Thank God we have a Hell
...yeah. 😬🔥
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I was going to write a different newsletter this morning, but as I sat down and tried to write it, the words felt clunky and the argument felt discombobulated. It requires a bit more research and caffeine and prayer. So instead, I thought I’d talk about something nice and easy: hell.
Lol.
There is so little about the Christian faith that makes any sense in my rational mind. A God who will remember our wickedness no more? A God who will part seas and lead us to liberation? A God who will just, like, raise people from the dead?
And those are actually the easier things for me to swallow. The harder moments for me are to remember that God is there, when I am suffering. And friends, I have known deep suffering. I have walked through moments I’ve shared publicly and moments the internet doesn’t need to know about. Believe you me: I’ve been the person sobbing in that car, yelling at a God who promised he would never abandon me, asking him where he was. No burning bushes occurred; no white doves suddenly flew down as A Sign that reminded me of God’s goodness. Nothing happened except a minor miracle in and of itself: I got out of the car, went inside, and made lunch.
The foggy mystery of suffering in a Christian world is one that may haunt me the rest of my life. No books or podcasts or Fr. Mike clips will ever bring me to a full understanding of why, why, why Ukranian children are being killed and women are being raped and mothers are being evicted. I will not understand mental illness or addiction; I will not understand death, even. But with prayer, wise counsel, the sacraments, and the grace of God himself, I’m at peace with that lack of understanding. I can know God is there even when my very soul feels empty as a tomb. I can find moments of beauty and delight and joy and hold them as a sacred resistance, powering me through a world that’s just, no pun intended, broken as hell.
(We may get a little dark today. We’re talking about hell! Tis the season.)
But one part of my Christianity that feels like a solid place for me to stand is in the knowledge that there is, in fact, a hell.
What it looks like? Unsure.
Who’s in there? Even less sure.
That it exists? Yes.
There’s quite the movement going on in evangelical Christianity that I’m beginning to see trickle into Catholicism, as is often the case. It’s the belief that hell isn’t real.
Let me start by kicking back and saying I’m not a theologian. That being said, you don’t need to be a theologian to believe in hell, just a bit of consistent logic in who you think God is.
Jesus talked about hell. Like, a lot.
First of all, that ole book we love to trot out: zee Bible.
From The Gospel Coalition: “[Jesus] says it is a place of eternal torment (Luke 16:23), of unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43), where the worm does not die (Mark 9:48), where people will gnash their teeth in anguish and regret (Matt. 13:42), and from which there is no return, even to warn loved ones (Luke 16:19–31). He calls hell a place of ‘outer darkness’ (Matt. 25:30), comparing it to ‘Gehenna’ (Matt. 10:28), which was a trash dump outside the walls of Jerusalem where rubbish was burned and maggots abounded. Jesus talks about hell more than he talks about heaven, and describes it more vividly. There’s no denying that Jesus knew, believed, and warned about the absolute reality of hell.”
If you’re going to take all of Jesus’ wonderful, true, beautiful teachings about the meek being blessed, about loving your neighbor, about caring for the poor: you can’t just chop off the massive amount of time he spends talking about hell as if you just missed it or something. In fact, if you doubt Jesus’ words on hell, you automatically have to doubt his words on God’s love, on forgiveness, on prayer, on fellowship. If the Gospel writers didn’t accurately represent what Jesus said about hell, how do we know they accurately represented what he said about the poor?
We don’t believe things because of how they make us feel, we believe things because they’re true. To quote Flannery O’Connor, “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally.”
We don’t believe in Jesus’ love for us because it feels good. We believe in it because it’s true. The same goes for hell.
What kind of cruel God wouldn’t have made a hell?
No, that’s not a typo. It’s a serious question. Only a cruel, cruel God would give us freedom, but no consequences to our freedom. I read an essay by a protestant writer that left me screaming on the inside where she poses the question, why wouldn’t Christians be happy about a lack of hell?
If choosing God is choosing heaven, and choosing not-God is choosing hell, but hell doesn’t exist…that means God doesn’t allow us to not choose him, thereby not giving us free will.
But if we don’t have free will, then nothing we choose matters! All of the small and large sacrificial choices we make mean nothing. We are not really free, but simply God’s little playthings. All of the suffering in the world, the destruction + despair that brings us to our knees? Meaningless.
Furthermore, if we don't have free will—what kind of cruel, evil, terrible monster would make us live through this suffering? If God’s just going to overrule everything anyway and force us to choose him, then how dare he allow us to wake up the morning after a miscarriage? Have our family thrown in a concentration camp? Have our bodies violated? If he’s going to eventually just zap us all up into heaven, no matter our decisions or sacrifices, then why on earth would he allow this suffering?
We must have free will for God to be good. And if we must have free will, we must be free to choose against God—ie., choose hell.
What DON’T we know about hell? A lot.
There are so many reasons I love the teachings of Catholicism, but this is one of my favorites: we don’t claim to know who’s in hell. I once had a protestant on a podcast tell me his least favorite thing about the Catholic Church was our refusal to say that Hitler is without a doubt in hell.
While I understand that anger, that unquenchable desire for justice, it’s simple: only God knows your heart. We don’t know about deathbed conversions. We don’t know about mental illness’ limitations on culpability. We don’t know about intent or intellectual capability. As Gandalf tells Frodo in Fellowship of the Ring, “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
A moment God taught me something about Him was when a public figure I really didn’t like died. (Claire…you are the worst. I know! I know I am!!!) This person was someone who has so consistently pushed against everything I believe in in a public sphere. But my first reaction was to pray. I was so scared that person was going to go to hell, and overwhelmed with God’s love for them. It was like I could almost physically feel how much God loved that particular person, His little child. I prayed and prayed and prayed that God would have mercy on that person, welcome them into his kingdom, and embrace them.
