Is hell disappearing? Back in 2008, Dr. Alan Segal, Professor at Barnard College said, “Absolutely!” In his book, Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion, the details speak for themselves.
In 2001, 71% of Americans said they believed in hell. In 2008, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, that percent was down to 59%.
According to Charles Honey (in the Pew Report), “Americans are redefining the doctrine of hell before our eyes.”
In August of 2008, Pope John Paul II said in a weekly Papal address that heaven and hell were not really physical places, denying 2000 years of biblical and church teaching. (Matt 10:28; Luke 12:5; Mark 9:43-28)
What do you do with all the Bible’s teachings about hell being a place of unspeakable anguish, a place where the fire never goes out, or a place of punishment and torment?
Charles Honey in a Religious News Service article entitled, Belief in Hell Dips, But Some Say They’ve Already Been There, said, “Skepticism about hell is growing even in evangelical churches and seminaries, says one theologian here, a bastion of conservative evangelicalism.”
“In a pluralistic, post-modern world, students are having a more difficult time with (the idea of) people going to hell forever because they didn’t believe the right thing,” says Miles Wittmer, professor of systematic theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary.
“That’s the biggest question out there right now: Would God send someone to hell if they were someone as good as me, but didn’t believe what I believe?”
Do you see what is happening in evangelical circles? People are reasoning from their experience (I don’t think, believe, feel), rather than from the Bible. Their reason runs opposite of what the Bible teaches. They say, “how could a ‘good’ God send a person to hell forever?”
Our culture has moved and the shift has been significant. The culture is experience-oriented more than truth or Bible-oriented. It has adopted a natural, not supernatural view, even of God. It is a culture of non-judgmentalism and they hold a view of life that is self-focused and therapeutic, man-centered, not God-centered.
Professor Segal said, “They believe everyone has an equal chance, at this life and the next.” Thus, “hell is disappearing, absolutely.”
If you were to ask what happens to people when they die, here are several popular theories and representatives of those who believe them. The popular theories that deny hell are:
· Annihilation. They say you live and then you are destroyed. No hell for you. (John Stott and Edward Fudge)
· Reincarnation. This denies the existence of hell by confining individuals to earth during consecutive lifetimes in a process that ends in a nirvana or heavenly bliss. (Hindus, Buddhists and some Muslims)
· Purgatory. Advocated primarily by the Roman Catholic Church. They believe purgatory is where you go but it is not punitive or retributive, but rather for cleansing. No biblical support can be found for this. (Pope Benedict XVI)
· Universalism. Liberal teachers or preachers teach that there is a heaven and a hell, but God would not let anyone go to hell because of His love. (John Hicks and Pastor Rob Bell)
· Humanism. As a group they tend not to deal with any theological or eschatological question. They tend to believe that hell is inconsistent with what they perceive to believe about Christ. (Roy Wood Sellars)
· Life After death is unlikely. (Bertrand Russell)
· Post-modern Evangelism. Unbelievers get a second chance after death. (Clark Pinnock)
· Orthodoxy. What the Bible actually teaches. (Turtillian, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, and some but not all pastors and teachers of today.
For millions of people who are identified as post-modern, “truth” is not an absolute, it is not even divine revelation as the Bible teaches—it is a matter of personal choice. “Truth is what I chose to believe,” they tell us. And they choose not to believe in hell.
Everyone wants the modern “God”—the “God of love.” But they want to neglect His other attributes like justice, righteousness, truthfulness and holiness. That leaves us picking and choosing God’s attributes. Or, to put it another way, we want God on our terms not His.
There are only two kinds of people in the end! There are those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in hell chose it. (Norman Geisler, Unshakable Foundations).
God Bless,
Woody
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