- Sep 21, 2006
- 38
- 6
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Episcopalian
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Libertarian
A couple of days ago, a friend of mine (who is a Oneness Pentecostal) and I listened to "Heretics", an interview with Carlton Pearson done by the NPR show This American Life. Pearson, as some of you may know, was once a prominent evangelist who lost favor with the Pentecostal crowd when he revealed that he no longer believed in Hell the way it was taught.
The story goes that Pearson was sitting in his living room, watching a show about starvation in Africa, and he asked God how He could call himself a good god while these people lived lives of suffering and were then sent to burn forever and ever. God began to talk back, and at the end of their conversation God revealed that people create Hell on earth for themselves.
Pearson felt he could back this up with the scriptures (using the original Hebrew and Greek), and began to form this doctrine. People were aghast at the prospect that the people they disliked weren't going to be tortured forever and left in droves.
My friend, who liked Pearson before, now loathes him. He seems to have the idea that Pearson did this because he wanted to attract people to his church by appealing to the "do whatever you like" crowd. He seem to have missed the point entirely; I've listened to the interview numerous times and the motivation behind Pearson's doing this seems to be an attack of empathy.
Why is it that people need Hell to stay good? (As a nontheist, I don't believe in Hell, naturally.) Why is the idea of people NOT being tortured forever so reprehensible? Is it the thirst for revenge? I don't think it's a love of truth, because my friend and the people in his church do not "love" truth -- they believe what the pastor tells them, and if they have questions he can't answer he berates them over the pulpit.
The story goes that Pearson was sitting in his living room, watching a show about starvation in Africa, and he asked God how He could call himself a good god while these people lived lives of suffering and were then sent to burn forever and ever. God began to talk back, and at the end of their conversation God revealed that people create Hell on earth for themselves.
Pearson felt he could back this up with the scriptures (using the original Hebrew and Greek), and began to form this doctrine. People were aghast at the prospect that the people they disliked weren't going to be tortured forever and left in droves.
My friend, who liked Pearson before, now loathes him. He seems to have the idea that Pearson did this because he wanted to attract people to his church by appealing to the "do whatever you like" crowd. He seem to have missed the point entirely; I've listened to the interview numerous times and the motivation behind Pearson's doing this seems to be an attack of empathy.
Why is it that people need Hell to stay good? (As a nontheist, I don't believe in Hell, naturally.) Why is the idea of people NOT being tortured forever so reprehensible? Is it the thirst for revenge? I don't think it's a love of truth, because my friend and the people in his church do not "love" truth -- they believe what the pastor tells them, and if they have questions he can't answer he berates them over the pulpit.