For Heaven's Sake

For Heaven’s Sake

 

I have been thinking about hell.

I think about hell a lot.

I think about hell because I teach a course on evil and suffering and hell comes up often.

I think about hell because students often tell me over coffee or lunch that they have been told by others that they are going there. And why do people tell them that they are going to hell? There are many reasons; one because he is gay; another because he is a Jew; and another because she has begun to ask questions about her faith. I remember this one especially, sitting outside the campus Starbucks on a beautiful, warm day. Her eyes welled up with tears as she told me that her friends have been sending her to hell lately because she questions, and to them questions = doubt and doubt = a one-way ticket to hell. I looked at her and wondered how anyone could look into those impossibly blue and open and gentle eyes and find in them someone deserving of hell. This is a young woman who would not hurt a fly even if it sat on her ice cream cone. I remember saying, “YOU? YOU” YOU’RE going to hell?”

 

I thought about hell when a student told me that a young man seated next to her in my classroom had written in the margin of his notebook, “She’s going to hell.” So, it seems I too have been judged hell-bound.

 

Most of the time however, the reason that my students are told they are going to hell is because they have not accepted Jesus into their hearts, or they have not proclaimed him as Savior and Lord. This seems to be the single most important element in determining one’s destination. If you don’t believe in Jesus, you’re going to hell. If you believe in him, you have a foot in the gate.

 

Now, given these criteria let’s consider those who automatically go to hell.

The list includes The Dalai Lama, Elie Wiesel (I’ve just started my list and already I have two Nobel Peace Prize laureates), Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, Gloria Steinem, Anne Frank and Mohandas Gandhi. And I know that if you ask some people the question, “Are these people going to hell?” they will respond with a firm and confident, “yes.” So I am going to hell with the Dalai Lama, Elie Wiesel and Gandhi. Imagine the conversations we will have around the (camp) fire.

 

Now, let’s just consider for a minute those who are not going to hell. I suppose we have to start with the most famous born-again Christian on the planet today, George W. Bush. So, Gandhi and I are going to hell but George W. Bush isn’t. The formula defies reason.

 

But to me the most stunning consequence of maintaining the “don’t believe in Jesus/you’re going to hell” proposition is that it means that the 6 million Jews who perished in the concentration camps have also gone to hell or are destined for hell (still unclear about whether or not you go right away or have to wait for the Final Judgment). What this would mean is that if God exists and if what is said about God is “true,” then this God made a covenant with a group of people, promised to be their God, and then abandoned them as they experienced unimaginable horror and suffering. And then, even though they have already been there, He condemns them to hell for all eternity. If there is a God and these are going to hell, then God is a Beast and rumors of divine justice and mercy are divine absurdity. And I would not worship such a Being anyway.

 

But I suppose the concept of hell serves its purpose. It keeps people cowering in fear; it keeps them obedient and reined in. There will be no spiritual revolution or boycott of faith as long as hell is around to squelch them. At least I know that the things I do are not done from some 3 year-old moral stance in which I do what I do because I want a reward or fear a punishment. At least I know that I do what I do (sometimes) simply because it is the right thing to do.

 

I don’t even understand the neurotic obsession with an afterlife, the crisis of mortality, the fear of death and all that.

I guess for me it's just a matter of trust.

I think that if I live my life with good intention and with love, then the afterlife will take care of itself. If there is an afterlife, I am doing all I can to make my way there. If there is a God who directs these things, then I trust in Its infinite mercy and love. I trust that It knows my heart.

 

If there is no afterlife (and no God) then I am doing all I can to leave behind something of myself and my love that will live on in an afterlife that is here and now and tomorrow. Is that a contradiction in terms? Oh well.

 

I guess when it all comes right down to it; I don't really need an afterlife.

This life is enough.