Are Christians accidentally bankrolling Satan's agenda?



Investors are always looking for hot stocks. But what if the hottest stocks became that way via cursed baptism in a certain lake of fire?

Sulfur and brimstone are two commodities not many should be excited about adding to their portfolio. And yet the world of investing has a twisted fascination with companies that deal in vice. There’s one particular mutual fund that singles out investments in “sin stocks” like cannabis and casinos. The investment thesis is that buying into morally murky industries is a long-term win because addicts make loyal customers, and even in bad economies, people still want to get high.

If people are serious about making America great again, they must consider what their investments are funding.

But the Vice Fund is not actually all that unique — it is just saying the quiet part out loud.

There are hundreds of mutual funds and ETFs invested in the shady businesses of abortion drugs, pornography, strip clubs, and LGBT activism. But what you might not realize is that there is a good chance you own one of those funds in your 401(k), IRA, or other investment fund.

Don’t believe me? Type one of your ticker symbols into www.inspireinsight.com and see for yourself.

It's easy to be deceived. These dirty funds have normal-sounding names from reputable companies like American Funds Growth Fund of America, iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, and Vanguard Large Cap Index Fund. The devil comes disguised as an angel of light, after all.

But don’t be too hard on yourself. If anyone should have known better it was me. I had the wool pulled over my eyes, too. A financial adviser working in the lofty private client group of a prestigious bank and a dedicated pro-life Christian, I was dumbfounded the day I discovered that I was personally invested in three abortion drug manufacturing companies.

The unsettling truth pierced my heart that every time a young lady went to Planned Parenthood and had an abortion, I made money on that transaction. I literally profited from the murder of an innocent child and was recommending all of my wealthy clients to do the same.

But it didn’t stop there: porn, LGBT activism, human trafficking, the list went on like a “hottest stock picks” newsletter from hell. How could this be?

According to a recent study by the faith-based investing organization Kingdom Advisors, $22.4 trillion of investment assets are owned by Christian church members in the United States, representing about 50% of the entire investment market.

I have two questions: How much of that money is invested right now in industries and activities that are diametrically opposed to the biblical values their Christian owners seek to live their lives by? And how different might corporate America be — and indeed our nation at large — if those Christian investors directed their capital away from the works of evil and into companies that did good instead?

What if major corporations got the message that 50% of the investment assets in America were off limits to any business that manufactured abortion drugs? Or pushed LGBT activist agendas? Or distributed porn?

What if the mutual fund, ETF, and 401(k) providers got the message that 50% of the investment assets in America refused to invest in funds that bought morally compromised stocks?

RELATED: How corporate America helped fuel the hate that killed Charlie Kirk

baloon111/iStock/Getty Images Plus

I believe things would be much different — and much better. Last month, Costco announced its decision not to sell the abortion drug mifepristone in any of its pharmacies. This decision is a huge pro-life victory and followed a sustained shareholder engagement campaign that began more than two years before by my faith-based investing firm, Inspire Investing.

Thanks to Biden-era shenanigans, in 2023, long-standing safety restrictions limiting mifepristone distribution were loosened to allow retail pharmacies to apply for a special exemption to dispense the abortion pill directly: a dangerous practice that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration itself says puts women in elevated danger of hospitalization and potentially deadly complications, regardless of what you believe about abortion and the effect on the baby.

In early 2024, CVS and Walgreens jumped on the abortion bandwagon and signed up for the exemption. Other large retail pharmacies such as Costco, Walmart, Albertsons, and Kroger, were considering following suit. That's when our team snapped into action.

We leveraged our position as investors to lobby the investor relations department and made the strong case against getting into the abortion business. We gathered over 9,000 signatures from Costco members and investors ready to cancel their memberships if Costco started stocking mifepristone. We rallied a coalition, including faith-based investors, treasurers, and other financial officers from conservative states. We had numerous conversations with Costco’s management.

Liberal abortion activists were also hard at work, bringing their own firepower to bear.

In the end, goodness and common sense prevailed, and Costco made the rational decision to stay out of such a contentious and legally tenuous line of business, while also citing a “lack of demand from our members and other patients.” But it wasn't only Costco. Walmart made the same decision, and we are hopeful that other pharmacies will be listening to reason as well.

This isn't an isolated incident. You can read many more stories of the successes we’ve had, including details of the behind-the-scenes conversations influencing major corporations with conservative, biblical values in my book "Biblically Responsible Investing: On Wall Street as It Is in Heaven."

If people are serious about making America great again, they must consider what their investments are funding. Is your own money working against you?

Will you invest the hell out of your money?

Erika Kirk Reminds Us That Devoted Wives Change The World

Nurturing the marriage relationship strengthens everything around it, including the family and life missions.

Lee Strobel’s top supernatural stories to challenge your atheist friends



Atheists believe the universe is made up of only physical material. Souls, spirits, divinity, the afterlife — it’s all fiction.

But how do they reckon with phenomena — those hair-raising moments that shatter physics and turn our brains inside out? How do they make sense of miracles, like the terminal cancer patient who’s healed after prayer or the clinically dead person who wakes up with knowledge impossible for him to have?

The hardened skeptics will clutch their materialist beliefs even tighter, insisting there must be some scientific explanation. The more curious ones who allow themselves to venture down mystical rabbit holes, however, often find themselves in the position where disavowing the supernatural takes more effort than acknowledging its existence.

That was Lee Strobel — famous Christian apologist and author of the beloved book “The Case for Christ.” He set out to debunk Christianity, but his rigorous investigation into miracles and the veracity of biblical claims shattered his atheist beliefs and led him to the feet of Jesus.

In this fascinating interview with Glenn Beck, Lee shares several documented cases of miracles and wild stories that will challenge even the most committed atheist.

Proof of the soul

“There are 900 scholarly articles published in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals over the last 40 years on the topic of near-death experiences. These are cases where a person is clinically dead — generally, no brain waves, no respiration, no heartbeat. Some of them have been on the way to the morgue. ... But then they’re revived,” Lee says.

“And when they come back, they say, ‘I was conscious the whole time. I was watching them try to resuscitate my body in the hospital.”’

Glenn and Lee revisit the spine-chilling story of a Hispanic woman named Maria, who suffered a severe heart attack in the 1970s and was resuscitated at a hospital in Seattle. When she regained consciousness, Maria reported having an out-of-body experience, claiming her spirit floated around the emergency room while she was being operated on.

Skeptics dismissed her initially, but then Maria told them there was a sticker on the top of the ceiling fan blade in her hospital room — a detail invisible from the ground. Hospital staff brought in a ladder and beheld the sticker exactly as Maria had described it.

Lee shares another story of a young girl who drowned in a YMCA swimming pool.

“[The doctors] just were keeping her body basically alive until they figured out what to do,” he says.

