{"id":328,"date":"2010-03-15T12:49:43","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T18:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/?p=328"},"modified":"2011-08-11T00:01:50","modified_gmt":"2011-08-11T06:01:50","slug":"my-neighbor-isnt-going-to-hell-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/archives\/328","title":{"rendered":"My Neighbor Isn’t Going To Hell, Right?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent post, I already touched on hell, but focused mostly on those around the world who have never heard the Gospel–is it fair they go to hell? If you are interested in that topic, I suggest you read that post<\/a>. In today’s post, I want to focus on my next-door neighbor or the people in our own communities. Most of them have already heard the Gospel at one point in their life. They can’t claim ignorance. Yet they have refused to give their lives over to Christ. Why as churches are we not motivated to reach out to the large number of people who refuse to trust Christ with their lives? Why are we not passionate to reach them? I only see this passion when it comes to growing our churches. I believe there’s a difference between really trying to reach people for Christ and trying to grow our church. Why are there so many “church growth” mega-conferences, best-selling books, models out there, but very little when it comes to investing in people who don’t know Christ? It is a shame that so many of us church leaders think these are one-in-the-same, but that is another topic altogether.<\/p>\n

I think too many Christians (especially in the South) want to assume that these people in our communities are generally “good folks,” and we have bought into the lie that people around us don’t need<\/em> to believe in Christ–in the end, they won’t really<\/em> go to hell, will they? We just think it would be a good idea for them to start coming to church. It would “help them out” in their lives, and it would also help our church grow. Win-win. Too many Christians feel believing in a literal hell for literal people is simply mean. I must admit, the idea of people going to hell is very hard for me to swallow. If there’s one theology in Christianity that gives me the most problems internally, it is the theology about hell.<\/p>\n

C.S. Lewis also had this problem. In his chapter on Hell in The Problem of Pain, <\/em>He said,<\/p>\n

There is no doctrine I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this [hell], if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, especially, of our Lord’s [Jesus’] own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What I like about C.S. Lewis is that he recognizes that it doesn’t “lay in my power” to remove this from our faith. If Scripture teaches it, if Jesus teaches it, if our entire history of Christianity has always affirmed it–who are we today to begin denying that those who don’t put their faith in Christ continue on that road because of their sins?<\/p>\n

C.S. Lewis also goes on to say:<\/p>\n

As things are, however, this doctrine is one of the chief grounds on which Christianity is attacked as barbarous, and the goodness of God impugned. We are told that it is a detestable doctrine–and indeed, I too detest it from the bottom of my heart–and are reminded of the tragedies in human life which have come from believing it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Further on, he states (and I paraphrase):<\/p>\n

The problem is not simply that of a God who consigns some of his creatures to final ruin. That would be the problem if we were Muslims. Christianity…presents us with something knottier–a God so full of mercy that He becomes man and dies by torture to avert that final ruin from His creatures, and who yet, where that heroic remedy fails, seems unwilling or even able to arrest the ruin by an act of mere power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, what we struggle with as Christians is that Jesus died such a heroic, torturous death for the salvation of humanity–and yet it will only count for a small few? The rest still go to Hell? After going through all that, can’t God do something to bring the world to salvation–at least the vast majority of it? He continues:<\/p>\n

I said glibly a moment ago that I would pay ‘any price’ to remove this doctrine. I lied. I could not pay one-thousandth part of the price that God has already paid to remove the fact. And here is the real problem: so much mercy, yet still there is Hell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Understanding our struggle with this doctrine, C.S. Lewis begins his apologetic on the doctrine of hell by stating:<\/p>\n

I am not going to try to prove the doctrine tolerable. Let us make no mistake; it is not tolerable. But I think the doctrine can be shown to be moral, by a critique of the objections ordinarily made, or felt, against it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you wish to read what he says about hell, I recommend obtaining a copy of The Problem of Pain.<\/em> But I want to focus on the “tolerable” part. Many Christians find a belief in hell to be intolerable, so they reject it. Others do believe in hell, but they have simply accepted that the vast majority of people are going there. I think this is part of my problem: I realize that I am too tolerable of my neighbors, friends, co-workers, family going there.<\/p>\n

I live my life as if everything’s ok with everyone. I don’t engage people around me. Do I really believe in hell or not? Why am I ok with doing very little for those who I’m afraid are heading there? When I shared with a pastor friend of mine that maybe I am not obeying God fully and should be living somewhere in Tibet, because I believe that they are lost without God, he stated that if he believed in hell like I did, that’s where he would be living. He’s probably right–my actions don’t line up enough with my beliefs. Why aren’t I doing more? I fear that even if I moved to Tibet, I would still feel paralyzed to share the Gospel. After all, I’m not doing it here in the States where there is much greater freedom of religious expression.<\/p>\n

So the idea of our neighbors going to hell is intolerable–we can all agree on that. But what is our response? As I see it, we have three choices.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Reject the idea of hell, because it is too intolerable to believe any longer<\/li>\n
  2. Somehow convince ourselves that everyone around us going to hell is tolerable<\/li>\n
  3. Find it intolerable that everyone around us is going to hell, and do something about it<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I ask myself, which response would Scripture say is what God is calling His Church to do? I believe we are called to reach new people in bold ways for Christ, so that they become bold people living a new way in Christ. But I don’t want to just hold that belief or mission statement: I want to carry it out. Right now, I’m failing at it.<\/p>\n

    Soon I will probe how we can carry this out in love. Is there a way to hold this belief that people around us are going to hell without Christ and not be mean?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In a recent post, I already touched on hell, but focused mostly on those around the world who have never heard the Gospel–is it fair they go to hell? If you are interested in that topic, I suggest you read that post. In today’s post, I want to focus on my next-door neighbor or the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12,5,7,4,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-hell","category-my-world","category-our-culture","category-the-church-world","category-the-gospel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1365,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/1365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}