This is where I shrug and say I’m not a theologian, but prayer never hurts. I desire everybody to choose God. I think God weeps when we choose hell. If someone’s public actions made it appear that they weren’t actively choosing Him, I can only hope and pray and beg for mercy on their behalf.
Stop LEADING with hell…
Do people often view God as a get-out-hell-free card, to quote Sarah Bessey? Yes. When hell is the primary motivation for your actions, when it’s pushed and the most important tenant of Christianity, of course you’re going to be wary of such a concept. After all, some big asshole in the sky who demands you worship him lest he throw you into a fiery pit to burn for eternity—and oh, by the way, you should love him? Not a very effective order of catechesis. Relationship with God must be the first, primary, central teaching. If someone doesn’t understand the depth to which they are loved, really loved by God, hell will simply be a threat.
God is not a tyrant or a dictator. He’s a good, good father. If your only relationship with your parent was one of threats—if you were constantly tip-toeing around hoping not to piss them off too bad—what do you think that relationships going to look like?
People are frightened, and it’s so often because of the way we lead with hell. The apostle Paul instructed us to be as gentle as a mother with her children when talking about our faith. He also frequently recalled the gentleness of Christ.
Hell is a reality, but it’s not the full story. We can’t talk about hell without talking about love and free will and heaven, all the stuff that both feels good and rings true.
…but don’t leave it out, either.
St. Paul warned Timothy against teaching the truth, but not the source of truth.
That’s what we’re doing, when we take hell out of the equation. We’re saying to be nice for the sake of our neighbor, to give away our extra coat because it’s just a Good Thing To Do. But none of our actions really matter. None of our choices have actual consequences.
We don’t just care for the poor because it makes us feel good or makes a really great photo on the ‘gram. We do it because we love Jesus, and Jesus loves that person.
Your choices do matter. Your life is not a straight line, winding up at the finish line where St. Peter scrolls through an iPad to see if you’re on the naughty and nice list. It’s a grand adventure of roller-coaster swirls and terrorizing cliffs; hot air balloon rides and dives into the ocean of despair. Every decision you make walks you toward God (heaven) or not-God (hell).
I am so honored to be on this journey with you. If I was with you, I’d pass you a hot cuppa, bury my toes in the sand, and ask how you feel about hell. Does it terrify you? Give you peace? Do you ever really think about it? Please let me know in the comments. This isn’t a safe space, but it’s an open one. ❤️
On My Nightstand
Here are some things I’ve been reading lately that have made me think!
Les Parisiennes: Resistance, Collaboration, and the Women of Paris Under Nazi Occupation by Anne Sebba: A fascinating, well-written look at how the women of Paris survived during World War 2.
Voices from Ukraine: A heartbreaking roundup of some thoughts from people who have stayed in Ukraine to fight for freedom. Guys, please keep praying for Ukraine, even as it slowly fades into the background. This is an area of the world that is so precious to people that I love, and the consequences of this are almost certainly going to lead to violence for years to come.
The Twitches That Spread on Social Media: Hey, just me, banging the don’t-let-your-kids-have-social-media drum. “The tics are allowing teenagers to express something about the unbearable alienation and intimacy of modern life, which is lived so much through screens. Mass-psychogenic-illness outbreaks tend to stop when it becomes obvious that there is no chemical leak or secret biological weapon involved—which is why Bartholomew believes that recognizing them as social contagions is important, even if it offends people.”
Learn more about my books:
Girl, Arise: A Catholic Feminist’s Invitation to Live Boldly, Love Your Faith and Change the World
In Full Bloom: Finding the Grit and Grace to Thrive Wherever You’re Planted
In case you missed these Letters:
Faith in the Face of Health Discrimination - for subscribers
What is a Catholic Feminist? - for subscribers
What the Pro-Life Movement Needs - for everyone
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This is such an important topic. My only nudge would be to check out The Gospel Coalition before taking them as a source for citation: they're an evangelical group and not one that I'd cite on Catholic teaching. To be honest, I was taught that Jesus preached more about the kingdom of God/heaven than anything else (people often debate whether he preached more about hell or money, and it's slippery to try and grab statistics because much depends on translation or interpretation). The CCC on hell is really interesting to check out too. I'm just a huge fan of talking more about hell, heaven, eternal life, all of it, because I couldn't agree more with you that when we shy away from these subjects, we lose so much and people are left with tons of questions.
Beautifully written, Claire. I'm not a fan of the "fire and brimstone" preachers that you so often find in Evangelical circles, but often Catholics skate too quickly past the topic of Hell.
I think about purgatory a lot. I feel so grateful for the concept of purgatory, because I think it gives me a sense of justice and hope. But it also sends me down a rabbit hole of worry. Is depending on the idea of a "safety net" from Hell essentially the same as confessing with the intent to sin again? Is it just an out so that I feel I don't need to evangelize to my non-believer friends who I believe are good people? At the end of the day, I believe in a just God. I believe that no one's salvation is automatically secured. And I believe that my goal should not only be heaven for myself, but for as many people around me as possible. That weight just seems like a lot, sometimes.