But three days later, she was miraculously revived. She told hospital staff that she was “conscious the whole time,” Lee recounts. But they scoffed at the girl until she began sharing confirmed details about what her parents were doing at home while she was clinically dead in the hospital.

The girl knew that her mother made chicken and rice for dinner; she knew what specific clothes her family was wearing and that her little brother had played with his G.I. Joe toys while alone in his room — “things she could not have known unless her body, unless her spirit really did follow them home.”

Documented miracles

In his recent book “Seeing the Supernatural,” Lee shares the story of a woman who was blind from birth due to an incurable condition.

“She married a pastor. And one night they’re getting ready to go to bed, and he comes over. ... He puts his hand on her shoulder, and he begins to cry and begins to pray, and he says, ‘God, I know you can heal my wife. I know you can do it, and I pray you do it tonight.’ And with that, she opened her eyes with perfect eyesight,” Lee says, adding that her vision was perfect for the remainder of her life.

“How do you explain that?” he asks.

He then shares another “well-documented case” of a woman named Doris, who had a deathbed vision.

“She sees the heavens open up, and she sees angelic beings, and she sees her father, who had died a couple years earlier. ... And then she gets this puzzled look on her face, and she said, ‘Wait a minute. What’s Vita doing there?”’ Lee recounts.

Vita was Doris’ sister, who had died a couple of weeks earlier. However, Doris’ family hadn’t told her the news for fear that it would worsen her waning condition.

Doris is one of many documented cases of people who “see something in the realm to come that they could not have known about.”

Radical redemption

Evel Knievel — the American daredevil and stunt performer famous for his death-defying motorcycle jumps in the 1960s and 1970s — radically encountered God at the very end of his life.

“He was a drunk. He was a womanizer and once beat up a business associate with a baseball bat and went to jail for assault,” Lee says, retelling the icon’s incredible conversion story.

Just a few months before his death, Knievel was “on the beach in Florida, and God spoke to him and said, ‘Robert ... I’ve saved you more times than you’ll ever know. Now, you need to come to me through my son, Jesus.”’

Freaked out by this profound spiritual encounter, Knievel called Frank Gifford, a renowned sportscaster and Christian, to ask about Jesus and Christianity. Gifford pointed him to Lee’s famous book “The Case for Christ,” and he came to faith in Jesus after reading it.

Knievel had a “180-degree change — more than anybody I’d ever seen in my life,” Lee says, noting that he and Knievel became friends as a result.

He was baptized in California’s Crystal Cathedral, and after he gave his powerful testimony, roughly 700 people spontaneously came forward to be baptized during the same service.

Angelic and demonic encounters

Well-known psychiatrist Dr. Richard Gallagher, who’s also a professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College and a psychoanalyst on the faculty of Columbia University, has a hair-raising story about his first demon encounter that set him on a 25-year journey of studying the demonic.

He and his wife had two cats, who had never had an issue getting along with one another. One night, however, they randomly began to savagely attack each other, shocking Gallagher and his wife, who had to put the cats in separate rooms to stop the fighting.

The very next morning, Dr. Gallagher had an appointment to psychiatrically examine a woman named Julia, who claimed to be the high priestess of a satanic cult.

“She looks up at him, and she sneers, and she says, ‘How’d you like those cats last night?’” Lee says.

Later that day, Dr. Gallagher was speaking to a Catholic priest about Julia on the phone, and during their call, a “satanic voice” interrupted and said, “You let her go. She’s ours.”

After years of studying the demonic, Dr. Gallagher has accumulated many terrifying stories of demon possession. He’s documented a case where “a petite woman ... picked up a 217-pound Lutheran deacon and threw him across a room” and a case where “eight eyewitnesses saw a demon-possessed person levitate off a bed for half an hour.”

But there are just as many stories of angelic encounters too. One, which was documented in a doctoral dissertation, tells the story of a young girl in the hospital asking her mother if she could see the angels. “They’re so beautiful. Listen to their singing,” she told her mother, who was skeptical but played along.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, I see them. Look at their big wings,” she told her daughter, who confusedly responded, “Oh Mommy, you don’t have to lie. They don’t have big wings.”

“She went on to describe these angels in great detail. You would think if this was just something coming from the subconscious mind of a little kid, they would imagine what an angel would look like to them from a cartoon,” Lee says, but “that’s not what they see.”

To hear more documented cases of miraculous occurrences, as well as Glenn and Lee’s personal experiences with the supernatural, watch the interview above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

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Good Friday Reminds Us Death Isn’t Normal

As you gaze upon the cross of Christ today, take heart that the death we were never designed to experience has been ultimately defeated.

Why You Should Use This Lent To Think More About Hell

As much as Jesus unconditionally loves us, He is also a preacher of hell.

Will people in hell repent and be saved by God? The Bible's answer is clear



According to the Bible, what will hell be like?

The descriptions are awful, and the occupants are unsettling. Jesus said "the devil and his angels" would be there (Matthew 25:41). He taught that the unrighteous would be there (Matthew 25:41-46). John the apostle described it as "the second death" (Revelation 21:8) and the "lake of fire" (Revelation 20:15). It is a place of unceasing punishment (Revelation 20:10; Matthew 25:46), and thus it is a place from which there is no escape.

Growing up, I used to imagine that those who go to hell would, at some point (and probably sooner than later), come to their senses and repent. If the prodigal in the parable (Luke 15:11-32) came to his senses when he was eating pig slop, surely the horrors of hell would provoke deep sorrow and repentance.

Have you ever wondered whether there will be repentance in hell? Should we imagine that those in hell will eventually cry out to God for salvation, only to have their cries rejected? Will they plead for his redemption, pledge themselves to him, and renounce their wickedness, only to have their desperate cries met with divine contempt?

We should not imagine those things because we have no biblical reason to suppose that the wicked will ever be repentant in hell.

Hell is full of hardened hearts. And repentance doesn't flow from a hardened heart. Repentance is a gift of God. It is a work of the Holy Spirit. And in the New Testament, repentance is unto salvation.

Will they wish they weren't in hell? Yes. Will they wish the punishment would cease? Of course. Consider the language of the rich man in Luke 16, when he says, "I am in anguish in this flame" (Luke 16:24) and describes his abode as "this place of torment" (Luke 16:28).

Jesus described the emotions of hell's occupants when he said, "The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:41-42; see also Matthew 24:51).

Should we imagine this "weeping" as being tears of repentance? No repentance is specified. Weeping is not the only thing mentioned. We read about weeping and gnashing of teeth. Together, that pair of descriptions — tears and teeth — is an image of distress and rage. The "gnashing of teeth" denotes rage and hostility. The inhabitants of hell are hostile, angry, rageful.

Hell is full of hardened hearts. And repentance doesn't flow from a hardened heart. Repentance is a gift of God. It is a work of the Holy Spirit. And in the New Testament, repentance is unto salvation. There is never true repentance without salvation. Peter said, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins" (Acts 2:38). When addressing those who might be opposed to the gospel, Paul said, "God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will" (2 Timothy 2:25-26). And, of course, Paul is talking about people alive on earth, not about people in hell.

