Southern Baptist Theology is sophistry anyways. Even so, this group trivializes the real struggle of believers in expending intellectual energy to feign belief in these highly unprovable beliefs. I perhaps do not have a right to say anything since I have recently gone though because I have relinquished my faith in Christianity. But, hell proves to create some irreversible paradoxes. For example, if we are in heaven and still retain a slew of memories from Earth, How can we fully accede to God with the firm knowledge that people we've loved are in hell? Certainly, you would have to forswear all empathetic thoughts before entering heaven then. Otherwise, you might feel inclination towards defying God because of your intense love for someone. Christians often undermine the seriousness of this question by glossing over the complexity and the thought put into it. They'll say that God's ways are inscrutable even in heaven.

For the Southern Baptist Church to ignore the doubts of their believers and to merely force them into having inauthentic faith through forceful belief, they are showing their origins with the heresy of Christian fundamentalism. The orthodox church respectively says that ultimately God's ways are an enigma. We are not to presume his ways from the restrictive mind of a mortal. Even the Catholic Church has endeavored to try and seek an intelligent answer rather than chastising those who have honestly doubted God's mysterious ways or inquired about the obvious logistical problems with hell.

In the end, the Southern Baptist church is promoting people to be highly indulgent and focus only on self-aggrandizement where you are to openly flaunt your skills in perfecting beliefs in metaphysical things. It is nothing but a self-indulgent distraction from charity. Additionally, it promotes stigmas against those with religious scrupulosity.

I'm not a Southern Baptist and it's good to know that they are now correctly interpreted what God's word has to say about hell. Thanks for the info.

It seems like Christians are known more for what we are against, rather than for what we are for.

So, kudos to the SBC for "coming out" for hell. (sarcasm)

SBC: We're For Hell!

It seemed to me that in the NT, Jesus usually never talked about sinners going, to hell, but he did talk alot about religious people going to hell.

The word 'hell' is not in the original scripture. It's a translated word for several different words, Hebrew and Greek. The so-called 'doctrine of hell' is man-made assertion with anachronistic reading into the text. Unless one defines with 'hell' is, or better, what the Hebrew and Greek words mean, any discussion or doctrine of 'hell' as such has not much meaning and oomph.

Of course, the idea of 'hell' itself has nothing wrong in itself. It's matter of clarifying exactly what one wants to assert and what the Bible says and how to harmonize them to form a viable basic statement all can agree on to say yes or no.

I personally am convinced that 'hell' is not(and cannot be) a place some people go after death. It is a reality some people are actually live in by their choice. (I'm not talking about miserable living condition - hellish one - in the many part of the third world).

It is about their station in their life, refusing God's love, making their decision of what is right or wrong on their own (Adam's sin). That way all their doing is, ultimately, a pursuit of power, which belongs ultimately to God, by having become like a god, as Satan promised at the Garden.

Unless we are sure of this foretaste of whatever hell is (even heaven) is, there is nothing much to talk about what is waiting after death, simply because they do not care about after-death.

i did not believe in purgatory. then one day, while driving, i had a vision. i was looking at purgatory. purgatory, hell, paradise all the same. rich people are in pain. in purgatory you can't mix groups. they are separate. like communists and ku klux klan, you can't have them together.

Since there is no mention of a purgatory in the Bible, and the Bible says that Jesus paid the price for all of the sins of those who believe in Him as their Lord and Savior (even the rich), I wouldn't put much weight in the vision.

