November 8, 2020: What the Hell? – Nick Elio

If the violence of God was only in the Hebrew Scriptures, we might be able to move on with a bit of a wince and keep going. However, we are met with the violence of God for all eternity when it comes to the threat of hell that suddenly rears its ugly head in the Christian Scriptures. What makes things more interesting is this threat of eternal conscious torment forever in the fire prepared by a loving God is found on the lips of Jesus. Jesus, the face of a God who is love, talks about eternal fire and a place where the worm never dies; and he talks about hell more than heaven. This fact has been seized upon by many over the years.

It’s helpful however to take a big step back before we continue. First, Jesus only speaks about hell to the religious who believed they were in no danger of hell. In some ways saying, “If you think you are not in danger of hell, and believe they are … you may well be in danger of hell.” Second, Jesus always spoke of a very specific place. Like one you could walk to. A place that had a sordid history, and, in Jesus’ day, was a garbage dump that also served as a place of burial for poor families and a place the Romans would toss crucified bodies. It was called Gehenna (aka Valley of Hinnom). Third, our understanding of hell that we walk around with today wasn’t actually in the minds of those who wrote the Bible. Seriously, it wasn’t. Our modern notion of hell is much more the product of Dante Alighieri than anything written in the Bible.

So what exactly was Jesus talking about then? Well, it seems he was speaking toward some sort of willful separation or distance from the Divine that we choose within our fractured selves. That’s what we will explore when talking about hell.