liturgy  – most of it is fear-based. And most of that fear is of course channeled into the idea of being afraid of God, despite the most common context of the phrase ‘Do not be afraid’.

The phrase could even be seen as the most-often-repeated commandment of God, although you won’t hear all that many church leaders preaching on that idea, because of the loss of fear-based power that would follow. So, when people trot out the inerrantists’ phrase, ‘God says it, I believe it, and that settles it’, why do they not apply it to the phrase ‘Do not be afraid’?

And given the phrase that is repeated so many times – Do not be afraid! – there really is no excuse, when you think about it, for any believer to be afraid. Afraid of God and/or what He’s going to do; of death, because it’s been defeated; of Hell, because it’s just a scaremongering idea invented by the mediaeval Church to keep people in line. No, there is no need at all to be afraid, and I would like to emphasise this by sharing below a great piece from my friend Mo Thomas on this very subject. Here we go:

Fear of Divine Punishment

Based on what I know of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, I have NO FEAR OF HELL whatsoever, for me or anyone else, EVEN IF it exists as western theology frames it. (Note: I don’t believe that it exists as a nightmarish place of eternal horror, and neither did 5 of the first 6 schools of theology in the first 5 centuries after Christ. We might be missing something?!?)

Why would I ever have any fear or worry? This is the Abba of our Lord Jesus that we’re talking about!! His Love never fails, it keeps no record of wrongs, and His mercy endures forever. I trust Him completely that it would be for our refining, that all which is not of Christ would be burned away in His holy fire.

“We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love he has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them. By living in God, love has been brought to its full expression in us so that we may fearlessly face the day of judgment, because all that Jesus now is, so are we in this world. Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment. But love’s perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts. **Whoever walks constantly afraid of punishment has not reached love’s perfection.”** (1Jn 4:16-18 (Passion Translation))

Hear God speak into your soul, gently but firmly, with unshakable confidence in His voice…

“It is I, the One who loves you.
Trust in Me, and #DoNotBeAfraid.
Come to Me, and rest in My Embrace.”

Selah.

Here is the link to the original article

My regular readers know that I strongly disagree with the idea of a Hell of eternal conscious suffereng, where a supposedly loving god sends people who, for whatever reason, fail to jump through the right hoops in this life.

I personally sometimes have difficulty in articulating exactly what I want to say on this subject, partly because my mind works so fast and with so many ideas that it’s difficult to get it out onto my laptop. Because of this, it comes as a great relief to me whan I find an article where someone else has articulated exactly what I wanted to say, only they have done it so much better and more thoroughly. And in addition to it being quite humbling (hehe) I also find it really encouraging, because it means that others like me have thought about the concepts too, and I am not alone in my thinking.

Here is a very good example of this. In this piece, Chris Kratzer says so much that I have wanted to say, and he says it with clarity and conviction.

Hell-Believing, Wrath-Preaching, Fire-Breathing Christian—What If You’re Wrong?

Chances are, it’s a belief you’ve grown up with all your life—God loves humanity so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross in order to save us from His eternal punishment of sinners who don’t love Him back in return through believing in His Son and repenting of their sins. As the story goes, through His crucifixion, Jesus took upon Himself the punishment from God that we deserve for sin. God required the death of Jesus in order to forgive sin, and personal faith and repentance are how we benefit from that event. Otherwise, the work of Jesus isn’t applied to our account and we are doomed to spend eternity in a place of unimaginable suffering where our greatest wish is to die, but by God’s design we are prevented from doing so—it’s hell, and it’s forever.

