Have you seen that new movie “Hell Is for Real?” Of course, you haven’t. Because it doesn’t exist. It’s heavenly counterpart, however, earned $21.5 million in ticket sales in its opening weekend.
Sixty-four percent of Americans believe in the survival of the soul after death, and a majority believes in both heaven and hell, according to a Harris Poll released in December 2013. But while most are comfortable discussing the afterlife and heaven, talk of hell can scatter the masses.
So why are Americans afraid to talk about hell?
The article makes several good points but leaves out one possible cause for modern American’s reluctance to talk about hell (insert the sound of Screwtape chortling).
I was interested in the line “How many years of punishment in what the Bible describes as ‘a lake burning with fire and sulfur’ would be justified for eight decades of sin?” So basically the idea is 80 years of badness does not equal an eternity in torment.
…but how many people think that 80 years of righteousness deserves an eternity of pleasure?
There is Gallup polling data to suggest that more Americans believe in hell than 40 years ago. In 1968 66% of those asked said they believed in hell. in 2011 it was 75%. http://www.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx
In Britain, nearly the same proportion of those asked believed in hell in 2010 as in 1968. http://www.brin.ac.uk/wp-content/documents/hell_000.xls
(One has to be cautious about reading too much into such data without looking at sample size, specific question asked and so forth).
Of course the article is about a suggested decline in talking about hell. If correct, it’s surely intriguing that belief in hell seems to have risen as churches and Americans have spoken about it less.
I swore I wasn’t going to comment onT19 anymore, and in fact I am going to log out when I make this comment. What was Easter about? Death? Hell? Last Saturday I convinced a 32 year old lapsed RC to take communion on Easter for the first time since he was 16. I told him the Good News. Not that he was going to hell if he didn’t believe but that Jesus died for the sin of the whole world including him and that by believing he would receive eternal life. No one ever told him that before. His priest told him about death, fire, brimstone but not about the tree of life. And, BTW, you do not achieve this gift by being good or righteous. If that is the requirement, we are all going to hell. What Jesus did has huge significance and we need to tell people about. Jesus gave you life. We have the world’s greatest banquet and we need to start inviting people to the table. We need to quit seeking the living among the dead. No saint ever caused a conversion by telling someone he was going to hell. He did it by telling people that death has no longer has its sting. Jesus has given us victory over hell and death. Quit seeking life in hell. That is not where it is.
Err, you do that Jesus speaks about Gehenna more than any other figure in Scripture. You can tell him off if you want to.