Faith and repentance are the result of the gracious work of the Spirit, as the Lord opens our eyes to see the ugliness of our sin and the beauty of redemption. He convicts us, and we experience genuine contrition, a godly sorrow. According to Paul, "Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death" (2 Corinthians 7:10).

Those in hell will never desire to worship God. They will never love the Lord. They will never repent. Instead, their hardness of heart will bear the fruit of all the horrors of sin.

If there is any grief in hell, it is a worldly grief and not a godly grief. Godly grief produces repentance, the repentant are saved, and God is glorified because his Spirit's merciful work illuminates the sinner's heart and reveals the glory of Christ to him.

It is unthinkable that repentant people would not be saved. And because those in hell will not be delivered from their judgment, there can be no genuine repentance in them. The Spirit will not produce repentance in the hearts of the wicked who cannot be redeemed from the second death.

There will not be any saving grace or common grace in hell. There will only be the unrestrained rage of the godless, who, in their unending unrepentance, will indulge their blasphemies and hatred to the uttermost. If heaven is a place of love and hope, hell is a place of hate and despair.

Those in hell will never desire to worship God. They will never love the Lord. They will never repent. Instead, their hardness of heart will bear the fruit of all the horrors of sin. The wicked in hell will be embodiments of iniquity, living manifestations of spiritual darkness. They will never want to flee to Christ, for they will despise him and blaspheme him forever.

When we reflect on the abode of the wicked, let us rejoice that there is good news of a Savior who welcomes sinners to him even now. When people flee to Christ, he will never refuse them. In fact, he saves them and keeps them — forever.

This article was originally published by Dr. Mitchell Chase at his Substack, Biblical Theology.

We All Saw Clearly On Sept. 11, 2001 A Battle Between Good And Evil That Still Rages

Once again, we are in a battle too many Americans do not know we are involved in. Our culture has changed as Americans turn away from God.

Street preacher says Subway worker refused to serve him over his T-shirt condemning homosexuality with biblical reference



A street preacher said a Subway worker in Wisconsin recently refused to serve him over his T-shirt displaying a phrase condemning homosexuality as a sin.

Rich Penkoski told the Christian Post he was wearing a T-shirt displaying the phrase "Homo sex is sin: Romans 1" when an interaction took place — which was recorded on video — in the Waunakee restaurant. Penkoski was traveling with other pastors after preaching outside the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, the Post added. Waunakee is about an hour and 20 minutes west of Milwaukee.

'If the shoe were on the other foot, if somebody walked in and said, 'Oh, I'm gay' or whatever, and I said, 'Nope, I'm not serving you,' this would be all over the place, and I'd be fired, or I'd be getting sued.'

David Grisham, apparently also one of the street preachers, posted a Facebook message Tuesday with multiple photos saying, "This person working at Subway in Waunakee Village Mall refused to serve us because of our Christian T-shirts. Christophobic bigotry should not be tolerated. Please give Subway corporate a call." It isn't clear on what date the interaction occurred.

One of the photos Grisham posted shows four men outside a Subway wearing T-shirts displaying phrases such as, "Abortion is murder," "Homo sex is sin: Romans 1," and "Planned Parenthood murders children and rapes their mothers."

Grisham posted video of the interaction in the Subway, writing in the caption, "Subway Karen refuses to serve street preachers because of Christian T-shirts in Waukanee [sic] Wisconsin." The following is how the exchange went down:

"Are you refusing to service customers? She's refusing to serve us," one man says in the clip. "She just said she's refusing to serve us."

"What are you talking about?" another man asks.

"This girl right here said she's refusing to serve us," the first man replies.

"So we have to go somewhere else?" a third man wonders.

"I want her to say it again," the first man says.

"I am refusing you service," the Subway worker behind the counter replies.

As for her reasons for the refusal, she soon says it's a "personal matter."

The first man asks if it's "because of my T-shirt?"

She replies, "Yes."

"OK, [I'm] sure Subway Corporate will love to hear that," the first man replies.

The Christian Post reported that the Subway employee speaking in the video was referring to Penkoski's "Homo sex is sin: Romans 1" T-shirt.

"If the shoe were on the other foot, if somebody walked in and said, 'Oh, I'm gay' or whatever, and I said, 'Nope, I'm not serving you,' this would be all over the place, and I'd be fired, or I'd be getting sued," Penkoski told the Post.

Penkoski added to the Post, "But these LGBT people are so emboldened that they think just because they're either gay or gay allies, they can say and do whatever they want. So if they really want equality, then they should be OK with me suing them the same way they sue us."

Penkoski said he has spoken with his attorney about possible legal action against Subway for a civil rights violation, the Post added.

Grisham noted in a Facebook comment that his group "did NOT purposely try to antagonize anyone. We just went in for a sandwich. A local pastor was buying us dinner, and we had only been inside for less than a minute and hadn’t said a word to anyone. She just saw our shirts and blurted out profanity and said she wouldn’t serve us. REASONABLE people are reasonable when it comes to differences of opinion and are professional enough to just serve someone without letting their emotions go into elementary schoolyard mode and whine publicly."

Grisham noted in another comment that "if we had been homosexuals with rainbow shirts, and they refused us service, there would be riots in the streets."

But plenty of commenters on Grisham's Facebook posts about the incident pushed back hard. To wit:

  • "Learn the difference between Christianity and Christian nationalism," one commenter shot back. "[You] all are simply bigots, and that’s why she refused you service."
  • "I wouldn’t serve you, either," another commenter said. "You wear disgusting shirts like that to get a reaction out of people. Good job. You got your reaction."
  • "Subway will not take your side, nor will any reasonably minded person," another commenter declared before adding, "You are not a Christian in any way shape or form."
  • "Having these kinds of shirts on and calling them 'religious T-shirts' is a CRAZZYYY reach," another commenter wrote. "Speaks volumes to the values of your religious priorities, I guess. You're always welcome to have freedom of speech, not freedom of consequence. To everyone saying you should sue based on 'religious discrimination' has (1) never seen the shirts you guys were actually wearing or (2) is grossly misinformed as to how the legal system actually works. The prosecutors would laugh it out the courthouse in an hour."

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 sided with Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips after he refused to make a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding. But last October, the Colorado Supreme Court said it would take up a lawsuit from transgender plaintiff Autumn Scardina against Phillips after he refused to make a cake to celebrate Scardina's gender transition.

The Christian Post said Subway's corporate office did not respond to its request for comment by time of publication.

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Blaze News original: Understanding hell — Part III



Hell has long had a hold on the Western imagination.

Middle Age scribes rendered depictions of hell strikingly similar both to those painted centuries later by Renaissance greats and to those photoshopped nearly a millennium later by keyboard-bound game designers. It has served as an unnerving backdrop in Hollywood features, medieval passion plays, early modern poetry, and graphic novels alike.

