Posted by
Edwin Leap on Sunday, June 15, 2008 10:55:48 PM
Today I was teaching sunday school, where the topic was 'how can a good God send people to hell?' As I was preparing for the lesson, I realized that one of the great objections modern men and women have to the Christian faith is that Christianity is about punishment and guilt, and as such, isn't any fun and is obviously droll and untrue. Real people don't need to be punished, because they know they haven't done anything wrong. Or so the logic goes.
As I considered all this, I realized that hell is entirely reasonable because everyone wants to be punished. It's true! In fact, punishment is a basic tenet of modern liberal thought. We must be punished, the rationalization goes, because we have to much, use to much, own too much, judge too much, hate too much, eat too much, use resources too much, are too free, talk too much about taboo topics, etc. The list goes on and on of the things for which we should be punished. How are we punished? Taxes, laws, programs, political correctness, intellectual and social banishment for speaking truths that violate proper thought, in some cases physical assault, and of course the over-arching punishment that can never be taken away, constant guilt.
Modern man is overwhelmingly guilty...or rather, feels that he is. Modern man is guilty about all of the things I listed above. Modern man feels guilty for his very existence. And so, punishment is in order. Populations have to be limited. Food has to be distributed fairly. Incomes have to be confiscated. Children have to be aborted. Children have to be given over to dark gods of sexuality and drugs because 'they'll do it anyway, everyone does!' Modern man offers sacrifices of his joy, his money, his family, his ethics, his freedom and his very humanity on the altar of unrelenting guilt, which can never be atoned except by more work, more giving, more guilt, more surrender of every freedom of heart, soul, mind and body.
Hell? Well it is punishment, though a punishment for which God provided a pardon in Christ. But if modern mankind thinks that hell, or punishment itself, is a uniquely Christian invention, then modern mankind is dead wrong.
Mankind has always wanted to be punished. They just refuse to accept the deliverance from guilt that is available from our Father.
Dr. Deacon