No. 28 Well, we better ask one of the hard questions�and this one has been asked by some of my parishioners. Why do we Lutherans still talk about hell? Isn�t it cruel to teach that there is a hell? >>PROFESSOR ROLAND ZIEGLER: Well, it truly sounds cruel and it truly is unpleasant to talk about hell, David. It seems that preaching about hell has kind of receded in the background. Sort of like the good old times where you had these fire and brimstone teachers who would really tell you so that at the souls of your feet you feel the flames of hell already tickling you. We are much nicer nowadays. And non-judgemental is one of the buzzwords. Talking about hell I think is always difficult because it is so utterly dark and depressing. And that's why in much of Christianity the talk about hell and the doctrine of hell has been given up completely. In the '50s there was a big controversy in Norway if hell should be still a part of the teaching of the Lutheran state church there. There is an emotional appeal of the belief that all in the end will be saved. What is also called universalism. Hell is simply horrible. The prospect of eternal damnation, of an eternity of weeping and gnashing of teeth is just frightening. Especially if you consider that this hell is not only human monsters and mass murderers like Hitler or Stalin or Pinochet. But for all of those who did not believe in God. After the attacks of 9/11, some relatives reacted quite irate when Evangelical preachers said: Well, you know, all those who died in that attack and did not believe in Christ are going to hell. Whereas if Osama bin Laden in his cave in Afghanistan would repent and believe in Christ five minutes before the American missile hits him, he would go to heaven. They thought: How can you say that? How can you say that about somebody who is a loving father, a faithful husband? And then this monster bin Laden would just escape without punishment? This guy deserves more. It's a doctrine which is extremely unpopular with secular non-Christians or nominal Christians. Because the doctrine of hell is an extreme preaching of the law and drives home that sin is serious. And unbelief is serious. And that unbelief is taken dead serious by God. And that the worst behavior is not being a perilous or a mass murderer. But it is unbelief. But there is also an emotional struggle with the concept of hell for a Christian when a close family member or friend dies who did not confess the faith. The thought that this person is in eternal darkness is quite hard to stomach. It's therefore, much more appealing to believe in universal salvation of all or in universalism. This rejection of hell led in the United States in the 1790s to the universalist church which merged in 1961 with the Unitarian church to form the Unitarian Universalist Church, the most liberal group of anything that calls itself Christian. Well, they are not really calling themselves Christian anymore. But of organized religion maybe. But there is also a theological appeal to the rejection of hell. And that lies in a perceived conflict between God's love and the existence of God. The question then is: How can God be all loving if there is hell, some kind of an eternal concentration camp? Does that not cross out so to speak God's love? Cannot God save all people? Is this world thwarted by the unbeliever? Or does he not want to save all men? Didn't Christ die for all? Isn't he the new Adam? And as in Adam all fell so in Christ all will be saved? Especially if you believe that faith is a gift from God, how does it come that God seems to pass by some people so that they remain in unbelief and end in hell? For most of Christianity's history, this was not a real problem. Theologians and Christians alike did not embrace universalism. In the early church only origin, whose opinion on this matter was condemned by the local Council of Constantinople in 543, taught universalism. Only in the time of rationalism beginning in the 18th Century the rejection of hell by those who called themselves Christians did grow. Until this was or has become an established feature of liberal Christianity and dominates much of mainline Christianity today. Many mainline or liberal Christian churches at least have a strong tendency towards universalism. And as I mentioned before, even some of the Evangelical revivalist preachers that don't belong to the fundamentalist camp no longer have these fire and brimstone services but stress rather that God is life and he accepts you as you are. So, if there are emotional and it seems also theological reasons against hell, why haven't we scrapped it from our teaching? The witness of Christian history should make us cautious to simply disregard the concept of hell. We do not believe that we are so much smarter than 2,000 years of Christian history. But of course the argument from tradition cannot be the final or decisive argument. The question is: Does Scripture teach the existence of hell? Well, when we look at how Christ started his ministry out, it is that he called to repentance like John the Baptist did. John the Baptist, you have it directly spoken out. And he talks about the coming wrath of God. And in the New Testament, the eschaton is also depicted as God's judgement. God will judge and there will be a final separation. The great story of the judgement of all men in Matthew 25 ends in the sentence: And these shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous enter life eternal. It is actually Jesus who talks quite often about hell. Not only the apostles. Therefore the liberal trick to avoid statements one does not like by ascribing them to the apostles or later editions does not work. It is Jesus who talks about hell, about separation of those who believe and who don't. If you want Jesus you have to accept him as the preacher of the final judgement and the existence of hell. In the great prophetic book in the New Testament Revelation speaks about judgement and damnation. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. That Scripture teaches the existence of hell and answers the question: Is it not cruel to believe in hell? No, it is not. Because it is true. To believe that people can die of cancer is not cruel. And to tell somebody that he is suffering with cancer and that he is diagnosed and life expectancy is not good is not cruel. Because it is true. Because the cancer is a reality. Because hell is real, it is not up to us to believe it exists or not. Because to deny hell is to refuse to accept reality. The problem remains, though, how to square God's love to the existence of hell. Ultimately this is linked to the question of predestination, one that is really close to us in this life. Luther at the end of "On the Bondage of the Will" makes the statement that in the light of glory, that is in the fulfillment, these questions will be resolved. But here on earth, we cannot resolve them. Looking at Christ and remembering that God did not spare his only begotten son to save us from eternal damnation assures us that God is not cruel or uncaring. But that we can trust him to be loving and the friend of man. Even it if we don't understand some things.