Despite hell's sustained cultural influence, its hold has slipped in the way of belief among Americans. Meanwhile, others, religious and secular alike, maintain that it is a thing of cruel fantasy or, alternatively, a kindness misunderstood.

In Parts I and II, a number of faith leaders and scholars shared with Blaze News their views on hell. These perspectives ranged from the Roman Catholic belief that hell is a place of eternal torment inhabited by those resistive to God's love and grace, to a Jewish perspective that hell is a kind of "spiritual washing machine" that prepares most souls for paradise.

In what follows are two contrastive views on the matter: the first from a conservative Presbyterian who believes there indeed exists a place of eternal punishment for the wicked after death, and the second from a progressive liberal who does not believe in hell but maintains that the truly wicked run the risk of being forgotten or possibly stricken from existence.

While they each have emphasized different consequences in and beyond the land of the living, both individuals noted the importance of taking action in the here and now.

Erick Erickson

Erick Erickson is a writer, a columnist, and the host of "The Erick Erickson Show" on 95.5 WSB. Erickson received his law degree from Mercer University's Walter F. George School of Law and practiced for six years, primarily at Sell & Melton LLP. Erickson subsequently served as editor in chief at RedState.com for a decade, as a political contributor at both CNN and Fox News for several years, and as a city councilman for Macon, Georgia.

Erickson, a proud member of the Presbyterian Church in America who has started on a theology degree at Reformed Theological Seminary, has a book out later this month entitled, "You Shall Be as Gods: Pagans, Progressives, and the Rise of the Woke Gnostic Left," which explores the longstanding conflict between the Christian church today and paganism.

In his phone interview with Blaze News, Erickson minced no words about the reality of hell and the torments that await those who have rejected Christ. However, he emphasized that it is not by the cruelty of God that some men are damned but by His love and mercy that they could ever be saved.

Real and everlasting

Erickson indicated at the outset that the Presbyterian Church of America follows the Westminster Confession of Faith, which was produced by the Westminster Assembly during the English Civil War and completed in 1646.

The Westminster Confession affirms that the Bible in its original languages is pure and remains the infallible source of doctrinal authority for Christian faith. The document is also unmistakably clear about Presbyterian beliefs in the afterlife — as was Erickson.

'Those who are separated from God will be there eternally.'

"Yes, hell is real, and it is eternal," said Erickson. "It is a physical place" where the devil, the demons, and the damned all ultimately go.

The conservative host noted that after the day of judgment, "Those who are separated from God will be there eternally" immediately upon dying. There is no transitional period or purgatorial state getting in the way of damned souls' encounter with final consequence.

In terms of its relation in time and space to heaven, Erickson noted that "whether we view it as inside or outside the gates of heaven, there is some physical location outside the realm of God where those who are not of the kingdom of God will go."

Apathy be damned

The Westminster Confession states, "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others fore-ordained to everlasting death."

When asked about this belief that God predestines some souls to hell, Erickson indicated that Presbyterians and Calvinists believe "there are those God elected to save and all others not to save."

'God clearly wants a relationship with us.'

Erickson indicated that "if you desire to be with God, then you're among the elect. If you have no interest or desire, then you're not."

"God clearly wants a relationship with us. He sent Jesus to live a perfect life in this world, to try to call everyone to Him," said Erickson. "I definitely think there is a portion of the people who reject God who, through their own stubbornness, wind up there."

While some Christians might find the idea of predestination difficult to digest, Erickson alternatively indicated, "I have a hard time understanding why we get to heaven. I mean, I'm amazed by God's love to allow us, knowing all of the sins of my life."

Once saved, always saved

To avoid hell, actions aren't going to cut it. After all, no one is good enough on their own merit — either for heaven or to pay back the sacrifice at Golgotha. The key, stressed Erickson, is faith in Jesus Christ. Such is the way of salvation.

Blaze News asked Erickson whether people who genuinely have faith in Christ could jeopardize their salvation and guarantee a fast-track to hell through some misstep in word or deed.

'If you put your faith in Christ and trust Him, you can't be snatched away from Him.'

"So, the 'once saved, always saved,' is something a lot of evangelicals would say; that if you are saved, you can't be snatched away from Christ," said Erickson. "Whether or not you are saved — you may think you are and you're not — that's between you and God, not for me to decide. But the general rule is, if you put your faith in Christ and trust Him, you can't be snatched away from Him."

Whereas other denominations might be less committal in their responses, Erickson indicated that those who do not accept Christ, including nonbelievers, are precluded from going to heaven and thereby consigned to hell. This is cause, he acknowledged, for Christians to proselytize.

"I think a lot of denominations that believe in predestination and the doctrine of election are asked, 'Well, why bother doing these things if God's got it and the Holy Spirit's in charge?'" said Erickson. "We are instruments of God's will, and we are called to evangelize, and Christ tells us in the Great Commission to preach, teach, and baptize in His name."

Erickson suggested that hell is likely not egalitarian in the way of the punishments. Accordingly, those unfortunate enough to wind up there having never before heard of Christ won't suffer to the extent of a truly wicked person for all time.

"I don't know that I would say it's PCA because we don't get into it a lot," said Erickson, "[but] I do think that there are levels of separation from God. Those who do terrible things are punished more than those who just never knew Christ."

Just as Dante figured the great minds of antiquity would be stuck in the first circle of Dante's hell, Erickson suggested that there may be gradations of suffering and that such people may just experience "an absence of God as opposed to active punishment."

Downplaying the depths

Blaze News asked Erickson about the efforts by some denominations to downplay the existence of hell. The conservative host indicated that in doing so, they effectively water down Christ's own teachings.

'Christ Himself didn't speak in red letters.'

"I think Jesus Himself spoke more about hell than anyone else in Scripture and for any denomination to downplay hell is downplaying a significant portion of the things Christ talked about," said Erickson.

"I mean, there is an aspect of some Christian denominations that take a red-letter view — that they only pay attention to the red letters in the New Testament, which some editor centuries ago put in," continued Erickson. "Christ Himself didn't speak in red letters, but within those red letters are a lot of discussions of hell, damnation, and judgment. So, to be dismissive of that is to be dismissive of a whole lot of what Christ talked about."

Erickson acknowledged a possible correlation between the narrative elimination of the possibility of hell and the laxation of morals, noting that "'secular, secularism,' translated actually means 'nowism'; that only the here and now matters. And there is a lot of that, I think, that even creeps into the church to be so focused on the here and now that we forget about eternity."

Besides possibly impacting public morality, the effort to discount the existence of hell also has theological implications.

"You know Tim Keller, one of the more famous PCA pastors, before he passed away said, 'Unless you accept that the devil and hell were real, a lot of Scripture doesn't make sense.'"

The story of salvation, too, would be undercut by the notion there is no hell.