HELL
The subject of Hell has been a stumbling block to religious people for ages, due, I believe, to a literal translation of Scripture and to various fictional writings such as Dante’s Inferno. Scripture pictures Hell as an eternal place of torment. It is indeed eternal but the torment there is because the occupants are no longer permitted to indulge themselves in thJames Keir favorite pastimes of abuse to their fellow men. This is their hell. God is frequently portrayed as cruel in scripture in order to point out that sin has punishments but He Himself, is pure Love. He does not destroy cities with fire and brimstone nor cast anyone into Hell. Scripture is written that way to point out, to the simple that “The Wages of Sin is Death”. Your Mother spoke likewise when she said,” God will punish you!” She knew better but the remark had a proper effect.
People are in Hell of their own choosing, not God’s.
Hell is not punishment, ordained by a vengeful God but rather is a place of refuge from a loving and caring God. He cares, equally, for the good and the bad.
The purpose of our life on earth is to perfect ourselves so that we may be candidates for God’s Heaven. All angels were once ordinary people on this and perhaps other earths. Life on earth is a trial period to find out if each of us wants to grow in goodness and try to perfect ourselves, out of a love for God, or will we choose to remain worldly and self indulgent. We have this one chance to begin this process of regeneration. This is called, being Born Again.
After our life on earth, we are separated into two classes, those who have made some progress toward perfection and those who have not and have chosen to remain worldly. These two classes must be separated because the latter would infect the former. God has provided a place for each so that each may continue to live lives to their liking. Scripture calls these places, Heaven and Hell, which translates “Life with God”, and “Life separated from God”.
The atheist would be in Hell if he were put into Heaven. The angel would suffer from the atheist’s presence. This is why a loving God has created two worlds.
However, Hell is not a nice place to be. A life separated from God is a life without Love. And it is forever! And, it means that your life was a total failure.

jkh

jkh, Man's teachings mean nothing to me. Every non-believer has their own faith, whether they're atheist or christian scientist, JW, or whatever. I'll stick with the Bible which is backed up by archeology, history, and hundreds of fulfilled prophecies.

Regardless of what may be their historic sins and errors, I applaud the Southern Baptist Convention for their intent to affirm historic Christian orthodoxy in the face of its abandonment on the part of most of our contemporary culture (even some professing Christians). Here's a good compilation of quotes from what Christians throughout history have said regarding Jesus' and the Scriptures' teaching on this subject:

http://classicalchristianity.com/2011/06/20/on-the-eternality-of-gehenna/

As others have pointed out with varying degrees of cogency, though, contemporary understanding regarding the nature of hellfire/gehenna (and salvation in Christ vs. God's "wrath") is frequently distorted. For one thing, istm certain distortions sometimes mean that the fullness of understanding of the nature and purity of God's love/grace/mercy is effectively undermined as is the full biblical teaching regarding the completely impartial and merciful nature of God's judgment. There is also confusion about the nature and the necessity of synergy between God's will and man's free will for personal salvation (for which Calvin and his apologists may take the lion's share of the blame perhaps). I discovered these distortions are more common in the Western Christian traditions in which they arose and that the Eastern Christian tradition (Eastern Orthodoxy) has a more fully biblical take on the various paradoxes and complexities of the issues. At least that is how it looked to me and consequently the Eastern Orthodox teaching on this subject removed for me any taint of a sense of arbitrariness in God's judgment or of seeing the nature of God's punishment and wrath as somehow external to the nature of sin itself and its effect on the human soul (which they are not in Eastern Orthodox thought). These may seem like splitting hairs and nuances, but for me they made the difference between a God I could trust as completely good, regardless of the existence of evil, and a "God" (in reality the creation of human theories about the meaning of Scripture) I could in no way trust as completely good!

For instance, in the above link, there is a quote even from Augustine clearly stating that God's "wrath" has nothing to do with God's feelings or any change in the Godhead, but rather indicates the intrinsic state of the unrepentant soul (i.e., condemnation). How many Evangelicals (apart from perhaps some scholars in seminaries somewhere) do you think really understand this about the biblical language? I have never heard this clearly explained outside of my Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition (and I spent 40+ years as a practicing Evangelical). This is notable because it is Augustine whose thought is credited in many respects for the un-Orthodox direction that subsequent Christian thinkers in the West took (where these differ from the consensus of the early Greek Fathers of the Church, i.e, especially about the nature of grace and predestination). Here's the quote, speaking of the unrepentant:

" . . . For even in this case the wrath of God, that is, their condemnation (for it is this, and not any disturbed feeling in the mind of God that is called His wrath), abides upon them; that is, His wrath, though it still remains, does not shut up His tender mercies; . . . "

RE: DB Beem - " ...It seemed to me that in the NT, Jesus usually never talked about sinners going, to hell, but he did talk alot about religious people going to hell...."

