Letting go of Hell

A couple of years ago, my husband and I sat with some of his university colleagues in the garden of the hillside house we were renting overlooking Mt. Tabor. Wine may have been consumed. Ignoring the rules of polite conversation, I abruptly turned the subject to spiritual matters. "I believe in God," I announced to nobody in particular, "but not religion."

"That's funny," quipped the man across the table, "I'm exactly the opposite." This elicited a fair amount of laughter from the group--not because of its absurdity, but because of its truth. Somehow, this exchange had captured one of the essential differences between being raised Christian (that would be me) and raised Jewish (the man across the table). I am an ex-Christian, and have never looked back since walking through those heavy wooden church doors for the last time. It's not a part of my ethnicity, nor my DNA--1500 years ago, my ancestors were worshiping yew trees. There is no betrayal in my choice, no scorn, no deep sense of loss. But as he spoke, I instantly became aware of the vast gulf between our spiritual experiences. It's just different. Or so I thought.

What has me remembering this now was that Shalom Auslander's book Beware of God has finally made it to the top of my pile. I have read his New Yorker pieces with great interest, but it wasn't until hearing him on Fresh Air a couple of months ago that I had an epiphany, regarding ex-Christianity vs. ex-Judaism. As it turns out, there is something we have in common, and it's a biggie: nagging doubt. In Auslander's case, it's his inability to purge the God of his childhood; for me, it's the lingering threat of Hell.

Hell is easy to dismiss intellectually--not because it's nonsensical; to the contrary, it makes perfect sense...perfect human sense. It's just the kind of thing we'd dream up, the most brilliant instrument of control ever devised. Descriptions of Hell have human fingerprints all over them. Jonathan Edwards' Hell is fiery; Hieronymous Bosch's is a bad trip; Dante's is downright personal. Every version has a touch of the fabulist about it. There is no reason to regard Hell as anything more than the original Hammer Horror. And yet...

The bad news is that I have not discovered a quick fix for Hell. It takes time, however much time you need to build a strong, close relationship with God (about which more later). It takes as long as you need to feel sure that the God you know is not a God that could allow imperfect people to be punished for eternity, some without even being told the rules. You have to know God well enough to spot the difference between His constancy and the punitive, petty, brutal whims of the God of religion.

So, that's the long-term plan. But in the mean time? If you can't eradicate Hell right off the bat, let it work for you. On your way to putting your trust in God completely, there can be an intermediate phase. Have enough faith in God to believe this: if there is a Hell, God doesn't allow good, well-meaning people to go there. So be a good, well-meaning person. Be the kind of person who wouldn't go to Hell, if there were one. This may sound facile, but it really does work. If you've already got a job or a pastime that makes the world better, then focus on that when doubt creeps in. If not, find something to do that makes the world just a little bit better. Volunteer. Be kind to someone. Bring a treat for your coworkers. Let someone merge. Let Hell fade into the distance.

Required listening: Bishop Carlton Pearson on This American Life. Hearing his story is the first step toward curing yourself of Hell. And it's a pretty great hour of radio, to boot.