Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Why don’t we preach hellfire anymore? That’s a question asked frequently by a lot of sincere religious people who worry that too many churches, priests, and ministers have gone soft on sin and are over-generous in speaking about God’s mercy. The belief here is that more people would come to Church and obey the commandments if we preached the raw truth about mortal sin, God’s wrath, and the danger of going to hell when we die. The truth will set you free, these folks assert, and the truth is that there is real sin and there can be real and eternal consequences for sin. The gate to Heaven is narrow and the road to hell is wide. So why aren’t we preaching more about the dangers of hellfire?
Hellfire
What’s valid in this kind of reasoning is that preaching about mortal sin and hellfire can be effective. Threats work. I know. I grew up subjected to this kind of preaching and admit that it affected my behavior. But that effect was ambivalent: On the one side, it left me scared enough before God and life itself to fear ever straying very far morally or religiously. On the other side, it also left me religiously and emotionally crippled in some deep ways. Simply stated, it’s hard to be intimate friends with a God who frightens you and it’s not good religiously or otherwise to be overly timid and afraid before life’s sacred energies. Fear of divine punishment and fear of hellfire, admittedly, can be effective as a motivator.
What kind of God would say to a repentant person in hell: ‘Sorry, but you knew the rules! You’re repentant now, but it’s too late. You had your chance!’”
So why not preach fear? Because it’s wrong, pure and simple. Brainwashing and physical intimidation are also effective, but they are antithetical to love. You don’t enter a love relationship because you feel afraid or threatened. You enter a love relationship because you feel drawn there by love.
More importantly, preaching divine threat dishonors the God in whom we believe. The God who Jesus incarnates and reveals is not a God who puts sincere, good-hearted people into hell against their will on the basis of some human or moral lapse which in our religious categories we deem to be a mortal sin. For example, I still hear this threat being preached in our churches: If you miss going to Church on Sunday it’s a mortal sin and should you die without confessing it, you will go to hell.
Underwrite
What kind of God would underwrite this kind of a belief? What kind of God would not give sincere people a second chance, a third one, and seventy-seven times seven more chances if they remain sincere? What kind of God would say to a repentant person in hell: “Sorry, but you knew the rules! You’re repentant now, but it’s too late. You had your chance!”
When scripture tells us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, the kind fear it is talking about is not contingent upon feeling threatened or feeling anxious about being punished”
A healthy theology of God demands that we stop teaching that hell can be a nasty surprise waiting for an essentially good person. The God we believe in as Christians is infinite understanding, infinite compassion, and infinite forgiveness. God’s love surpasses our own and if we, in our better moments, can see the goodness of a human heart despite its lapses and weaknesses, how much more so will God see this. We have nothing to fear from God.
Or have we? Doesn’t scripture tell us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom? How does that square with not being afraid of God?
There are different kinds of fear, some healthy and some not. When scripture tells us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, the kind fear it is talking about is not contingent upon feeling threatened or feeling anxious about being punished. That’s the kind of fear we feel before tyrants and bullies. There is however a healthy fear that’s innate within the dynamics of love itself. This kind of fear is essentially proper reverence, that is, when we genuinely love someone we will fear betraying that love, fear being selfish, fear being boorish, and fear being disrespectful in that relationship. We will fear violating the sacred space within which intimacy occurs. Metaphorically we will sense we are standing on holy ground and that we’d best have our shoes off before that sacred fire.
Appears
Moreover, scripture tells us that when God appears in our lives, almost always, the first words we will hear are: “Don’t be afraid!” That’s because God is not a judgmental tyrant but a loving, creative, joy-filled energy and person. As Leon Bloy reminds us, “joy is the most infallible indication of God’s presence.”
The famous psychiatrist, Fritz Perls, was once asked by a young fundamentalist: “Have you been saved?” His answer: “Saved? I’m still trying to figure out how to be spent!” We honor God not by living in fear lest we offend him, but in reverently spending the wonderful energy that God gives us. God is not a law to be obeyed, but a joyous energy within which to spend ourselves generatively.