"Why do we need to be saved if there is no eternal punishment?" said Erickson.

Additionally, there is a comfort in recognizing hell's existence. After all, oftentimes evildoers escape justice in the temporal realm.

"The doctrine of hell gives me comfort that there are those who are terrible people who will get away with terrible things in this lifetime, but they'll never escape judgment," Erickson told Blaze News. "I wouldn't want to believe in a God that could look on the horrors of this world and say, 'Well, that guy gets in too.'"

While Erickson expressed uncertainty about whether a broader belief in hell might yield social benefits today, he said it certainly helps people of faith, affording them "some level of calibration to, I think, be empathetic to those who are not saved; to understand that this is the best they're going to have; and to be relational and perhaps save those who otherwise would not be with you in heaven."

Rabbi Shana Goldstein Mackler

Rabbi Shana Goldstein Mackler has been serving for 20 years as a rabbi at the Temple, Congregation Ohabai Sholom in Nashville, where she is now also a senior scholar.

Rabbi Mackler, a teacher at the Hebrew Day School of Central Florida, was voted one of America's Most Inspiring Rabbis in 2016 and is both a founding member of the West Nashville Interfaith Clergy Group and president of the Nashville Board of Rabbis. She and her husband, Army veteran Lt. Col. James Mackler, are the proud parents of two daughters.

At the outset, Rabbi Mackler clarified to Blaze News over the phone that a distinguishing feature of Reform Judaism, of which she is an exponent, when it comes to ritual laws, "Reformed Judaism feels guided by the ritual commandments and the more orthodox feels governed by them."

Heaven on earth and hell in question

Rabbi Mackler emphasized that Jewish views on the afterlife and the possibility of hell differ wildly: "For as many Jews as there are in the world, there's probably that many opinions on the afterlife."

"The texts in virtually every era of Jewish life have some sort of concept of a world where people go when they die. In the Bible, there is this concept of Sheol. It's not very specific," said Rabbi Mackler. "It takes on different names through our rabbinic tradition (e.g., 'Shamayim'), which comes about after the Hebrew Bible was closed."

'We don't focus as much on the next life as we do on this life.'

A lack of textual specificity and the emergence of various interpretations have apparently all but guaranteed the impossibility of consensus, but there appears to be little urgency given the Jewish focus on the here and now as opposed to the hereafter, suggested Rabbi Mackler.

"We don't focus as much on the next life as we do on this life so the concept of that as a reward or punishment is not really the focus of Jewish practice," said the rabbi. "Most of us focus on trying to make whatever our concept of paradise is here on earth."

As for hell, individuals may try to generate pockets of it on earth, but Rabbi Mackler indicated there's no such place awaiting us after death.

'We don't have fire and brimstone.'

"We do not have a concept of hell," said Rabbi Mackler. "We don't have the devil. We don't have fire and brimstone. We don't have any of that. That's not our concept at all. So, I think that's a big difference for us: We just don't have that form of punishment."

There is, however, a minority of Reform Jews — perhaps even among her congregation — who believe otherwise.

An appetite whetted for justice

Rabbi Mackler indicated that over time and through acculturation, particularly when living in diaspora, some Jews have adopted views on the afterlife that may be more recognizable to mainstream Christians.

"Everywhere we went, we were influenced by the people among whom we lived. And so some of the concepts like the Hellenistic concept of Hades — those kind of things you can see finding their way into some literature at some point in time," Rabbi Mackler told Blaze News. "I would say that because hell is very much a [popular] concept in our modern life ... it makes its way into someone's psyche, regardless of their religious focus."

Rabbi Mackler noted that these views also resonated with concepts already in Judaism, particularly in Deuteronomy, which advances the understanding that the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked will be punished. Bereft of a sense of justice in this world, the rabbi noted that the desire for an afterlife became all the more appealing.

"We see lots of things where the wicked people get success or they get elevated or they get famous or whatever the benefit is that they're seeking, and righteous people suffer. So, I think there was a question, and Job actually ultimately asked the question, 'Why do righteous people suffer?'" said Rabbi Mackler. "I think the idea of the world to come was an avenue for that to be worked out."

"So, if it didn't happen in our lifetime for the righteous to be rewarded and the wicked to be punished, I think that was really where it was a need for people to see that for following the rules and keeping all of the commandments that we're supposed to do, it will eventually happen, even though we may not see it in our own lifetime," added the rabbi.

The influence of other cultures' views on hell, the biblically grounded promise of justice, and the human desire to see the haughty fall have apparently prompted some Jews to believe in the existence of hell.

Posthumous waiting room

Rabbi Mackler told Blaze News that while souls may not ultimately face the possibility of hell, some Jews believe in a "sort of waiting period" that souls must endure after death — a "transitional period between the death and maybe the ultimate."

"You know, there is a view of resurrection — not everybody believes in that, but it's collective, it's not an individual resurrection; it's going to be a collective, communal thing at the end of days," said the rabbi. "If that is part of their belief system, there is sort of a waiting period to get there."

The belief in the existence in such a waiting period corresponds with the practice of praying over the course of the year following the death of a loved one, "which is thought to be one of those ways that we can elevate that soul."

Memory and special cases

Truly reprehensible individuals could be altogether precluded from joining the posthumous waiting room, speculated the rabbi. At the very least, their immorality could mean their temporal erasure.

Concerning the person who renounces God or faith or morality in this world, Rabbi Mackler said, "There is a thought that they would be cut off from their kin. The idea of not being part of a community, of alienating yourself like that; like that's the punishment itself. The worst thing that we could have is not leaving a mark in this world, right."

In Reform Judaism — and perhaps Judaism more broadly — memory, morality, and the afterlife appear to be strongly linked.

Alienation from the community could mean annihilation in, at the very least, the worldly sense. After all, the memories of the faithful departed are alternatively kept alive in regular prayers.

"I don't know if you know but there is a concept called the 'minyan,' like not the little yellow guys," said Rabbi Mackler. "It's a quorum, a number of people that's needed for a prayer. So, when Jews get together to pray, we need that quorum for certain prayers to be said. They can pray alone, but the ideal is to pray in community or to read the Torah, the sacred Scriptures, in community or to grieve in community."

"So, that's how memory gets passed on, whether it's out of collective peoples' memory or our individual memories of people," continued the rabbi. "We to this day will read the names of people that none of us knows, but every Friday night when we have our Sabbath prayer, we have what's called Kaddish."

"So, we will recite their names on the anniversary of their passing, and when someone dies, we also have not just on their anniversary, but four times throughout the year on certain holidays, we have a memorial service. So, people are constantly being remembered," added Rabbi Mackler.

Extra to working against the establishment of a better world, the truly wicked person all but guarantees he will not be remembered in this manner.

'It's like nothingness, right.'

"So, the idea that we wouldn't be positively furthering the world — that, in and of itself, not being remembered for our blessing — would be the punishment that we would get," added the rabbi.

