What is Essential

The Rob Bell flap over his views of Hell in “Love Wins” raises an interesting question. Many objected to Bell being criticized, because to them, Hell is not something we know a whole lot about, and our beliefs about the afterlife are not “essential”. So, to some, saying or implying that Bell is “out of bounds” is judgmental and wrong.

A similar question is raised by Roger Olson, who suggests that some Mormons that Mormons maybe could be considered Christians if they accept certain things about Jesus.

Augustine’s famous dictum, “on essentials, unity; on non-essentials, liberty; and in all things charity” can only guide our behavior if we have a consensus on what is essential.

An Un-Orthodox View of Hell

Frederica Matthewes-Green has written an article called "Why We Need Hell. It has been posted on her own site as well as on Virtue Online. It is an apologetic for the concept of Hell from an Eastern Orthodox perspective. The reality of Hell is something fire and brimstone revival preachers often return to and is a topic which needs to be emphasized from time to time - the notion that there are eternal consequences to our actions. And that is a healthy thing, if it is balanced and not manipulative.

But Matthewes-Green’s article raises some troubling questions about the meaning of the very concept of Hell. I had read before, in Franky Schaeffer's brutal Dancing Alone of an Eastern understanding of Hell which states that Hell is not so much a place where one is punished for his or her deeds and rejection of salvation, but rather is simply a state of natural consequence for the pattern of one’s life. Such a view removes the image of God as an angry executioner. In this view, all human beings wind up in a state of eternal existence in the presence of God, but for some, for those who have rejected God’s grace, His very presence is itself a state of torment. God is described in scripture as a consuming fire, so, according to this understanding, to reject God and then spend eternity in His presence will be a Hellish eternity. Mathewes-Green's article refers to more detailed explanations of this view from Peter Chopelas and Dr. Alexander Kaomiros.