Revisiting the doctrine of hell: An attempt by Sharon Baker

On Brian McLaren’s blog I found a link to a review of a book called “Razing Hell.” The book is written by a woman named Sharon Baker. Has anyone read this book? Or does anyone have any ideas regarding hell? I’ll copy-paste a few passages in the review that ignited my interest.

While the metaphor of fire for God’s judgment is helpful, Baker treats Jesus’ words on hell in the New Testament primarily as a teaching device.  This would not have been unusual in the day and age of Jesus, she says.  It was not uncommon in the Middle Eastern world to use “the most explicitly vivid metaphorical language… to make an important point (136).”  And the point was not that people were literally in danger of being thrown into a garbage dump in the southwest region of Jerusalem (Gehenna), but that people were at risk of missing the fresh movement of God among God’s people and in the entire world.

But what do we make of those passages that refer to hell as “eternal punishment,” one might ask. Does this not suggest that people who reject this movement of God will inevitably find themselves engulfed in the eternal flames of hell? No, says Baker.  While the translation of the word eternal is inconsistent (sometimes translated as an age, other times as eternity), “the question of eternality as never ending only truly applies to God (138).” Thus, a reference to eternal fire refers not to something apart from God, but “to the fire that surrounds God (138).”

The question remains (and it is the question everyone wants to ask), If this fire that surrounds God is a purifying fire that melts away all that is impure and leaves behind that which is righteous and pure, and we all stand (believers and unbelievers alike) before God on the Day of Judgment to pass through that fire, does anyone perish? Does anyone suffer the torments of hell? While Baker says she is not a universalist, that she believes “God respects the freedom given to us to choose for ourselves whether or not we want a relationship with God,” she also questions whether there will be anyone at all, in the aftermath of God’s judgment, who will reject God (141).  After all, “Only something impure could reject God (145).”

Personally, I am not completely convinced by her logic (at least as it is presented in this blog post), but I also do not stand (easily) by the traditional evangelical view of hell as eternal punishment. It is, however, a very difficult subject to talk about. The doctrine of hell is perceived as crucial to the Gospel message by most evangelicals. The very reason for evangelizing is often this threat of a potential future in an eternal hell.  Understood from the fundamentalist paradigm, this conclusion makes sense. It is built upon a straightforward and literalistic reading of the gospels and the New Testament as a whole.  But once one adopts a more, in my view, responsible way of interpretation, the same conclusion becomes less likely (long story though). The question then is: if this doctrine of eternal punishment is rejected, how does that change our vision of the gospel and the consequences of sin, and, even more importantly, the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Obviously, to truly do justice to this discussion, one should attempt a broad and in-depth research. It might be an interesting topic for the future.

Brian McLaren’s own book (The last word and the word after that) might perhaps be more useful than this latest addition to the discussion. McLaren presents a different reading of the many statements Jesus made regarding punishment and hell. His book is well worth reading, if only to provoke some new thoughts.