Tag: hell

Evil exists as a concrete entity, a creation of God, a word with a meaning, a word that has been brought to life through the Word, who is Jesus Christ.

I must begin with my standard disclaimer about Quakers and Quakerism.  We are a non-creedal group, so there is no set of beliefs that are required to be a Quaker. Beliefs on a topic like the existence of hell will typically range the full spectrum of belief found in the larger society.   

In my last post, I introduced an exploration of hate as an idea. We sometimes think of hate as this emotional force that overcomes us. As if we are walking down the street minding our own business, listening to Taylor Swift singing "haters gonna to hate, hate, hate, hate, hate," and like a vampire, coming upon us with a greeting of “good evening,” before launching onto our neck and sucking out our life and turning us into a creature of the night.

The concept of a heavenly afterlife for the faithful (and a hellish one for their persecutors) seems to have become appealing in Judaism during a time of great persecution: if faithfulness was not rewarded on earth, then it would be later by a just God.

God lands on the side of love. Maybe it’s us who are confused about why the Christian tradition has settled for controlling its followers with the threat of punishment both here and in eternity.

I began to see Heaven and Hell as ways to live instead of ways of to die. Heaven was connecting with others and myself in empathy; Hell was disconnecting from my own needs and consequently from others’ needs.

The end of the story is that I escaped my mental jail cell without losing my faith. But it wasn’t immediate or simple. It was a complicated process that involved trauma, unconventional theology classes, and listening to the unexpected, still, small voice of the Holy Spirit.