Who's in Hell? Michigan Pastor's Book Sparks Debate About Eternal Torment

[cali]

Published March 24, 2011

| Associated Press


DURHAM, N.C. -- When Chad Holtz lost his old belief in hell, he also lost his job.

<snip>

The debate over Bell's new book "Love Wins" has quickly spread across the evangelical precincts of the Internet, in part because of an eye-catching promotional video posted on YouTube.

Bell, the pastor of the 10,000-member Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., lays out the premise of his book while the video cuts away to an artist's hand mixing oil paints and pastels and applying them to a blank canvas.

He describes going to a Christian art show where one of the pieces featured a quote by Mohandas Gandhi. Someone attached a note saying: "Reality check: He's in hell."

<snip>

In the book, Bell criticizes the belief that a select number of Christians will spend eternity in the bliss of heaven while everyone else is tormented forever in hell. "This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear," he writes in the book.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/24/whos-hell-michigan-pastors-book-sparks-debate-eternal-torment/#ixzz1HWQs2ro9

[Brickbat]

1. Well, when you believe your whole religion is based on a God blocking out all other gods and his son

proclaiming himself the ONLY way and ONLY truth, then yeah, a book like that is going to piss people off.

[cali]

2. here's the vid

I think I like this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODUvw2McL8g

[GKirk]

18. From that video...

"The center of the gospel of Jesus, that God is going to send you to Hell unless you believe in Jesus...Jesus rescues you from God."

That is quite profound.

Basically saying believe in me or my father will punish you with eternal damnation. Wow.

[ZombieHorde]

22. He does seem cool, but he is just making stuff up. "Love wins" is a pretty meaningless statement. n

[handmade34]

3. we should all be rather

impatient with the absurdities of fundamentalist Christian beliefs...

I find it amazing that we people are still so primitive that we still use religion to explain what we have ability to know otherwise...

nice video though and the church (religion) can give direction and community to people when they have no place else...

[Rebubula]

5. Fundamentalism is the problem

Be it Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Christian or otherwise.

To pretend that Christian Fundies are the only problem is to have a very narrow world view.




I do agree with your 2nd sentence. I have long stated that once we had telescopes to see past the stars and microscopes to see at sub atomic levels - the need for a god to explain away everything evaporated.

[handmade34]

7. reflecting the post

directly discussing Christianity... no pretense of anything here and your implication that I intentionally left out non-Christian fundamentalists is narrow minded indeed

[deutsey]

4. I many of us have been since December 2000 n/t

[H2O Man]

6. Recommended.

A fellow I went to college with ended up a fundy minister. We were pretty close friends back in the day. A few years back, I ran into him in a store one evening, and he was trying to "convert" me. Yikes! I quoted Gandhi at one point, and he assured me that God had sent Gandhi to eternal hell. I said that I wasn't sure if he had done too much LSD in college, or not enough.

We remain friends, though not so close.

[cali]

8. did you watch the vid? Quite well done and thoughtful.

[no_hypocrisy]

9. Reminds me of a conversation I had with a Lubavitcher rabbi.

He asked me why Jews were the "Chosen People".

I responded I had been taught the Jewish people were to model the best of human ideals and principles.

He rebutted. I was wrong. God "chose" the Jews to suffer. No more complicated than that. I asked him if he meant it. He did.

I told the rabbi that if God made the Jews for the sake of suffering, he was going to have a hard time convincing lapsed Jews to return to the faith with advertising like that.

[BillStein]

15. As one of those chosen people...

I've always thought that was an indication that the earliest Hebrews were polygamists, and the Adonai was one of many gods. He "chose" us the same way Athena chose to protect the Athenians, or Delphi as the people of Apollo.

There's a thread in the theology board about religion dying out in western Europe and other places. I think it's important that religion thrives when the followers are persecuted, but wanes when people are more "free". Hence the Jews identity as people who are tested by suffering. Is that why American Xians are always inventing torments like the war on X-mas, or the threat that teaching evolution brings?

[JohnyCanuck]

10. I have heard that

back in the middle ages it was assumed that part of the entertainment to be found in heaven would be looking down and enjoying the spectacle of the torments of the damned being burnt alive in hell as they got what was coming to them.

Nowadays that type of thinking doesn't cut it any more, and the idea that while you might be lolling around playing a harp in heaven, you would be aware that your parents, big brother, little sister or other loved one is being tormented in the flames of hell doesn't seem quite so palatable. The usual response is the God will somehow take care of it so that the eternal, blissful repose of the blessed will not be disturbed by the knowledge that loved ones are at the same time undergoing eternal torment and suffering.

