During Lent, Christians around the world make all kinds of sacrifices big and small to separate themselves from the things of the world and get closer to God, often following the format of alms, prayer, and fasting as found in Jesus’ exhortations during the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6).
For Catholics, at least, there is an added emphasis on receiving the sacrament of confession to be absolved of sins, particularly mortal sins that destroy grace in the soul and place one in danger of eternal condemnation. Even for those non-Catholics who do not believe in mortal sin or losing one’s salvation, Lent presents a sobering reminder of the choice either to follow Christ to heaven or reject him and face hell.
People, whether they are religious or not, don’t talk about hell much these days. It seems unserious, archaic, even laughable. We make light of the devil and his legions as the fantastical creation of an unscientific age that sought to scare people into belief in God and doing good works. A now legendary episode of “Seinfeld” mocked the idea as ridiculous. A decreasing number of Americans even believe in hell at all — and if they do, they think it is only populated by such archvillains as Hitler or Osama bin Laden. But during this penitential season, it might be worth asking not only if hell is real but what our society’s increasing disbelief in the “lake of fire” says about us.
The Politicization and Depersonalization of Evil
Few Americans are worried their sins might lead them to hell. One survey found that about two-thirds of Americans believe people are basically good, even though everyone sins a little bit. Msgr. Charles Pope, in his recent book The Hell There Is: An Exploration of an Often-Rejected Doctrine of the Church, thinks many beliefs are driving this: that hell is irreconcilable with God’s love and mercy, that people don’t have sufficient knowledge to be held accountable for their sins, and that the culpability of those people engaged in bad behavior is mitigated by the fact that their sins are reflective of a habit or addiction they can’t control.
Nevertheless, there are certainly some “sins” that merit condemnation according to our secular culture: racism, sexism, bigotry, and “transphobia.” Yet these sins are far more impersonal and difficult to identify, especially when accusations of these sins are thrown around with such recklessness. The behaviors that constitute racism or “transphobia” also seem to shift depending upon the whims of woke elites. What was once a harmless joke is now supposedly responsible for tremendous harm to others, and to speak one’s unfiltered opinion is now considered “violence” against those too weak to suffer an alternative viewpoint.
What these “structural sins” and “phobias” represent is a means of obscuring the actual, real sins from which all of us suffer: pride, vanity, anger, avarice, gossip, laziness, and lust among them. Instead of owning up to the fact that these evils tempt and sometimes even define us, we try to justify them. Pride is “self-confidence” and “self-reliance.” Vanity is “celebrating” ourselves. And lust is simply fulfilling our needs. While we obsess over amorphous, impersonal transgressions, we trivialize and downplay the real evils that destroy us and harm our relationships. And some of our most egregious sins — such as abortion or euthanasia — we hide behind modern therapeutic language of self-realization: “well-being,” “personal choice,” and “bodily autonomy.”
The Neutralizing of the Teachings of Jesus
Despite the declining religiosity in our society, we still generally have positive opinions about Jesus. The vast majority of Americans believe Jesus was a great teacher, even if they don’t believe He was God. Yet given what many think about hell, that would seem to reflect quite poorly on their knowledge of what Jesus actually taught.
Msgr. Pope counts at least 25 different passages across the four Gospels in which Jesus talks about hell. That’s quite a bit for someone we often assess with love and acceptance! If you add mentions of hell from across the New Testament — including the writings of His earliest followers — the number is much higher. It’s very well possible that among the great religious teachers of history, Jesus talked about hell more than all of them! Hell is no obsession of medieval inquisitors or tent-meeting preachers seeking to cajole and frighten people into obedience but rather something built into the very essence of Jesus’ teaching.
Not that Jesus’ version of hell necessarily matches the popular conception of demons with pitchforks. Msgr. Pope notes that traditionally Christian thinkers have interpreted Jesus’ reference to fire as an actual flame that burns the skin. Yet it might also describe the unquenchable heat of passion from whatever sins defined us on Earth: anger, envy, lust, etc.
“Someone who is no longer able to find satisfaction by following his own will seethes with indignation,” he explains.
Something similar can be said for the language of worms, which gnaw and devour. In this case, they plague those who have become obsessive over their sins. “Wailing and grinding of teeth” speaks to a sorrow not of true repentance but of anger and bitterness. This is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’ famous aphorism in The Great Divorce: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”
What Our Repudiation of Hell Says About Us
My point here is not so much to litigate exactly what hell looks like, though anyone who believes in a just God should consider the eternal consequences of sinning against Him. But a disbelief in hell does seem to trivialize life’s decisions: Whether we are bad or good, whether we seek to improve or wallow in mediocrity, none of it eternally matters, and thus the need to repent and follow Jesus becomes yet another subjective lifestyle choice. The result is a type of infantilization of our decision-making, one quite visible in the immaturity, over-caution, and anxiety that defines our youngest generations.
For those who are religious, the minimization or even rejection of hell as real reduces Christianity to little more than another optional lifestyle choice, as meaningless as whether we join a gym or pilates class.
“If heaven is in the bag for the vast majority of humanity, the work of the Church becomes merely a sociological structure for people to socialize in community,” notes Msgr. Pope.
Yet if we place any stake in what Jesus taught, we must accept the cold, hard reality that one day we will have to render an account to God for what we have done with our lives. As much as Jesus unconditionally loves us, He is also a preacher of hell.
Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelor’s in history and master’s in teaching from the University of Virginia and a master’s in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.
Jesus Christ is King