'They'll cease to be, perhaps.'

Blaze News pressed the issue of what would happen to a truly evil soul. Rabbi Mackler replied, "A lot of people really think about that, but because they don't really have a formed concept of hell, all we could say is that they will not have a share in the world to come. It's like nothingness, right. They'll cease to be, perhaps. I mean, this is conjecture."

"The only time that we really know about an afterlife is that people are remembered," added Mackler. "And we say, 'remembered for our blessing,' and so that's the legacy we leave and is how people will remember you. For us, that's the worst of the worst, right."

Regarding incentives for good behavior

Rabbi Mackler noted there is a concept of acting out of fear of retribution and punishment "in the Bible, the Torah itself, where there are blessings and curses; if you do these things, if you don't do these things."

While Judaism contains within it a sense that good deeds will be rewarded and bad deeds will be punished, the trouble, according to Rabbi Mackler, is that behavior shaped by external threats of final rewards and punishments is "not the way that a free person behaves."

"That's not the ideal of a free person, a person that's created in the image of God, a person that has agency in this world," said the rabbi. "We're supposed to choose it for ourselves to do right, to do good, instead out of fear of something else coming at the end of our life."

Rabbi Mackler did highlight, however, that moral choices nevertheless have real consequences.

"The punishment itself I think comes from when we don't have a world we want to live in if we create the curses ourselves by the choices that we make collectively," said the rabbi. "So, I think there's that collective responsibility piece that might be more challenging for me to have this idea of each person having a tally, you know: things that will get them into heaven or things that will send them to hell."

In Part I, Archbishop Emeritus Cardinal Thomas Collins details the Roman Catholic views on hell and mortal sin, and Rabbi Aron Moss discusses the "kindness" of hell and the nature of Gehinnom.

In Part II, Rev. Fr. Calvin Robinson discusses the reality of hell from a British Old Catholic perspective; Rev. Dr. Lance Haverkamp discusses the Christian Universalist belief that all souls will ultimately be saved, possibly negating the need for hell; Bishop Stephen Andrews provides an Anglican perspective on the darker side of the afterlife; and Dr. Kenneth Green provides historical insights into Jewish views on Gehenna.

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Blaze News original: Understanding hell — Part II



The leading polling outfits all indicate that the majority of American adults believe in hell. The trouble with that determination is that there is a wide range of views on what exactly the word "hell" means.

For existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, for instance, hell was apparently other people. As became clear in part one of "Understanding hell," the Jewish conception of hell, or Gehinnom, closely resembles the Roman Catholic conception of purgatory. Meanwhile, hell according to Catholics is an eternal place of torment effectively chosen over God and love by sinners.

Blaze News has endeavored to further explore the particularities of various views on hell.

In part two of "Understanding hell," a British Old Catholic priest, a professor of Jewish studies at the University of Toronto's Department for the Study of Religion, a Christian Universalist executive minister, and an Anglican bishop share their respective thoughts on and insights into the inferno.

Rev. Fr. Calvin Robinson

Rev. Fr. Robinson, formerly a deacon in the Free Church of England, was ordained a priest last year through the Nordic Catholic Church of the Old Catholic denomination of the high church Lutheran patrimony and concluded his service in an Anglican parish in Harlesden, England, last month.

Fr. Robinson has served as a radio presenter, a television presenter for GB News, and as a political adviser, and has worked ardently in various media to defend traditional values in and outside the church.

Blaze News put questions to Fr. Robinson over the phone while he was visiting the Lone Star State.

Eternally apart from God

Fr. Robinson said that belief in the existence of hell is one of the "fundamental pillars of our faith." After all, "Christ came to earth as God incarnate to offer us eternal salvation from eternal damnation."

While through His death and resurrection, Christ has gifted mankind salvation, some may nevertheless opt out. This comes down to a choice: "We get to choose to live forever in Christ or to be damned forever without Him," said Fr. Robinson.

'It is up to us to accept it.'

Hell is the place where those who freely willed themselves into damnation reside for eternity.

Fr. Robinson indicated that we have but our short time on earth to make that choice of infinite consequence, telling Blaze News that "our lives here are so important because we have the opportunity to repent of our sins, to be baptized in water and the Holy Spirit, and to have faith in Christ — to accept the offer of eternal salvation that He gives us. It is up to us to accept it."

When pressed on whether human beings' eternal fates are sealed upon death, Fr. Robinson indicated, "That's what we don't know."

"We don't know what happens the instant we die," said Robinson. "We don't know when judgment takes place, which is why we pray for the souls of the faithful departed. It's why we pray that if they are in a purification process, if they are in some kind of limbo or purgatory, we pray that their journey is increased and they gain entry into heaven. That much is a little bit more vague."

Opposites in the hereafter

Fr. Robinson indicated that hell is the opposite of the Beatific Vision, which is the immediate knowledge of God.

'Hell is the absence of God.'

"If heaven is the Beatific Vision — if heaven is communion with God in ... praise and worship of Him, in an intimate relationship with Him — then hell is the opposite," said Robinson. "Hell is the absence of God. And fear and damnation is the opposite of love and hope."

While opposites in at least this respect, heaven and hell share this much in common: They are both places, said Fr. Robinson.

"[Hell is] absolutely a place. I mean, the words 'physical' or 'spiritual' lose relevance when we're talking about the afterlife," Fr. Robinson told Blaze News. "It's not a place as in like Texas versus Canada. It's not an earthly place. But it is a place that, well — Christ descended into hell to free souls before His resurrection."

Seizing upon Fr. Robinson's allusion to Christ's harrowing of hell, Blaze News revisited the question of whether the damned might have a shot, ultimately, at redemption.

Fr. Robinson clarified that Christ had not rescued the damned from hell after the crucifixion, but rather lost souls who previously had nowhere else to go.

"The word the Bible uses there for hell is 'hades,' right, rather than Gehenna. So, it seems as though that was a place of lost souls rather than damned souls because there was no entry into heaven after the fall — not in the way we have it now," said Robinson. "So basically, when Christ descended into hell, what He was doing was opening the gates of heaven for the lost souls and for the rest of us who have faith in Him."

In darkness, embodied

Blaze News asked Fr. Robinson whether the residents of hell would be conferred their bodies after the resurrection along with the saved in heaven.

"I don't think I've ever been asked that before," said Fr. Robinson, laughing.

Resuming a serious tone, the priest noted that "upon the resurrection, we know that Christ comes from heaven on a cloud and meets us, essentially, halfway, and we are resurrected for our glorified bodies and join Him. ... I think if we refer to Daniel, everyone gets a resurrected body. So, whether it's saved or not saved, everyone gets a resurrected body."

Guaranteed ticket to hell

Fr. Robinson indicated that all sin separates humans from God, but mortal sin poses the greatest threat to their salvation. Fortunately, "We have the sacraments so we can be realigned with the graces of God."

