Many people outside of organized religion can at least understand and even
like the idea of
a god and
a heaven. They may not agree on
the details, but the general idea is fairly universal.
I’m not sure why the idea of an opposing bad force (devil/hell) is so
radical then.
Look at any movie, book, even song- there’s
almost
always some conflict. It’s a natural way of life. But people
outside of religion (and quite a bit within it, come to think of it), do not
like talking about hell.
There is a really basic answer to this-
it sucks. No one
wants
to think of an evil force that could randomly be at work within their
life. No one
wants to imagine a miserable eternity- life itself
can hurt so damn bad that the idea of anything worse, lasting even longer, is
just a
shitty shitty thing to ponder.
Well, I want to let out a big secret here-
Christians don’t like hell
either.
I think when people hear the words
Christianity+hell they
automatically think of Westboro Baptist Church style hatred being spewed.
This is really, really not the case the majority of the time.
Yes, some (so-called) Christians use “You’re going to hell!” like it’s going
out of style. They seem so self-righteous and judgmental and downright
hateful- like they get
pleasure from the idea of your suffering.
And
that’s absolutely not okay. But those people are the minority in my
opinion- it’s just unfortunately a case where the squeaky wheel gets the grease
(or in this case, the attention).
Today, I ask you to please, please put those people out of your mind.
Instead, think about it from this side:
As a Christian, I believe in God. I believe that people are inherently
sinful, and can never measure up to that God. The wonderful,
amazing
thing about Christianity is that this has been taken care of by Christ
sacrificing himself. These are the basic foundations of my
Christianity.
Unfortunately, with the belief that Christ is the
only
way to heaven…it follows that
people who don’t believe in Christ don’t go to
heaven.
And let me tell you,
that frickin’ blows. It is not a good,
pleasing feeling (for most of us) to know that people you love are going to
miss on what
you truly believe is the
best thing in life, both
this physical one and an eternal spiritual one. It blows so much that
it’s been enough to shake the faith of believers- because
faith is hard at
times. My life would be so much easier if I really didn’t feel this
way and could just say “Sure, do whatever you want, nothing really matters
except your opinion!”
I mean, it would also be much more lonely and less
fulfilling, but it would certainly be much
easier at times.
So when most Christians say “That isn’t right,” “that’s sinful behavior,” or
“you’re going to hell,”
it’s not easy for us to say. We aren’t
saying it because it makes us happy. We’re saying it because we
care. We are saying it because we truly, from the bottom of our hearts,
hurt
to see you doing something that we believe is detrimental to your life.
We typically know that we are risking you going off on us, and we are
doing
it anyway because we are hoping with all we have that you might turn
towards something that is better for you. We are saying it because it’s
heartbreaking to see you suffer and we believe that there is a Savior who can
help soothe that pain better than anyone or anything on earth.
I do
not believe in scaring people into Christianity. I don’t
think that trying to do that produces authentic or truly saved believers.
But I do think it’s unfair, both to believers and nonbelievers who may be
interested in an open, well-rounded conversation, that the mention of this part
of faith automatically puts so many walls up. I just hope that if this
comes up in the future, you would
think about it from the other side and understand how hard of a topic it is on
this side of the fence too.