I love this quote:
"...Jesus LOVED to aggravate the "religious" people..."
-- Joyce Meyer

Love Joyce Meyer, don't always agree with her, but I LOVE this;
One of the things that hurt my spiritual formation as a callow, self-seeking youth
was the "religious" , "holier-than-thou" hypocrisy of the major southern denominations in my hometown.... now I am at peace living with all the hypocrites at my church, and all the hypocritical Christians everywhere, since I realize that I, too, am a hypocrite, and belong in the church, with all the rest of us. The hyper-earnest, attack arguments over doctrinal issues like the Baptist SBC "defining" their stand on Hell remind me that I need to focus on the 2 or 3 main things that I know to be true, and try to get them right, and pray for grace and forgiveness for me and all my hypocritical friends on all the other things I mess up on daily.....
Like "Endtimes theology", use of fear of eternal damnation and hell to convince people to confess and attempt a transformation of Spirit, produces spiritual infants.

I want to rspectfully address a few questions to jkh.

How is it possible in some seven paragraphs to speak on what "scripture says about hell" without giving one scriptural reference.

On three occasions you mention the word "scripture". You said:
"Scripture pictures Hell as an eternal place of torment." "Scripture is written that way..." "Scripture calls these places..." What I want to know is where does "scripture" say any of these things, or which "scripture" says these things.

You also made some very interesting statements such as:"People are in Hell of their own choosing, not God’s." "The purpose of our life on earth is to perfect ourselves so that we may be candidates for God’s Heaven". "After our life on earth, we are separated into two classes, those who have made some progress toward perfection and those who have not and have chosen to remain worldly".

These statements may very well be "scriptural", but after reading them, I am left with the distinct impression that this "scripture" to which you allude may not be the one that I know, read and love. I would be extremely grateful thgerefore if you would please point me to chapter and verse, so that I can be sure of the "scripture" to which you refer.

To Steve Skeete,,,,,Dear Steve, I am not quoting Scripture in my article, per se...
I am a student of Emanuel Swedenborg and it is from his teachings that I form all
of my theology. Only he understands the meanings in scripture. Only he can
speak for the new church, the New Jerusalem. Only through his teachings can
you become a member in the next life, but you are not going to like what I have
just said because it doesn't embrace Fundamentalism.

Thank you for reading my article and replying.....jkh

Well, jkh, you are living proof that we all must choose for ourselves some tradition of interpretation by which to understand the Scriptures. I just don't believe it is wise to choose one man's, particularly someone such as Swedenborg who came from a culture and time so far removed from the original one into which the Scriptures were written, who, unlike the early Greek Church Fathers did not likely read and understand the original language of the Scriptures as his own native language (though he may have studied Greek), who was relying on dreams and visions, over and against in the case of some doctrines (e.g., the doctrine of the Holy Trinity) the received tradition of the Church throughout its history. No matter how sincere or how attractive some of his ideas, it is clear he is no infallible guide to the meaning of the Scriptures.

"I'll stick with the Bible which is backed up by archeology, history, and hundreds of fulfilled prophecies."

Barbara, I think you mean you'll stick with your interpretation of the Bible...
Or are you claiming to have received God's explicit and complete intent in giving His Word and establishing His Church?

Just the thought of being separated from the pure love and light of God
grips me with utter terror and gut-wrenching despair. So happy that I have found Jesus, so happy that he gave his blood in exchange for my iniquity. So happy that I am able to ask for, and immediately recieve forgiveness and become whole in my Father's eyes. Praise the Lord!! Glory to the Most High!!!