'We also know that the gravest sin is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as well, so we should always be wary of that.'

"So, for example, if we have mortal sin on our soul, then we should repent of our sins to be reassured of our salvation because we can lose our salvation," said Robinson.

While any mortal sin could drag a person down, the priest cautioned against one sin in particular.

"We also know that the gravest sin is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as well, so we should always be wary of that," said Robinson.

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is regarded by some Christian theologians as an unpardonable sin, citing various gospel passages, including Matthew 12:30-32 where Christ says:

Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

This warning is repeated in Luke 12:8-10 and Mark 3:28-30, and echoed elsewhere in the New Testament.

Augustine of Hippo said that it is "being unrepentant that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will not be forgiven in this age, nor in the age to come."

Aquinas wrote that "in one way, to sin against the Holy Ghost is to sin through certain malice," specifically by "contemptuously rejecting the things whereby a man is withdrawn from sin." He noted further that it is unpardonable "by reason of its nature, in so far as it removes those things which are a means towards the pardon of sins."

"We should always avoid sin," reiterated Fr. Robinson, "but when we do sin, we should repent of our sins and realign ourselves with Christ."

When pressed on whether non-Christians — those who ostensibly never formally aligned with Christ — were hell-bound, Fr. Robinson responded, "It used to be said that there is no salvation outside of the church. However, we know that Jesus Christ died for all of us. So those who are ignorant of the faith, those who never had access to the faith — we can only hope and assume that God finds a way to reveal Himself to them."

While holding out hope for nonbelievers, Robinson added, "But we know the surest way to salvation is through the church, is through faith in Jesus Christ."

A chastening belief

Fr. Robinson indicated that fear of hell should help orient us toward heaven and God; that we should fear what separates us from God and the judgment that may make definitive that separation.

"We're going to stand there before Jesus Christ one day and atone for our sins. We're going to hope that we've repented of our sins enough and had faith in Him enough to be accepted into heaven," said Robinson. "We should be afraid of the alternative."

'Having fear of hell and having love of heaven go hand in hand.'

Fr. Robinson noted further that "we should be afraid of living out our lives focused towards hell because it's not somewhere we want to be. We want to be in heaven. Having fear of hell and having love of heaven go hand in hand. It's difficult to have one without the other."

A waning belief in hell may correspond with an increase in immorality because it takes consequence off the table, suggested Fr. Robinson.

"If there is no hell, you can do what you like — it doesn't matter. We center our lives on Christ and we do things out of love, of course, but we also have to do things out of fear of hell because if we don't, then we are passive. Then we have dead faith," said the priest.

Rev. Dr. Lance Haverkamp

Rev. Dr. Lance Haverkamp, executive minister of the Christian Universalist Association, studied at Denver Seminary and at the Wagner Leadership Institute, earning a master's degree and a doctorate in practical ministry.

The Christian Universalist Association is a "loose association of CU congregations, who provides needed coordination for things like military and hospital chaplaincy, globally recognized ordination."

Rev. Dr. Haverkamp shared some Christian Universalist insights into hell and salvation with Blaze News via email.

All are saved

In the first complete American translation of Italian poet Dante Alighieri's "The Divine Comedy," Canto III opens with a description of the vestibule of hell:

Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost. ...
Before me there were no created things,
Only eterne, and I eternal last.
"All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

Those Christian Universalists who believe that this antechamber sees regular traffic apparently believe there is ample cause for hope.

Rev. Dr. Haverkamp told Blaze News that Christian Universalists generally believe that "through the saving work of Jesus Christ, all people will ultimately be reconciled to God."

Accordingly, hell, should it exist, is not a place of eternal torment but rather a place for correction, not wholly unlike Gehinnom as described by Rabbi Aron Moss.

Rev. Dr. Haverkamp noted that while Christian Universalists largely see eye-to-eye on the big picture, there is "diversity of thought" on the specifics. He identified three main branches of Christian Universalist thought:

  • "Patristic Universalists, following the teachings of many early church fathers, believe that those who reject God in this life will undergo temporary correction in the afterlife, but will eventually repent and be saved. They see this correction as real, but not eternal. This was the majority belief, for the first 500 years of the early church."
  • "Liberal Christian Universalists tend to downplay the idea of any correction. Many believe all are saved immediately upon death, without any corrective period. Opinions vary on whether correction is literal or metaphorical. They tend to take Christ's statement that 'It is finished' literally."
  • "Charismatic Universalists, coming from Pentecostal backgrounds, retain a more fundamentalist view of a correction, and of the end times. However, they still see correction as temporary, and believe all will ultimately be restored through the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ."

This belief — in the ultimate reconciliation of all — is based on a scriptural understanding "of God's boundless love, Christ's victory over sin and death, and God's desire for all to be saved," said Rev. Dr. Haverkamp.

While Haverkamp alluded to other scriptural passages, he specifically referenced 1 Timothy 2:4, 1 Corinthians 15:22, and John 3:17 as verses bolstering the belief in universal salvation.

The first passage notes that "God our Savior ... wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." The chapter goes on to note that Jesus "gave Himself as a ransom for all people."

The second passage, in 1 Corinthians, notes that "for as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive."

The third passage states, "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved."

Blaze News staff writer Christopher Enloe highlighted several additional verses that hint at the salvation of all, including Romans 5:18-21, which states:

Just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rev. Dr. Haverkamp said, "We understand biblical references to a correction for unbelievers as real warnings, but see them in light of larger themes of redemption and reconciliation."

Bishop Stephen Andrews

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Stephen Andrews is the principal of Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto. The American-born Anglican served as the bishop of the Diocese of Algoma from 2009 to 2016.

A graduate of Cambridge University and Wycliffe College, Andrews has explored the Jewish biblical interpretation of the Second Temple period and taught courses on the prophets of Israel, the Pauline epistles, the development of Christian thought, St. Mark's Gospel, and Christian worship. He is also a father of two, a grandfather, and a woodworker.

Bishop Andrews responded to Blaze News' questions via email.

The gray town once visited by Christ

Bishop Andrews indicated that there is "no consistent doctrine of hell in Anglicanism, but to the extent that we affirm the Creeds."

The Anglican Church, which does not define its doctrine in a single confession, affirms in multiple creeds and in the church's 39 Articles of Religion that Christ descended into hell.

The hell referenced in Article III in reference to the divine descent is "widely interpreted as 'the place of departed spirits,'" said Bishop Andrews.

When asked whether hell could be conceived of as a place, Andrews replied, "Of course it is 'conceived of' as a place because of the imagery the Bible uses to describe it. But many understand these images metaphorically, and hold that hell is better thought of as a state of being."

The bishop added that C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce" is "quite evocative in this way."

Lewis' hell is a gray town devoid of joy and subject to constant rain. While only a bus-stop away from the periphery of heaven, the souls inhabiting the place are more often than not self-made captives to pride, vice, and/or delusion.

