No, God Isn’t Like Some Stephen King Character We’re Supposed to Fear
No, we shouldn’t fear God– God is not some violent clown.
Friends of Formerly Fundie: As some of you may have seen on Facebook, I have spent the last year and a half quietly in the
Christian universalism is a solidly biblical and reasonable belief.
Growing up Evangelical, we were often warned that some issues were “heaven or hell” issues. While even the most rigid among us recognized that some
After leaving Christian fundamentalism, I shed off a lot of previously held beliefs– some of them were beliefs quite central to my faith. One
So, you’re a sinner. Just one sin lands you in that category. No matter how small or large of a transgression, that one, smallest sin,
As many know, I have long been a proponent of the view of Annihilationism, which is the view that instead of hell, those who
It’s no secret- I’ve been a little hard on my Calvinist friends over the years (well, I only have 2 so there’s that). I’ve
For me growing up, hell was the center of gravity and perhaps my biggest motivation for the 872 times I asked Jesus into my
Many of us grow up hearing hell, fire, and brimstone messages in our churches from a very early age. In fact, many of us perhaps
Here on the blog and That God Show, we’ve talked quite a bit about the concept of hell and have gone in-depth as to
(This post is my continuing dialogue with the ideas of Jeff Cook,  from his new book, Everything New: Reimagining Heaven and Hell.) … A.W Tozer once wrote that,
Over the course of the past year I’ve had an ongoing series introducing readers to what I call the “biblical alternative to hell,” which
The violence we’re seeing at the hands of ISIS is disgustingly barbaric. If mass beheadings, taking people into slavery, and throwing gay people off the
In a follow up to our recent episode of That God Show, folks have asked for a comprehensive list of Scriptures that refute the traditional
Most of us grow up being taught that all those who die without accepting Christ will burn for all eternity in hell. While in this
More and more Christians are beginning to reject the traditional view of hell which states the unjust will experience “eternal, conscious torment”. Perhaps you’ve seen
1. It would be way too crowded for them. One of the basic tenets of Christian fundamentalism is the belief that they’re basically going to be
The word Jesus uses in Greek is γÎεννα (Gehenna), which actually means “The Valley of the Son of Hinnom”. An over simplified description of Gehenna would be that it was the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem; this was the place where both garbage and dead bodies would be discarded and consumed by a fire that was likely always burning. The location goes all the way back to the book of Joshua, and was a place where bad things happened– child sacrifice, bodies were cremated, etc. Basically, imagine a dump where garbage is burned add into that the vision of burning bodies and a historical connotation of child sacrifice, and you’ll see that it wasn’t a very desirable place. However, it was a very ​literal​ place and the original audience of Jesus would have understood it as such. They would not have heard the word Gahenna and thought of our concept of hell– they would have realized Jesus was talking about an actual place outside the city.
Continuing the discussion on hell we started yesterday, I was asked to show the third option that exists beyond eternal conscious torment (the traditional hell),
Affirming that scripture is inspired and true means one must also affirm the “eternal, conscious torment” of hell, correct? Nope– not at all, and today
Calvinism, in contrast to Jesus, teaches that God picks a few and not the rest– that God is the sports captain from my 7th grade gym class, including the glee that comes with pounding on the kids who didn’t get picked.
Three years ago today, my wife and I took a long drive from Lima, Peru to the outskirts of a few desert towns on the
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BLC is an author, speaker, scholar, and global traveler, who holds graduate degrees in Theology & Intercultural Studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and received his doctorate in Intercultural Studies from Fuller. He is the author of Undiluted: Rediscovering the Radical Message of Jesus, and Unafraid: Moving Beyond Fear-Based Faith.
BLC
BLC is a cultural anthropologist, public theologian, writer, speaker, global traveler, and tattoo collector. He is a two-time graduate of Gordon-Conwell with graduate degrees in Theology & Intercultural Studies, and went on to receive his doctorate in Intercultural Studies from Fuller. He is the author of Unafraid: Moving Beyond Fear-Based Faith, and Undiluted: Rediscovering the Radical Message of Jesus. In addition to his blog, Formerly Fundie, his work has been regularly featured by a wide array of media outlets such as TIME magazine and CNN, among others.
BLC
BLC is a cultural anthropologist, public theologian, writer, speaker, global traveler, and tattoo collector. He is a two-time graduate of Gordon-Conwell with graduate degrees in Theology & Intercultural Studies, and went on to receive his doctorate in Intercultural Studies from Fuller. He is the author of Unafraid: Moving Beyond Fear-Based Faith, and Undiluted: Rediscovering the Radical Message of Jesus. In addition to his blog, Formerly Fundie, his work has been regularly featured by a wide array of media outlets such as TIME magazine and CNN, among others.