In 2002, Christianity Today presented one of the most troubling explanations of hell that I have ever encountered. The April 22 issue bothered me, but not because of a Jonathan Edwards style description of an angry God. That sort of argument would have been troubling enough but at least internally consistent. The CT article was, to my mind, much worse because it presented the tortures of an eternal hell as somehow consistent with the character of Jesus. In other words, hell is the creation of a loving God.
How do we understand the biblical stories involving destruction, terror, and death? Are they, as a literal reading often indicates, examples of divine wrath and retribution? And how can such horror be understood as compatible with the supposed loving character of God?
Retribution and related words, of course, can mean different things. John W. Wenham, for example speaks of “beneficent retribution,” which in The Goodness of God (InterVarsity 1974), he explains as different from revenge. In other writings, such as this article, retribution refers to some sort of pay-back, which is one way to describe revenge.
Wenham got my attention because he was one of the first conservative evangelical writers to publicly call into question the traditional doctrine of hell. Interestingly, however, he believes that God directly causes everything, including the evil things in the world. He supports this by appealing to the way the Bible treats the forces of nature and the devastation from military aggression.
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This is a picture of my dad on his bicycle with my brother in front of him. And I am seated behind. I’m guessing my mother took the picture. It was 1958 in Lincoln, Nebraska and my memory is fairly incomplete since I was only a little more than 4 years old. That’s my best guess anyway. What I do remember for sure is that I had a great dad.
