Recently I have received emails from people asking me about hell. So I thought I would speak about it in an episode. Hell is a problem for Christians. It scares Christians, and it scares other people away from Christianity. It gives former Christians nightmares long after they have left fundamentalism behind. There is a part of them that continues to think: what if they are right? What if I go hell because I no longer belong to that church or do what they say and believe what they believe? The fear of eternal damnation can haunt people for years after they have left hellfire-preaching behind.
Hell is a problem for those of us who claim Jesus to be our spiritual teacher. When we read the gospels Jesus seems to teach hell. In fact Jesus talks about hell more than anyone else in the Bible. As a lifelong student of the Bible I have to honestly admit that the historical Jesus spoke about hell.
Some people try to exonerate Jesus and say that all the references to hell were added later by editors, and that Jesus really didn’t say that. I don’t think so. There are too many references to hell to explain them all away as something later Christians put into Jesus’ mouth. So how do I reconcile Jesus’ words about hell with Jesus as a teacher of nonduality – that all is one with the Divine? How do I reconcile hell with the reality that everyone is one with God now and forever?
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