'There will be a new heaven and new earth. But these are also understood as realms of the spiritual.'

"Once again, because of the images Scripture uses, earth, heaven and hell are conceived of as spatial," said Bishop Andrews. "Heaven and earth are also described in temporal language, so there will be a new heaven and new earth. But these are also understood as realms of the spiritual. Lewis's 'gray town' is a literary image that invite[s] us to think of the spiritual (and psychological) aspects [of] eternity."

The traditional view is that the occupants of the heavenly and hellish spaces both "inhabit resurrected bodies (Matthew 25), though theologians since the time of Augustine have struggled to understand this," said Bishop Andrews. The embodied in the latter camp may not be long for existence, according to some Anglicans.

Despite the variability in Anglican beliefs on hell, Bishop Andrews indicated that "many do believe it is eternal, though many would adopt a conditionalist or annihilationist reading of the biblical text."

According to conditionalism, the damned, having rejected the gift of immortality conditional upon belief in Jesus Christ, will ultimately be erased from existence rather than suffering eternally in hell.

Salvation beyond the grave

When asked about the apparent insinuation in the Rainer fragment of the apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter that the damned could ultimately be saved, Bishop Andrews clarified that "there is a section in this fragment where those who are saved see the torment of the damned and pray for their salvation. There is no biblical warrant for this, though the practice of praying for the dead comes from the earliest centuries of the Christian church."

"In this case, the teaching of the Catholic Church is that those being prayed for exist in purgatory (i.e., the fate of the damned is unalterable)," said Bishop Andrews.

The Anglican Church, meanwhile, discounts the existence of purgatory, stating in Article XXII, "The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Reliques, and also invocation of Saints, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God."

Bishop Andrews noted, however, that those Anglicans "who pray for the dead may have some vague idea of an intermediary state the dead inhabit for a time."

Such prayers would apparently be wasted on those who deliberately reject God. Bishop Andrews indicated such rebels "will not be forced to live with God for eternity."

Judaic roots and divine justice

While Jesus' description of hell was taken from the Hebrew Bible, Bishop Andrews indicated that the concept metamorphized in Hellenistic cosmology, where Sheol and Gehenna became Hades and hell.

"In the Hellenistic period, hell becomes more straightforwardly understood as a place associated with punishment," said the bishop.

'A balance of perspective is required.'

The promise of hell as punishment, as an expression of divine justice, can be beneficial in this mortal realm. Bishop Andrews said that this understanding of hell "can guide moral behavior and be the basis of social cohesion."

However, the "prospect of heaven can also be a source of hope for those who live in discouragement and despair," said the bishop. "But a balance of perspective is required, lest someone think that salvation is a matter of living a virtuous life."

Dr. Kenneth Green

Dr. Kenneth Green is a professor at the University of Toronto's Department for the Study of Religion where he specializes in Jewish studies and the philosophy of religion. Green has written extensively on the thought of Leo Strauss, whom he figures for one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of the 20th century.

Green, who earned his doctorate in Jewish philosophy at Brandeis University, is presently working on a book tentatively titled, "What Moses Saw: Maimonidean Meditations, or On the Torah as a Speculative Teaching." His latest book, "The Philosophy of Emil Fackenheim: From Revelation to the Holocaust," was published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press.

Green responded to Blaze News' questions via email.

Hell, depending on who you ask

Dr. Green indicated that "Jewish views on hell are a complicated matter" and that there is no "simple, single view of hell in Judaism." While there is certainly a concept of hell in Judaism, some faith groups give it more consideration than others.

The hell of the Jews, Gehinnom, derives its name from a valley surrounding the Old City of Jerusalem. Dr. Green noted that this particular valley, the Vale of Hinnom, was referred to in the Book of Jeremiah "as the location in which Jews who had succumbed to idolatry sacrificed their children (Jeremiah 7:31 and 19:2-6), which the prophet cursed as a horrifying deed."

While sharing the valley's name, Gehinnom is a spiritual locale, albeit possessing a "quasi-physical aspect," said Dr. Green.

"It is not precisely clear just how it stands 'geographically' in relation to heaven and earth, but it is clearly somehow 'beneath' the world, following the word 'Sheol' in the Book of Numbers, Job, and Samuel," continued Dr. Green. "It is unclear what happens in it, whether it is reward and punishment or only eternal sleep."

'Hitler and his Nazis would qualify for such a sentence.'

When pressed about Gehinnom's possible eternal nature, Dr. Green noted that "Hell is 'eternal' — for some. A theological debate has erupted at several points in Jewish history about whether it is 'eternal,' or only seemingly so, i.e., until the Messiah arrives = the redemption occurs, which will be a historical event."

Dr. Green indicated that some Jews believe that there are some sins "so great as to preclude a soul's ascent to heaven ever, hence guaranteeing one's permanent sentence of punishment in hell for eternity."

"In our era, Hitler and his Nazis would qualify for such a sentence, and probably some terrorists also," added Dr. Green.

Rabbi Moss, who spoke to Blaze News in Part One, and Rabbi Shana Goldstein Mackler, whose insights are featured in Part Three, have both expressed the alternative belief that wicked persons who have evidenced an unwavering commitment to evil may instead be annihilated for good.

Hell, under development

Dr. Green noted that the Jewish concept of hell has changed periodically over the ages.

"For the ancients, it was not as defined clearly or in detail," said Green. "Then it became defined clearly and in detail in the medieval era."

Now, the professor indicated it is "much vaguer" for most Jews, with some moderns even discounting the need for such a concept.

While the Christian concept of hell is rooted in the Jewish tradition, Dr. Green noted it still plays a much bigger role, "or at least in orthodox Christian belief."

Dr. Green noted that extra to having greater significance in some forms of Christianity, "It's also different in being defined in greater detail and pictured in Christian tradition almost from the beginning."

Another distinction is that whereas some Christians attest that entry to heaven is conditional on faith in Christ, "Heaven isn't believed to be reserved only for Jews," said Dr. Green.

"The most famous and authoritative statement on this point is that any Gentile who observes the basic religious laws (no idolatry allowed) and the basic moral laws ('the seven commandments of Noah') qualify for the reward of eternal life," added the professor.

The Noahide Laws prohibit the worship of idols, the cursing of God, the commission of murder, the commission of adultery or sexual immorality, stealing, and the consumption of flesh torn from a living animal. The seventh law requires the establishment of courts of justice.

In Part One, Archbishop Emeritus Cardinal Thomas Collins details the Roman Catholic views on hell and mortal sin, and Rabbi Aron Moss discusses the "kindness" of hell and the nature of Gehinnom.

In Part Three, Rabbi Shana Goldstein Mackler provides some Reformed Jewish thoughts on the prospect of hell and the afterlife, and American conservative talk radio host and writer Erick Erickson goes deep on the Presbyterian Church in America's views on perdition.

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