I know there are wide swaths of the country where this is normal but I still am stopped short when I come across people who believe in Hell. It’s so infantile. It’s stunted, like someone who breathed gas fumes as an infant and never developed a normal mental capacity. Hell is a useful concept, and we all experience our own private hells of mourning, loss, addiction, disappointment, anxiety, or just bad luck. Much of this is unavoidable, at least for most of us. We’re all broken or breakable. But believing in Hell as a geographical place like Santa’s North Pole? That’s a torment of your own making. It’s so unnecessary.
You know, we all worry about things, but the promise of forgiveness is supposed to be the salvation for this kind of anxiety. When you’re saved, you’re saved. And if that isn’t enough for you then Christianity isn’t going to be your salvation. In cases like this, the belief in Hell is its own hell.