For those who might find this storyline of human redemption difficult to stomach with its dark portrayals of God, the Gospel, and Jesus. For those who wonder how God could claim to be so loving and yet act so sinister in not only imagining this kind of hell, but creating it and making the brutal murder of Jesus the only way out of it. For those who dare to look ahead towards the psychotic duplicity of what it might feel like enjoying eternity in the bliss of heaven while your loved ones scorch in unbearable suffering. For those this whole damnation-thing strikes their conscience as being a bit unsettling, unnerving, and confusing—we’ve been taught a simple fix. Hell is a necessary and natural manifestation of God’s divine holiness and justice. In heaven, we will encounter these attributes so completely and fully that any doubts we might have about God or people suffering eternally will somehow no longer haunt us, but rather rest peacefully and easily upon our souls. So much, that in the presence of God who allows for, created, and sustains hell, we will be forever desiring to sing His praises as millions of others suffer unimaginably.

In short, the brutal, violent death of Jesus and a hell of eternal pain and suffering have been handed down to us unquestionably as the ultimate reflection of God’s character and His best ideas for how to extend and make real His deep abiding love for humanity.

Maybe for you, these popular teachings regarding God’s narrative of salvation are a comfortable fit and central to your faith understanding. In your mind, if people go to hell, it’s their fault, not God’s. God can do whatever He wants, and if Hell is the setup, so be it. Besides, the Scriptures are clear, people have been warned—believe or burn, that’s the Gospel. If one rejects Jesus and refuses to heed His commands, they’ll get their just reward—an eternity of torture. God is holy, just, and sovereign no matter how vicious and brutal things play out—for His ways are not our ways, who are we to cross-examine the Divine? Therefore, you proudly and boldly declare the reality of a flaming eternity and the glory of God in sending (or allowing) people there who reject Jesus or live disobediently—thanking God, it’s not you, of course.

Or perhaps for you, as much as you dislike thinking about hell and are even inwardly perplexed by its reality in contrast to a loving God, your understanding of the biblical witness and teachings of Jesus seem to leave you no other choice but to conclude that hell is real and real people will be spending eternity in some kind of suffering existence that affords no hope and no way out. It’s not how you would draw it up, and the whole idea is secretly unsettling to you. When it comes to God’s wrath, burning in flames, and the brutal crucifixion of His own Son, you’d just as soon focus on something else and hope it all comes out in the wash. You have your doubts, a lot of questions, and significant uneasiness with it all, but that’s about as far as you’ve taken it.

Wherever you are on the spectrum, chances are, without a hell for unbelieving sinners, the foundations of your faith understanding make little sense and largely comes crashing to the ground. In your mind, if there’s no hell, there’s no purpose for Jesus. If there’s no hell, there’s no purpose for believing. If there’s no hell, there’s no purpose in being a Christian. If there’s no hell, what’s the motivation? If there’s no hell, what’s our message? If there’s no hell, what’s the Gospel? If there’s no hell, what happens to all the effort I’ve put into my righteousness?

So, as difficult, foundation-shaking, and faith-unraveling as this question could potentially be, I’m still going to ask it—what if you’re wrong?

What if hell is nothing like you think?

What if hell (if a place at all) is actually just as Jesus alluded, a literal place (Gehenna) located in Jerusalem associated with the valley of Hinnom that was used as the city dump where a fire was constantly kept to burn up and consume all of the city’s unwanted junk? In fact, the word Gehenna occurs 12 times in the Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament, each time being mistranslated to mean “hell” in several versions of the Bible, even though Jesus used it as a clear reference to a city dump.

What if it’s an embarrassingly huge stretch of theological abuse to determine in one moment that the admonition by Jesus to, “pluck your eye out” is certainly not to be taken literally, but yet in the next moment, His literal use of “Gehenna” in the same sentence should somehow be unequivocally understood to refer figuratively to a real place in the bottom of the earth where people are tortured by the wrath of God in eternal flames? Really?

