What Francis Chan (And His Ilk) Get So Terribly Wrong About Hell

Last updated on: May 21, 2011 at 3:50 pm by John Shore

What Francis Chan (And His Ilk) Get So Terribly Wrong About Hell 2011-05-21T15:50:15-08:00 John Shore

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This video, released last week and currently gone viral (as of this writing it’s received almost 114,000 views in four days), stars Francis Chan. It’s a commercial for his new book, Erasing Hell: What God Says About Eternity, and the Things We’ve Made Up, due out in early July. Erasing God is clearly meant as a refutation of Rob Bell’s Love Wins.

Slickly produced by David C. Cook, Erasing Hell‘s Christian publishing house, there are a great number of things about this video that I don’t like, most of it having to do with its almost astounding pretentiousness: the all-white, faux-heaven set; the astral, Muzak-from-heaven background music; the posing pretending to be pondering; the fact that it’s all about how Francis is prayerfully writing this book, when the cover of the book itself shows that it was, in fact, written by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle. (That “and” is everything. In displaying the name of a book’s co-author, publishers have four choices: don’t show the name anywhere in or on the book; show it only on the book’s copyright page; show it on the book’s cover in such a way that it reads [Author] with [Co-Author]; or show it on the book’s cover so that it reads [Author] and [Co-Author]. “And” signifies maximum involvement of the co-author. In fact — and I know this because I’ve been in book publishing for years, and have myself co-authored five books — if on a book jacket you see and before the name of the co-author, you can pretty much bet that’s the person who really wrote that book. Whether or not that’s true in this particular case, it’s at the very least disingenuous of Mr. Chan to not once so much as mention Mr. Sprinkle’s name.)

But the primary problem I have with this video is that while in every last way pretending to be about practicing love, it’s really about instilling fear. What Chan is really saying here — as subtly as it’s hidden beneath his humble, searching, open-minded attitude — is, “Be afraid. Being wrong about hell has terrible, terrible consequences. It’s not something about which you can afford to be mistaken.” (Hence the very title of the video: “Hell: We Can’t Afford to Get It Wrong.” It can’t get more fear mongering than that.) [Update: It’s now eight days later, and I see they’ve changed the name of the video.]

And this is exactly where he, and every other Christian leader who preaches that hell is real, gets it so extraordinarily and harmfully wrong.

Evangelicals who believe in and preach hell fail to realize that it does not matter whether a Christian is right or wrong about hell. Because every Christian, regardless of their beliefs about hell, is entirely safe from going there.

Christians who believe in hell go to heaven; Christians who don’t believe in hell go to heaven. No Christian argues that. All Christians agree that if you are a Christian—no matter what you believe about hell—you go to heaven when you die. Nowhere in the Bible does it say anything about the proper understanding of hell being a prerequisite for admission into heaven.

I think it’s reasonable to say (and it’s certainly been my experience writing about Christianity for The Huffington Post) that nothing keeps more people shunning Christianity than does the doctrine of hell as a literal place. People just can’t get on board with a God so cruel and unfair that he would condemn to eternal physical torture anyone who, for any reason whatsoever, dies without first believing in him. Most non-Christians don’t see the Christian god as loving and all-powerful. Due primarily to the doctrine of hell being real, they see him as an egomaniacal psychopath. Most find it simply baffling that anyone could believe in a God so insanely punitive.

And so they reject Christianity.

And thusly (according to the evangelical mindset) do they doom themselves to hell.

Now let us take great care to ensure that we’re here employing flawless logic.

If rejecting the Christian God condemns people to hell; and

If a Christian who is wrong about hell goes to heaven anyway; and

If preaching about hell significantly contributes to people rejecting Christianity;

Then why in God’s name would any evangelical ever preach or “sell” hell? There’s no reason to. It can only hurt.

A Christian preaching about the reality of hell is: A. Doing nothing whatsoever for Christians; and B. Significantly contributing to non-Christians remaining non-Christian.

This can only mean that any Christian who preaches about hell being real is broadcasting to the world that he or she cares more about being right than they do about actually saving anyone from hell.

If evangelicals sincerely want to do God’s work, and sincerely want to save people from hell, then they need to either radically rethink their concept of hell, or, at the very least, remain entirely quiet on the matter.

Christian Issues

Previous Post

May 20, 2011

My Wife; My Blog; My Deep Affection For You Guys (And a Possible Foot Rub For Me!)

Next Post

May 24, 2011 Why asking "Is hell real?" is like asking, "Do unicorns speak Leprechaun?"

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Christian Issues Christian Spirituality Dear John En Espanol Everywhere She's Not Humor Look See Pastor Bob's Corner Personal Portuguese Relationships Russian Short-short story Smith Family Chronicles Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2024 August 2022 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 February 2020 December 2019 June 2019 December 2018 May 2018 May 2017 January 2017 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Jabez" mean in Hebrew?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Strength Victory Sorrow The Lord Saves

Books by This Author Books by John Shore

See All Titles »