Who is burning in Hell?
A pentacostal preacher from Tulsa no longer "believes in hell" and the number of people who come to hear him on a Sunday morning from many thousands to a couple hundred. A really great report from NPR:
http://thisamericanlife.org/pages/descriptions/05/304.html
As I continue to think about the popularity of claiming the power of Hell, I came across this quote in E. Peterson's Reversed Thunder: the Revelation of John and Praying Imagination:
"We are now able to look upon the events around us not as a hopeless morass of pagan decption and human misery, but as the birth pangs of a new creation and a beckoning to partcipate in God's remaking of God's creation."
I do not have the faith to encourage people to participate in a life of faith marked by participation in a faith community because I fear for their soul. There is no "hell" for someone who feels so isolated, neglected or abused she or he feels unable to join a community that nutures faith. Still, I do believe life is diminished, limited in its fulfillment if there is no fuller expression of our numinous experiences than the individual. So I BECKON - call, exhort, impolore, enjoin, instruct, direct, charge - so that people participate more fully in "God's remaking of God's creation."
Certainly, not every group of people is such a community. However, they do exist and they support that participation.
I wrote this in an attempt to be clear - some voices are so clear claiming the powers of Hell. The power of heaven must be greater. Who will receive the invitation to participate in that heaven from me today? Who will recieve an inviation from you?
http://thisamericanlife.org/pages/descriptions/05/304.html
As I continue to think about the popularity of claiming the power of Hell, I came across this quote in E. Peterson's Reversed Thunder: the Revelation of John and Praying Imagination:
"We are now able to look upon the events around us not as a hopeless morass of pagan decption and human misery, but as the birth pangs of a new creation and a beckoning to partcipate in God's remaking of God's creation."
I do not have the faith to encourage people to participate in a life of faith marked by participation in a faith community because I fear for their soul. There is no "hell" for someone who feels so isolated, neglected or abused she or he feels unable to join a community that nutures faith. Still, I do believe life is diminished, limited in its fulfillment if there is no fuller expression of our numinous experiences than the individual. So I BECKON - call, exhort, impolore, enjoin, instruct, direct, charge - so that people participate more fully in "God's remaking of God's creation."
Certainly, not every group of people is such a community. However, they do exist and they support that participation.
I wrote this in an attempt to be clear - some voices are so clear claiming the powers of Hell. The power of heaven must be greater. Who will receive the invitation to participate in that heaven from me today? Who will recieve an inviation from you?
posted by Daniel Morse at 6:53 AM
4 Comments:
If a person does not believe in hell, then how do they explain belief in heaven? I struggle with the concept of heaven. I'm not into the whole pearly gates and streets of gold or cherubs with harps flying all over. Do I want to believe in heaven and a reunion of saints? Yes. Do I currently believe? On the fence here.......
I'm with you and love the quote. Good grist for the mill.....
Oh, three post in three days....are you getting addicted yet?! heheheheeh
Hell could be the absence of Heaven? Maybe "earth" is a part of "heaven?" Maybe heaven is just more? Like a atom is part of a molecule which is part of an organism which is part of a culture... a holarchy?
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