Christianity Without Heaven or Hell

Back in the fall I taught a four week adult education class at Fourth Church called “Christianity Without Heaven or Hell.” It was basically a study of Rob Bell’s 2011 book, Love Wins.

I opened that class with this video, which I have used from time to time in my work with youth. I used it yesterday with our confirmation class to stimulate a discussion about heaven and hell.

It has circulated the internet for a long time and is periodically updated with new images and graphics. For years, it’s been used by certain types of evangelical youth groups to scare teens into “faith” and to guilt them into sharing this “faith” with their friends.

It’s scary—Jesus Camp scary—to think that youth groups around the country are using this to promote Christianity, because this does not resemble any kind of Christianity I want to be a part of.

Of course, I understand where this is coming from. I grew up in an evangelical church that took hell seriously. I’ve heard more than one youth talk that began, “If you were to die tonight, do you know where you would go?” I’ve felt genuine concern for the eternal fate of family and friends.

But over the past several years, I have become more and more convinced that focusing the Christian message on what happens when we die has been a major mistake. I don’t really think that this is what Jesus was (or is) most concerned about. Even if I still believed in this traditional understanding of hell, I would insist that Christianity is about much more than avoiding hell and getting into heaven. But since I no longer believe in this concept of hell, I contend that Christianity must be about more than this, or else it has no meaning at all.

I used this video with our confirmation class to get them thinking about what Christianity is all about. I asked them what the point of Christianity would be if heaven and hell did not exist.

I don’t think that heaven or hell are necessary elements of the gospel or Christian theology. In fact, I think that both of these concepts have done more harm than good. Focusing on heaven and hell—vestiges of an apocalypticism that doesn’t seem very meaningful 2000 years after the anticipated apocalypse didn’t happen—has distracted us from the heart of Jesus’ message of transformation and the emergence of God’s kingdom right here on earth.

As far as I’m concerned, what happens when we die is a mystery about which we have no sure knowledge or certainty. By contrast, the gospel is about the life we share as children of God—right here, right now.