If you believe that we are all “born into sin,” and deserve to go to traditional hell, then you have no other choice but to believe that every child who dies without a relationship with Jesus, goes straight to hell, including all miscarried and terminated pregnancies, babies who are stillborn, die of SIDS, cancer or other diseases, in car accidents and various other tragedies.
There is no evidence in the Bible of an age of accountability.
There is also nothing in the Bible about infant baptism saving children from hell.
If the human race defaults to hell at death, then this must apply to babies and children, teenagers and adults who haven’t yet come to faith. Either you believe that we are all destined for traditional-hell from the moment we are conceived until the moment we accept Jesus, or you don’t believe in traditional hell at all.
Furthermore, if God is truly unconditional love, then the traditional view of hell is impossible. The traditional view of hell says that people will be separated from God and punished for all eternity because they didn’t put their faith in God and have a relationship of love with God during their lifetime.
In other words, God is a parent who loves you, but only for the duration of your earthly life. If, in your lifetime, you cannot learn to love God back, God will cut you off. In my estimation that kind of parent is evil. If either of my parents said to me that they would only keep on loving me if I love them back, it would be because they are sinful human beings who aren’t yet capable of unconditional love. Why do we project this view onto God? Is God evil that God-the-parent should turn their children away and say: “I’ve given you enough chances!” What kind of unconditional love says: “It’s too late?!”
The church has to do something about this God-concept. Something has to give. Either God is not really love or hell is not really what we think it is.
Either God’s love is limited by hell, or hell is limited by God’s love.
People have asked me sarcastically, “What Bible am I reading?” and how can I deny what the Bible says? But I am not denying the Bible. I have read my Bible faithfully. I do not deny the existence of hell.
People have told me that I’m reacting, I’m hurt, I’m afraid, I’m angry, I believe what I want to believe.
I can admit that I am an imperfect human being, and I can honestly say that there is some element of reaction that drives me. But I have invited God many times to show me that both unconditional love and traditional-hell are truth. I’ve tried to believe it. I succumbed to peer pressure and stopped arguing and thinking about it (2004-2011). I left it on the shelf for a very long time.
Still there are verses that plague me:
Every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth (in hell) and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Jesus went after the one lost sheep so that 100% of them would come home.
If I make my bed in hell: behold you are there.
God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.
One righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.
One died for all therefore all died.
In him we live and move and have our being.
So, I’m asking right back, what Bible are you reading?!
Around 2012-2013 I read Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. And Robin Parry (AKA Gregory McDonald)’s The Evangelical Universalist. And Julie Ferwerda’s book, Raising Hell. And Jackson Baer’s book What the Hell? And Gerry Beauchemin’s Hope Beyond Hell. And Thomas Talbott’s The Inescapable Love of God. These books just kept coming out of the woodwork and landing directly in my lap. My Pastor, Santo Calarco, began to question hell because I did. He then examined universalism and taught it to me!
There is something very disturbing about traditional hell. This is not just a reaction against my own fear of going to hell, or fear that my family and friends and even enemies might go to hell. We are fighting to reclaim the truth that God is unconditional love and an unconditionally loving parent doesn’t abandon their kids!
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