Is Hell dead? Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins has generated a lot of chatter, fear, and public comments around the idea that Hell doesn’t exist. Time Magazine picked up the story and it landed on the front cover. Many believe his book is heretical and goes against traditional Christian theology on issues like heaven, hell, and salvation. Bell is pretty clear about his theology, which he explained to his church.
This week, The Barna Group, a religious researching outfit, released a study on people’s understanding of heaven and hell. Since about 75% of this country identifies themselves as “Christian” you would think there would be a strong unifying understanding about what Christians believe about how one “gets” to heaven.
The study found some surprising beliefs of this “Christian nation”:
- 59% of adults believe that “Christians and Muslims worship the same God even though they have different names and beliefs regarding God.”
- Residents of Texas (62%) were equally likely as residents of New York (62%) to believe that Christians and Muslims worship the same deity.
- Broadly defined, universalism is the belief that all human beings will be saved after death… 43% agreed and 54% disagreed with the statement, “It doesn’t matter what religious faith you follow because they all teach the same lessons.”
- “All people are eventually saved or accepted by God, no matter what they do, because he loves all people he has created” (40% agree versus 50%).
- Nearly seven out of 10 adults agreed with the idea “in life you either side with God or you side with the devil; there is no in-between position”
- One-quarter of born again Christians said that all people are eventually saved or accepted by God (25%) and that it doesn’t matter what religious faith you follow because they all teach the same lessons (26%)
- Born again Christians (40%) indicated that they believe Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
Analysis
Clearly, as Stephen Prothero points out in his book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know–And Doesn’t, Americans don’t really “know” basic information about major religions. They think they do, but study after study show that a sizable number of Americans believe all religions are saying or worshiping the same thing. This is simply not true. The five major world religions all have different ideas about death, life, salvation, and divine identity.
Most Americans, according to this Barna study, really do not have a firm grasp of what their own faith believes. Pastors and churches need to encourage strong educational opportunities for believers. Christian orthodoxy is not grounded in universalism. Still, believers need to be able to ask questions to better understand their world and their faith. Church leaders need to better facilitate exploring belief in a world of pluralism.
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Which Afterlife?
In his new book “Love Wins” Rob Bell seems to say that loving and compassionate people, regardless of their faith, will not be condemned to eternal hell just because they do not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Concepts of an afterlife vary between religions and among divisions of each faith. Here are three quotes from “the greatest achievement in life,” my ebook on comparative mysticism:
(46) Few people have been so good that they have earned eternal paradise; fewer want to go to a place where they must receive punishments for their sins. Those who do believe in resurrection of their body hope that it will be not be in its final form. Few people really want to continue to be born again and live more human lives; fewer want to be reborn in a non-human form. If you are not quite certain you want to seek divine union, consider the alternatives.
(59) Mysticism is the great quest for the ultimate ground of existence, the absolute nature of being itself. True mystics transcend apparent manifestations of the theatrical production called “this life.” Theirs is not simply a search for meaning, but discovery of what is, i.e. the Real underlying the seeming realities. Their objective is not heaven, gardens, paradise, or other celestial places. It is not being where the divine lives, but to be what the divine essence is here and now.
(80) [referring to many non-mystics] Depending on their religious convictions, or personal beliefs, they may be born again to seek elusive perfection, go to a purgatory to work out their sins or, perhaps, pass on into oblivion. Lives are different; why not afterlives? Beliefs might become true.
Rob Bell asks us to reexamine the Christian Gospel. People of all faiths should look beyond the letter of their sacred scriptures to their spiritual message. As one of my mentors wrote “In God we all meet.”
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[…] he is making that big of a splash in the world? Well, his story and his book were the subject of a TIME magazine cover story that questioned, “Is Hell dead?” Bell reengaged the debate of annihilationism, universalism, and salvation on a secular level. […]