As mentioned previously, dealing with the duration of hell is on my radar, as I prepare to write a book about it.
This blog article asks why some choose of fabricate stories about their past in order to bolster their argument in favor of turning hell into a not-so-bad of a stay as Jesus depicted it.
A case-in-point is John Stackhouse, Jr.’s comments in the Foreward to the book Rethinking Hell that explains how he wished a bully he knew, when John was about eight years-old, and how he wanted the bully remitted to hell for his bullying.
John claims that he learned about hell “from my evangelical Sunday School teachers.”
Really? John “could haven’t been older than eight at the time,” but he was learning about hell in Sunday School?
Back when I was about that age I did not attend church, but went to at least two Vacation Bible Schools during the summertime with my brother.
I remember singing about being the Lord’s army and Noah’s Ark, but I do not remember ever being taught about hell, much less about salvation.
Roll the clock ahead a few decades, and having attended Bible college and seminary, as well as hundreds of Sunday schools sessions and listening to an equal number of sermons, and if hell was mentioned, it was only a handful of times.
In fact, today, I would venture that most Evangelical churches don’t even broach the subject; it’s just not something that most “Christians” want to hear or talk about, even though Jesus talked more about hell than heaven.
But now that the eternality of hell is under assault, again, if it is talked about at all, it is in terms that make it more “palatable,” according to Stackhouse.
And one way to make it more palatable is make up stories that just do not make sense; like claiming the subject was taught to an eight year-old.