What if the other three biblical words traditionally interpreted as referring to a “hell of fire and eternal torment” actually are grossly mistranslated and don’t actually mean “hell” at all? In fact, Sheol occurs 65 times in the Hebrew Manuscripts of the Old Testament, and it simply means “the grave” (the place of the dead) or “the pit.” Hades occurs 11 times in the Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament and it is the direct equivalent of the Hebrew word Sheol. Thus, it also simply means “the grave “or “the pit.” Tartarus occurs only once in the Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament in this verse: “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell (tartarus) and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment.” Notice that God casts the angels (not humanity) who sinned down to tartarus and chained them in darkness, to be reserved for judgement.

What if the single word “hell” we use today and associate as “hell” (a place of fiery, eternal torture) is actually not found in the Bible—nowhere, and in no manuscripts? It’s true.

What if, in fact, much of modern Christianity’s convenient love affair with a hell of flames, wrath, and demons comes much more from the influence of Dante’s “Inferno” than ever could be derived from the true words of Jesus?

What if hell is actually a reality experienced in the presence of God, not apart from Him like commonly taught? In fact, two writers in Scripture describe this very notion: “The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb,” and “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.”

What if hell is not the result of God doing something contrary to His nature (love), but rather doing more of it? In fact, the Greek word for “wrath” in the New Testament is the word “orge.” Unfortunately, the way this word has been translated has been shaped greatly by our pre-existing concepts of God as being angry, temperamental, and hell-bent on punishing. The word “orge” actually means “any intense emotion.” It’s from where we get words like “orgy” and “orgasm.” At its core, “wrath” has to do with a very strong passion—not even associated to anger. In fact, the root of “orge” actually means “to reach out in a straining fashion for something that you long to possess.”

What if the wrath of God is not Him pouring out anger, vengeance, or retaliation, but rather His furious love—grasping, reaching, shaking to possess every person that they might experience His Grace?

What if hell is the experience of religious-hearted people who despise the pure Grace of God and His unconditional love and inclusion of all people into Himself and the Kingdom? In the eternal presence of the white-hot love of God forever flowing out as a river from His throne (Daniel 7:10), their souls are scorched with frustration, rage, and torment as their self-righteousness, conditional love, and religious arrogance, bigotry, and intolerance are exposed—stripped, and rendered powerless and evil. All of it deemed as filthy rags fit for the lake of God’s all consuming fire—the blistering flames of Grace. The presence of all people of every color, gender, orientation, stronghold, sin, and creed sends them into legalistic episodes of uncontainable protest and rage—how can this be, how is this fair, how dare the cross include all of these? Resigned to spend an eternity in the presence of pure Grace, the only way it becomes heaven for them is to do what many will refuse—to repent of their demonizing of God, their worship of the Scriptures, and their own legalistic understandings of it all to the exclusion of truly knowing Jesus and His heart. For the same Grace and love that will be experienced as heaven by many, will be a sure torturous hell for some. Jesus forever flips over the tables yet again, and those whom religion joyously sends to the curb are given a prized seat of bliss, and those whom religion gives elite privilege are found to be pouting and wallowing forever in religious disgust.

What if Jesus didn’t die to save us from white-bearded, angry, and vengeful God, but to save us from a fear-driven faithless life of believing He is?

What if Jesus didn’t die at the hands of a God who required His blood-soaked death in order to forgive, but rather at the claws of the religious and their diabolical systems of evil whose chief desire is to murder pure Grace and all its self-righteous destroying, all-including implications?

What if, in the hands of a world dripping with oppression, Jesus, through the cross, chose the way of nonviolence, sacrifice, service, forgiveness, inclusion, and unconditional love to model and manifest the Kingdom that was already eternally established by His Grace?

What if Jesus didn’t die to forgive us, but to manifest to the world that God already had, long ago outside of time in the realm of eternity?

What if God isn’t schizophrenic after all—harboring unconditional love for humanity one moment and eternal hate the next?

What if the truth is, you can’t reject Grace—you can’t stop its presence, pursuit, favor, or blessings over your life or that of any other, you can only love it or resist it? Loving, believing, trusting Grace fills your life with heavenly rest. Not loving, believing, and trusting Grace fills your life with a hell of frustration, self-righteousness, bitterness, religiosity, judgementalism and angst—as long as you desire, even for eternity.

