Thoughts on universalism and hell

Again, this an unfinished blog entry.  Maybe these are better as they're so much shorter?!

I just listened to a podcast about universalism.  This has been rather popular in the Christian subculture especially.  Rob Bell wrote a book called Love Wins a few years ago that got a bunch of people riled up to say the least.  In response, Francis Chan wrote a book entitled Erasing Hell and I’m sure many other less famous authors wrote books in response too.  I read Bell’s book and got about a quarter of the way through Chan’s book.

Hell is most certainly an uncomfortable subject, isn’t it?  We like to pretend we’re assured of where we’re going when we die.  Honestly at this point, I’m not so sure we’re ‘going’ anywhere so much as God is coming back to this earth to renew it and purify it by fire; but that’s for another blog altogether.  We also like to pretend we’re assured of where others are going when they die.  If you do believe in hell and that everyone is going there who doesn’t accept Jesus, then why don’t you tell absolutely everyone you meet about Jesus?  This is a question I often ask myself.  I happen to believe in hell as a real place, as ignorant as that may make me sound. 

The problem is that while there are countless verses about eternal punishment, there are also verses strewn throughout the New Testament about how as one man died and so all people died, so one man died and rose again and as a result all are justified.  Now, that begs the question as to whether they’re referring to all as the original same word or were they different original words.  Or what about the verse that states neither death nor life can separate us from Christ?  Or the verse that talks about Christ going into hell Himself?  Why would He go down there except to win people to Himself?

Maybe it’s not as clear as we’d like to think it is.  Or maybe we quickly skim over those verses that say the Pharisees, who I and many of my fellow believers remind me of in modern day living, are the ones who end up in hell.  What about the verses that state prostitutes and tax collectors enter the Kingdom ahead of you?  Could we imply gay prostitutes as well or would that simply be too heretical?