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What do you say to an angry mom who asks, “How could a loving God send my children to hell?”  I’m not a mom but I’ve asked this question myself.

A few days ago I posted a link on Twitter about a friend who is wrestling with the concept of hell. The link stirred up all kinds of emotions from people.  One reader sent me the following email regarding a mother’s dilemma regarding hell.

“Gah, you don’t know how close I’ve been to saying the Bible is shit, Jonathan. Because if this doctrine is wrong, what else in the Bible is wrong? How about two men who have loved each other exclusively? How does loving someone faithfully and mutually send you to eternal torture?? Maybe they will go to hell, I still don’t know, but no part of me feels that is just.

If these translations and doctrines are wrong, how can we trust or believe any of it? I’ve been too afraid of becoming a heretic or atheist to even look into the possibilities. I’ve been mostly keeping my head down but it’s not good. I’m paralyzed in ministry. I cannot conscionably teach or support what I’m expected to and yet have not settled on alternative convictions that would allow me to minister while tiptoeing around these issues (in order to not be divisive). But even that feels dishonest.

This whole topic is something I’ve really been struggling with since having kids. If I knew, in advance, that 4 of 5 of my children would one day not love me or trust me or believe in what I told them (based not on my direct physical involvement or communication with them but with letters written by people they’ve never met claiming they came supernaturally from me) and would therefore be tortured eternally in the worst ways imaginable, I could never have children at all. I don’t understand how that could be anything but selfish and cruel. Am I so needy that I have to risk the 4 so that the one will love and serve me? And I find Christian’s answers to this to be a cop-out. “Our ways are not God’s ways. God doesn’t have to abide by our rules of justice or what is selfish or whatnot- he’s God. We are nothing. We can’t understand his righteousness, it is beyond us, we are so sinful.” Sorry, but I can’t agree with that. He made us blind to his ways and yet expects us to believe in something we are incapable of understanding or else we will suffer eternally? That doesn’t jive with him being just, merciful, loving, good…. Are we made in his image or not!?

Anyway, this has opened up the conversation in my head. Thanks for that!”

Here’s the dilemma. I’ve often heard people say that if there are people still in hell, that’s the first place Jesus would go.  But I would suggest that mom’s would beat him there. My wife has this mother bear instinct that kicks in the moment our children are in harm’s way.  She’s a different person until it is resolved.  She has very little concern for her own safety until our children are safe.  Can we actually think there’s a space where mom’s wouldn’t do anything to rescue their children?

Arguably this tension doesn’t just extend to women.  I’ve actually sat across the table from three or four male pastors in the last several years who have asked similar questions. They’ve been terrified of the idea that one day they’re children wouldn’t make it to heaven. The risk of having children means potentially bringing someone to life who will eternally be separated and some would say tormented by God.  And like the person in the email, it paralyzes them.

I placed this email up because it shares the tension I had with our current understanding of the story (or doctrines) we hold regarding the Gospel.  The problem isn’t in the our conclusions but the assumptions that lead to our conclusions.  It leads to some terrible and frightening paradoxes that “paralyze us in ministry.” Its time to reconstruct a new understanding of the Gospel. I wrote Discovering The God Imagination because we need a new story that informs us in a way that gives us life, not paralyzes us. We need an understanding of the Gospel that liberates us from the old assumptions.

Won’t you give it a read?

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Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity explores a profound possibility. What if we’ve misunderstood the Gospel? What if our historical approaches to Christianity have been distorted by the very same problem they are attempting to solve?  Available today from CreateSpace and Amazon. Order from CreateSpace and use code 5GFARGT9 to receive a 15% discount.