RetroChristian

1.25.2007

Big Daddy's Belt

"Love Jesus or Burn Forever in Hell." I first saw this wonderfully encouraging statement emblazoned on the roof of a barn in rural South Carolina. Actually just about where I would expect to find it.

Boy does this little bit of encouragement say reams about the either/or mentality that goes with many fundamentalist teachings...


What part of eternal punishment in a lake of fire is the Good News? The Good News is what we are commanded to preach, not eternal torment. The Good News is reason people are to come to God. Paul preached the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and how to apply it to our lives. Not the eternal torment we incorporated from the pagan folks.

For instance, the apostle Paul never mentioned hell in either his speeches in Acts or his letters. And there is more just about everywhere you look on the subject: tentmaker.org, bible-truths.com and so on.

Christians have been sold a bill of goods for so long that we've come to believe in it more than the most wonderful news we've ever had in 6000 years. It's time to do away with this concept and preach the real Gospel.

posted by RC @ 10:36 AM  

3 Comments:

  • At 8:18 PM , Blogger Splinters of Silver said...

    I realize that we disagree on the subject of hell and the lake of fire [you know me :)], but I can agree with you that we should spend more time telling people that Christ came to forgive sin and less time using hell as a scare tatic.

    A.W. Pink said in one of his books [I believe on the Holy Spirit] that you could tell whether someone was a true believer or not by the way they look at Christ on the cross. There are those that look to Christ as a way to escape hell, and then the real ones that look at Christ as their means to be freed from sin and cleansed from all unrighteousness.

    By the way my blog name has changed to:http://splintersofsilver.blogspot.com/ or http://www.splintersofsilver.com/

     

  • At 10:00 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    While in New York I found an excellent book on what was originally believed about the afterlife from Jews and Christians. It appeared from the writers research that neither believed in a hell, which helped to distance themselves from the pagan religions.

    One could definitely make a strong case that hell is a pagan doctrine after reading the book.

     

  • At 3:26 PM , Blogger Splinters of Silver said...

    So, what's the name and info of the book?

    Glad you made it back alright.

     

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