Who Does God Welcome into Heaven?

"Rabe’a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seen running through
the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand
and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her
what she was doing, she answered, ‘I am going to take this bucket of water
and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch
to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God
​for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God'.”

-John Green, Looking for Alaska

Dear Northminster Friend,
 
On Sunday my sermon discussed hell and the afterlife as it exists in scripture and in the imaginative work of Dante Alighieri. As I stated then, scripture doesn’t actually spend much time talking about what this afterlife is like. While Dante gave us vivid imagery that has influenced our conception of hell ever since, we are also able to use what we read in scripture and image something else. In light of that, I thought I’d share with you all what I envision when I think of hell.

My beliefs about hell changed in 2011 when Mega-Church Pastor and author Rob Bell published the book Love Wins.  Rob Bell had built a 10,000-member evangelical mega-church in Grand Rapids and was thought to be the next Bill Graham (source).  But that went off the rails when he wrote a book explaining why Hell didn’t exist.  Not only did this book rock my world, but it also had me asking questions that I had never considered before.  While I was already uncomfortable with the idea of eternal damnation, Rob Bell was the first to give me a framework for a different way of understanding what comes next.

Here is how I envision what is next:
After death, you arrive at the threshold of heaven.  God is waiting there with open arms saying, “Good and faithful servant, well done!”  And you are welcomed into everlasting peace.  But right as you are about to cross the threshold, you see a person you don’t expect, someone you hated or that you considered to have lived a horrible life, causing you pain and suffering.  Someone you think is not deserving of eternal peace.

“Wait! God, how did THEY get in?! Why are THEY in heaven?!”

“Yes, my child,” God responds, “my love and forgiveness extends to all.

“But they were horrible! I don’t want to be stuck in heaven with THEM!”

“I can’t force you to accept them… But know that you are choosing not to enter heaven because of them.  I love them and have forgiven them.  I hope you can do the same so that you can be united with everyone here in heaven.  There are no flames in hell: it is simply the absence of my presence.  You can choose to go there, but I hope that you don’t.”

And then that person will be faced with a choice: choose to enter hell knowing that their enemy will be there with them or choose to turn away and choose emptiness.

It has been over a decade since I read that book.  I am not sure how much of the above image came from Rob Bell’s writing and how much was simply inspired by it.  Frankly, I’m not even sure what happened to my copy of that book; but when I think about hell now, I see too many people using the idea of eternal torment to inspire fear in people in order to coerce, manipulate, and control people into behaving in a certain way.  When I look at scripture, I see ideas of hell being used to make the comfortable uncomfortable and giving comfort to those who are suffering.

I can’t quite claim the title of being a universalist since I do still believe in a sort of hell; I just pray that hell will always remain empty.
 
Blessings,
Pastor Chris