It would explain why back in the dark ages they had no compunction at burning people alive for blasphemy etc as it would be just a small foretaste of what they believed heretics were going to be getting for eternity. Of course it would also serve as a good reminder to the faithful what eternal damnation would be like should they dare to harbor any perverse thoughts that, in matters of religious doctrine, maybe the priest lecturing them every Sunday from the pulpit might really just be full of shit.

[Pacifist Patriot]

11. Not exactly a unique selling point. Universalists have him by a couple hundred years.

:-)

[RandomKoolzip]

12. Watched the video. Meh.

Looks like there's an organized effort to make religion "hip" again. This guy looks like a goddamn hipster going to a Sleigh Bells or How to Dress Well show, apart from his deadly earnestness. And the whole overstated gesturing thing - when he says "heart," he makes a little figure with his hand, cupping an area around his chest to mimic "holding" his own heart. What the fuck?! Yuck. Seriously, why do people fall for this shit?

Gandhi isn't in Hell BECAUSE THERE IS NO HELL.

It doesn't matter if your religion teaches you to be kind or it teaches you to be cruel - the problem is being asked/cajoled to believe in a bunch of cosmological hoo-hah no one can prove. THAT'S why I'm not religious - not because some Christians are mean. This schmuck is just peddling more snake oil, except the label on the bottle looks a little hipper and nicer.

The fact that this book is being presented as "controversial" (Ooooh!) is just more marketing.

[Motown_Johnny]

13. Matthew 25 spells it out pretty clearly, and it says nothing about belief in a saviour

Care for the poor, sick and imprisoned and you go to heaven. Don't and you go to hell. It seems pretty clear to me.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2025&version=NKJV

^snip^


“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’
41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’
44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

[Patiod]

14. My favorite bible verses - you don't hear them on "Christian" radio

You don't hear the "eye of the needle" verse much either. Doesn't jibe with their Corporatist philosophy

[Motown_Johnny]

16. the Beatitudes have somehow been lost as well

funny how that happens

[trotsky]

17. Mark 9:42-48 also spells it out pretty clearly.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%209:42-48&version=NIV

“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched."

Jesus pretty clearly believed in hell, and that people were condemned to it.

[MikeH]

19. Anybody who believes Gandhi is in hell is no different from a "good German" in the 1930's

He describes going to a Christian art show where one of the pieces featured a quote by Mohandas Gandhi. Someone attached a note saying: "Reality check: He's in hell."

<snip>

In the book, Bell criticizes the belief that a select number of Christians will spend eternity in the bliss of heaven while everyone else is tormented forever in hell. "This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear," he writes in the book.

Anybody who believes that Gandhi is in hell, or that only a small number of Christians will go to heaven while everybody else goes to hell, is no different from a "good German" who went along with Hitler and the Nazis.

A "good German" unquestioningly accepted whatever Hitler said and whatever the leading Nazis said as being true and right, and not to be questioned. A fundamentalist Christian like that described above unquestioningly accepts whatever the Bible says, and whatever certain preachers and other fundamentalist Christian authorities say, as being absolute truth and not to be questioned.

As Voltaire said: As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.

[laconicsax]

21. The Bible is quite clear on this subject:

If you don't believe in the boy, you get barbecued.

[dimbear]

24. That makes a lot of sense, actually.

We know from the story of Cain and Abel that God loves barbecue.

We know from experience that unbelievers tend to be brighter and more educated, that is to say metaphorically they are prime cuts.

Tasty barbecue.

[laconicsax]

26. There's nothing like the smell of burning flesh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P6XBe3jivM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxpZDlvtOm8

[GSanon]

20. Really surprised a methodist church would do this!

That is so... Baptist!
I know a lot of methodists who actually agree with such universalistic leanings.

[moobu2]

23. The superstitious concept of a Judgment

was stolen from the Egyptians who stole it from some other culture and they no doubt stole it from someone else's. There's nothing at all unique about the superstition.

[bighughdiehl]

25. Typical fundy reaction

Universalists do have their bible verses for support, such as John 12:32, 1 Cor. 15:22-28,
Phil 2: 9-11 Fundies are suuuuuuuch consistent literalists, you see:sarcasm:, that they
just skip over these or find hilarious ways of straining them in favor of the fire
and brimstone stuff.