The Last Word, and the Word After That.

NOTE: You may wonder, why so many thoughts on hell? The answer is that I have just read a book that is the title of this post. It is a conclusion to a Trilogy of "creative nonfiction" that starts with "A New Kind of Christian" (on issues of modernity and postmodernity within the church) and then is followed by "The Story We Find Ourselves In" (A Narrative Theology of Redemption) and then this last book which has to do with struggles about eternal perdition.

For me, the guiding metaphor for understaning eternal life is Luke 14, and the parable of the great banquet. Many are invited. Several offer up excuses and do not come. The invitations continue to go out further and further as God seeks to bring more and more in. Yet, there are some that exclude themselves from the table, from the feast. In fact, one of the most common metaphors for eternal life is a wedding feast. Where all the estranged relatives come together, and yet no one is a stranger.

After reading the above mentioned book, I still find the "Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis to be the most powerful extra biblical book on the nature of heaven. Yet, even that I do not take literally, although I think it speaks to an important truth. In the great divorce, the folks from hell are brought up to a middle ground, where they have a second opportunity to ascend to the heavenly city. Each of them is given a guide for the journey. What happens though, are those things which kept them from wanting to be united to God in their earthly life still keep them from God on the other side of eternity as well. A woman will not go unless she knows for sure her son that died as a child is there, but the guide can only help her with her journey, and not answer her questions about another. It is a fascinating novel. But as Brian Mclaren's articulation of C.S. Lewis's theology states, "hell for Lewis is not an imposed consequence where God gets vengence on us for mistakes or inaccurate beliefs or retaliates for misdeeds we have done. Instead it is an outward expression of what we have done." McLaren goes on to say through one of his characters,

"God's presence is then a place that some would find intolerable. They have become incapable of enjoying the highest good, having formed their affections around smaller, meaner, less noble or less glorious ends. So I've asked myself what would it mean to be saved (in the life I am living now)---not only from guilt but actually from becoming and being that kind of person?"

So then, what do I believe about hell. Are people going there? Yes. But by their own volition. And although some believe that people on the other side of eternity will automatically change their mind, I with CS Lewis beg to differ. Eternal life begins in the eternal now. And the direction you are heading in now will not change on the other side of death.