Book Club: Pre Week 1

I have currently created a book club on Facebook for friends that live far from me that I miss and want to connect with regularly. So what better way than a book club! Here is the pre-week question. Oh yea, we are reading the controversial Love Wins by Rob Bell.

Where does your image of hell come from? or What do you think hell consists of?

My response:

My idea of hell was first formulated from my time in sunday school. It's a evil place where bad people go. Then later in high school I was taught that it was a place of incessant torture, where everything and anything miserable would be present there. It was the epitome of suffering, the opposite of heaven. But then entered a period in my life when I stopped listening and agreeing with everything I heard and began questioning faith for myself and really making it my OWN faith. I'm still not sure about who goes to hell and what hell really is. But I do believe that it exists, that its miserable, and that it is a place for those who have chose to ignore God's calling (I cringe when I write that). To those who question me following a God who would punish someone who didn't love them. I ask them the simple question of why they dislike those who have disagree or persecuted them. Let's be honest we are not perfect people and will admit that I cannot even begin to imagine the reasons of God. His beauty alone astounds me. But with everything I believe God sacrificed his son for the whole world. And that is a reason why I don't deserve heaven. I can't earn it and I can't be a good enough Christian to get there. I can only worship and glorify the God I love and accept his wonderous grace that has been given to me. So in summary, I guess I do believe that the God I love would punish those who have openly admitted that they despise his being. But just by saying that I have created a line, which therefore creates a gray area. What qualifies as 'despising God.' And to that I say 'I refuse to live in hypotheticals.' Its up to each individual if they decide they wholeheartedly hate God. I'm not there to make that choice for them.