Hell is real, in some form or another.

War tears families apart. Disease kills parents and leaves behind orphans. Famine neglects to feed the most vulnerable. Consumerism by the privileged fuels the ramifications of all of these things. Hell on earth — this is real.

Hell as a literal place of eternal conscious torment for those who never make a mental assent to the Four Spiritual Laws (1. God loves humans, 2. Humans are sinners, 3. Only Jesus saves sinners, 4. Accept Jesus to live eternally) is another perspective. People with this view — most American Christians — have an obligation to tell as many nonbelievers as possible that they need Christ as a means of escape from hell. The God who died to save them is the God who will let them spend eternity in hell if they don’t acknowledge God’s grace. This puts lots of pressure on the faithful. It can at times lead to relational manipulation.

Hell as the reality of eternal death, a non-eternal life, is another perspective. This view, often called annihilationism or conditional immortality holds that at the return of Christ, those who fail to recognize him as Lord and God will literally perish from existence. They will not live in a place called “hell” forever; hell is the judgement of being excluded from the renewed creation.

Each perspective is layered with nuances.

My current view is that those who die without a connection to Christ are simply dead, without any awareness. I do believe that those who are “in Christ” are conscious after death in some way. At the final resurrection, my conviction is that all of humanity will be raised from the dead. The purging fires of God’s love will be the means of judgement for everyone. Followers of Jesus will be judged/purged in such a way to be fully prepared for the new creation.

Those who are not followers of Christ will be purged either a) into a final death/destruction or (and what follows is admittedly more speculative) b) into a postmortem relationship with Christ: thus ready to experience Christ’s saving work and the eternal life they neglected during their first life. Not all will choose this, and thus they will be metaphorically burned up into literal nonexistence.

Any of the above views involve a coming judgement — none of which will be pleasant. Certainly, those embracing the eternal torment view have a worse scenario in mind, but even so, all agree that postmortem realities without God aren’t good.

The problem with hell

Hell is awful, in all of its manifestations. This is especially true of eternal conscious torment. Suffering for eternity for deeds done in one lifetime — this is a hard pill to swallow. Suffice it to say that a growing number of Christians no longer believe in the so-called “traditional” view of hell.

When it comes to relationships, I’d venture to say that our theology of hell has a profound influence on how we treat people of other faiths. We use language like “win them to Christ” or “relational evangelism.” But here’s the thing, loaded into those phrases is the pressure to “convert” people into a belief system that will help them escape hell.

A subtle thing happens with many Christians who have hell on the brain; we get seriously awkward around people of other faith traditions or of no faith at all. Being actual friends, with no strings attached, is often difficult because of Christian cultural baggage that comes with hell-talk. We get inculcated into a system of fear which leaves us ill-equipped for building real friendships with people who don’t share our convictions. This problem drives some Christians mad as they wait for that perfect moment to whip out a gospel tract as though it were our U.S. passport at a dangerous foreign checkpoint. Our preoccupation with slipping in the Scriptures and the “ultimate question” makes us into terrible human friends. Friendship should never be motivated solely by agendas.

Hell no(ne)!

For an increasing demographic in the U.S., if we were to ask them to finish the sentence “Religion is ____,” they’d likely answer: “ . . . not something I think about much” [i]. The majority of this religiously unaffiliated 19.6 percent of U.S. citizens considers themselves to be either “a religious person” or “spiritual but not religious” [ii]. This scares many Christians who have hell on the brain.

To “nones,” people who aren’t affiliated with or currently searching for a formal religion, Christianity is perceived as obsessed with money, power, rules and politics [iii]. Most of these unaffiliated persons differ from atheists, but separate their “spiritual” selves from irrelevant “religion” — a reasonable reaction against prevailing religious narratives labeled “Christian.” When making friends with a none, the temptation for many will be to see them as a means to a “win.” But here’s the problem, they smell the fire and brimstone rescue agenda like putrid burning sulfur from a mile away. And they aren’t interested.

Also, don’t tell these folks: “God loves you, but you are a sinner and need to be saved. . . . ” Nones give to charity; they have integrity in school and work; they stay faithful to their partner or spouse; they have genuine character that causes them to look out for the welfare of others. Telling nones that they need to be saved doesn’t even compute most of the time. Add hell to the picture and it, as you might imagine, creates a laughable scenario. Religion, to many religiously unaffiliated persons, is irrelevant and hell is a silly, archaic, mythic fantasy for people who find comfort in the ill fate of others who happen disagree with key tenets.

Hell makes us terrible friends

Many Christians don’t know how to relate to those who differ from us. When we try to befriend others, including nones, the pressure of hell looms large. Fear drives some Christians into a socially awkward state that renders them ineffective at relating to the very people they feel so compelled to “save.”

A couple of situations emerge as a result. You have those fundamentalists who parade through every major event with signs like “Jesus loves you — so don’t let him send you to hell!” or “Gays go to hell!” or “Wrath is coming — Jesus saves!” These megaphone preachers only know how to preach one sermon: turn or burn.

A second scenario involves the person who is so worried about hell that they befriend others with the goal of “saving” them. But as we’ve already established, this approach makes friendship superficial. What do nonChristian friends have to offer the Christian with an agenda? Absolutely nothing — but a “win.” And if the “win” doesn’t come, and it looks like it will never come, then it’s time to walk away. Otherwise, the Christian might be influenced badly by the “worldly person.”

Approaching relationships preoccupied with hell makes Christians terrible at being good friends.

Give it up

But . . .

What if we are truly missing something? What if the majority of Christians are actually “losing” as they try to “win” by failing to move to deep places of authenticity with nonChristians?

NonChristians are not objects to be targeted by holy agendas.
NonChristians often look more Christlike than many Christians.
NonChristians are often fun, pleasant people to be around.
NonChristians have several gifts to offer us Jesus people.
NonChristians can shape us positively.

And any Christian can have meaningful relationships with nonChristians, but it might mean giving up hell.

What do I mean exactly? I want to invite readers to contemplate giving up hell for a year. For one year of your life, become a practical universalist. Live as though hell doesn’t exist. I dare you.

If every Christian gave up hell for a year, our relationships with nonChristians would be revolutionized. With less reason for agenda, these friendships would become mutually beneficial. We’d laugh. We’d cry. We’d play. We’d serve. We’d be authentic friends.

And here’s the ultimate authenticity test: If we knew that a nonChristian friend would never accept Christ in this life, would we still invest our lives into their flourishing? If not, then we are still allowing hell to dictate how we relate to others.

Without hell — all we have to offer people is heaven. And not some “high apple pie in the sky,” but the reality of God’s love colliding into our world as we become known for hope and healing rather than fear and manipulation. And who knows, it’s possible that some of our new friends will be curious about our faith — as we would be toward their belief system. But engaging with God would no longer be premised on rhetorical coercion, but would be the natural result of them seeing the radical, justice-seeking, enemy-loving, character-transforming, upside-down kingdom of God flowing through our lives.

So, let’s give up hell and discover how our newfound posture revolutionizes our relationships. I might be wrong, but for some, this mental shift might be one of profound liberation. If I’m wrong after a year, there’s always the old way of doing “relationships” to fall back on.
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[i], [iii] The Rise of the Nones: Understanding and Reaching the Religiously Unaffiliated (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2014), by James Emery White.
[ii] Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Nones” on the Rise.

Kurt Willems (M.Div., Fresno Pacific) is the founding pastor of Pangea Communities a movement of peace, justice and hope. The church plant, in partnership with the Brethren in Christ and Urban Expression, is based in Seattle, Wash. Kurt writes at the Pangea Blog and is also on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.