Why People Really Believe in Hell (even when they say they don't)

Sitting in a Sunday evening worship service at Sooner Baptist Church in Midwest City, Oklahoma, I as a young teen, along with everyone else in attendance, started hearing the pounding of hail stones against the church stained glass windows, right during the middle of the pastor's sermon. It became so noticeably loud that all minds naturally drifted away from the sermon to the fierce storm that was raging outside. The pastor had to stop his sermon, he was quiet for awhile, and with an off-handed frank comment, he broke his silence by saying, "That sounds like hail." Sheepishly, everyone either grinned or giggled at first, but by then, the pastor, after recovering from momentary red-faced embarrassment, joined with others in a hearty laugh at the double meaning behind his choice of words.

In a day when the one doctrine that has consistently shown a continued drop-off in belief among all kinds of people, hell has been written off as the forbidden subject in church life too. If we dare to bring up hell at church, it is advised we do it quickly and not in any way linger on the topic for much time. To those who say that one reason they don't go to church is because of all the hellfire and brimstone preaching, my initial reply would be, "Where is the hellfire and brimstone preaching of today?" In an earlier day, we might could have found some, but now the pendulum has so swung the opposite way that smiling, upbeat preachers who have nothing bad to say are all the rage. I have seen it advertised with pride among some contemporary churches that the "H" word is never mentioned in their gushingly all-positive church services.

I don't believe the results of all the opinion polls and surveys. Contrary to what is being said out in the world and what is not being said in some churches, deep down inside nearly everyone believes in hell. I offer the following arguments to substantiate that claim.

1. THE ARGUMENT FROM LANGUAGE. Needles, California is one hot, barren place, at least it was when I visited it as a young kid. There are other places where one hardly ever visits or would want to visit, let alone live there. To date, though, I have never heard of anyone say, "Why don't you go to Needles!", or "To Antarctica with you!" If hell is an imaginary place, a residue of old Puritanical thought, then why is it the most used word in profane talk? How could I wishing you to go to a place of fiction be such a bad thing for you to take?

If hell is not real, then why do we use it in vernacular talk as a very real, horrible place? "Oh, Oz!" does not have the same ring to it, and why not? If hell is non-existent, then it makes no sense whatsoever for anybody, especially those who disbelieve in hell, to use it as if it were very, very real. Something tells me that no matter what one says, hell is as real as Needles, California, except it is much hotter and more frightening, and people are not just passing through when they get there on their way to somewhere more pleasant.

With all that being said, isn't it a crying shame that those in this world find it easier to say the word "hell" than some church leaders on Sunday mornings?

2. THE ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY. If life beyond the grave is just the demented wish of Christians, then why can we find the world over a belief in the afterlife by all kinds of people? The coffins of those buried in Egyptian pyramids contained a map to guide the deceased on his journey. In ancient Greek religion a silver coin was placed in the dead person's mouth to pay the fare across the River Styx to Hades. Indians laid arrow-heads and earthen vessels by the side of the dead body to help the person cope in the next world.

Norsemen buried a horse and armor, because they believed the deceased was going on a triumphant journey. Laplanders buried flint and tinder to provide heat and light. Greenlanders buried a dog to act as a guide if a child were to die.

Buddhism mentions many hells to be endured on an unpleasant journey towards Nirvana. One of its seven hells where all sorts of gruesome tortures are done involve the pulling out of slanderers' tongues with red-hot wires and pouring molten lead down liars' throats. Not to be outdone, Hinduism has twenty-one hells, each one tailor-made to match a person's behavior here on earth. If one failed to feed the hungry while you were living, you might be chained to a rock where birds come to eat your stomach. Not to be outdone, Jainism, a spin-off from Hinduism, has 8.4 million hells.

One strand of Islamic doctrine says that each individual is questioned by two angels, Munkar and Nakir, before walking a bridge that stretches over hell. The faithful cross safely into paradise, while unbelievers fall into a place with seven grades of punishment, including being roasted, boiled and afflicted with pus. Other Islamic teaching says they will be burned until their skins are destroyed, at which point they will be given new skins so that the process can be repeated.

The Canadian scientist Arthur Custance observes, "In every culture, and apparently throughout history, it has been normal for man to assume that he has some continuance beyond the grave." And I might add, a huge part of that continuance is in a place of punishment.

"Big deal!" cries the skeptic. "So what does all that prove? It only proves that they are all wrong!" Oh, no, that is where the skeptic is wrong. Remember we live in an age where we have been taught the grand virtue of tolerance, even more so after 9-11. Everybody from schools to companies have all had their sensitivity training classes. In a day when political correctness has held center stage, we must respect and revere all major ideologies and all religions, especially "peaceful" Islam, (with Christianity being exempt, of course) and so if they say that there is a hell or even 8.4 million of them, then we must take them at their word. Not to do so would make us intolerant bigots, hate-mongers, Islamaphobes and who knows what else.

The arguments from language and from history make a convincing case, but there are more arguments to follow.

John Lennon made popular his song "Imagine", that described his utopian world where there was no heaven above us, no hell below us, and no religion. He knew others might call him a dreamer, but he hoped others would join him so the world would become as one. He unashamedly called that song "the Communist Manifesto" in lyric form. One slight problem with his imagination running wild was that the political-economic atheistic system he extolled resulted in millions of deaths in the past century. So much for our becoming one.

So. . .is John Lennon still imagining today?

But it is not just people like John Lennon that we should be concerned about. The great eighteenth century preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote, "Every natural man that hears of hell flatters himself that he shall escape it."

Yours in Christ,
Chris