What if God isn’t an insecure, limited, and codependent parent, whose capacity to save, love, and forgive are restricted to and governed by the obedience (or disobedience) of His children—thus, making them the Lords of the future, not Him?

What if God never changes—He is love through and through, forever and always, no matter what or who?

What if the presence of alternative biblically-faithful interpretations regarding ones understanding of hell and God’s connection to it back you into an interpretive corner, so much that if you believe in an eternal hell of torment and torture for the unbelieving and a God who would author it, you are doing so solely by your own choice?

For the results are in—history paints the picture. We Christians have been drastically wrong before—wrong about racism, wrong about equality, wrong about violence and war, the list keeps on growing.

Hell-believing, wrath-preaching, fire-breathing Christian—what if you’re wrong, yet again?

If I’m wrong, then God will most certainly go ahead, around, and over me in a divine full-court-press to scare the hell out of the people I’m misleading—literally. For there’s nothing about me or my message that the Holy Spirit is powerless or unwilling to usurp. Any wayward guidance on my part can easily be reversed by the omnipotent leading of the Father. I would boldly stand before the Throne having exaggerated the goodness, love, and Grace of God—if ever that could be a thing.

But, if you’re wrong, you have participated in nothing less than the evil demonization of God and the sheer blaspheming of His Spirit. You’ve allowed your spiritual laziness, vulnerability to religious brainwashing, and twisted comfort with the notion of people going to a torturous hell and a God who would create it, to win over your heart, mind, thinking, attitudes and actions. You have leaned on your own understanding of the Scriptures to the spiritual abuse of others—imprisoning them into a life of fear as they are raped of their capacity to know the joy, freedom, and peace that comes from awakening to God who is love, Jesus who is Grace, and the Gospel that is truly good news for all.

Hell-believing, wrath-preaching, fire-breathing Christian—what if you’re wrong?

“Paradise is the love of God, wherein is the enjoyment of all blessedness… I also maintain that those who are punished in Gehenna are scourged by the scourge of love. For what is so bitter and vehement as the punishment of love?” -St. Isaac the Syrian

“The flames of heaven will be hotter for some than the flames of hell could ever be” -Dallas Willard

“Grace is the celebration of life, relentlessly hounding all the non-celebrants in the world.” -Robert Capon

Grace is brave. Be brave

 – Chris Kratzer, shared with his kind permission.

I was also particularly impressed by a comment in the discussion following Chris’s article, which I thought was absolutely beautiful:

I read your post shortly after it came out. It moved me so deeply that I emailed it to my father, a messianic rabbi. And, just today, I happened back across it when going through my archived emails.

You have summed up a journey that my mind and soul have taken over the last decade. I began as a conservative evangelical and now I describe myself as a near universalist (those who are excluded will be excluded by their own decision to reject Grace and refuse to enter the Kingdom; which is in some ways to the important and passing point Dante makes about how the gates of Hell are left unlocked).

Grace is a powerful thing and it is too often a stumbling block for those who can’t accept something so radical. It always amazes me how people use phrases like “cheap grace.” It isn’t cheap, it’s better, it is offered for free (the meaning of Christ’s life and death; the depiction of God’s great love for all of us acted out in life and death). Still we demand vengeance, justice, etc. and can’t accept the idea of people we consider unrighteous or somehow less than us (they didn’t perform the work of saying the sinner’s prayer, right?) sharing in the same eternal reward.

Thank you for bearing your heart of writing this. God bless and keep you.

Well, I think that just about wraps it up for today. I am so glad that there are others out there who articulate things so well, and are also getting the Good News message across. And I am so grateful that these guys agree to let me reblog their excellent material.

Thanks again, Chris

Peace and Grace

Here is the link to the original article