Liars and Heretics

Sex is the reason that most people are Christians, and it’s what keeps people in churches. We all know this is true.   Most people have come to, and have stayed in churches because of a girl or a boy that they have fallen for. Most of those encounters have usually ended up with the people becoming Christians, then marrying each other, and from there on in, they are locked into the life of the church forever. Those couples have babies who go to toddler groups run by the church, those children become friends and end up at the same schools together, then they go to the same church youth clubs, they invite their friends from school to those youth groups, become Christians, fall in love with each other, and the whole cycle begins again.   Obviously, this is a deliberately exaggerated point of view, and it’s not entirely accurate to say that sex is what gets people, and keeps people in churches. There are many reasons why people stay in churches, but I think there is some tr...

Moving forward, rather than spouting various theologians and their interpretations around Hell, it’s probably easier to look at what different Christian denominations believe.   Eastern Orthodox Christianity   The Eastern Orthodox Church is the second biggest church in the world, after the Catholic church, and it’s important because it professes to practice the faith of the early Christian church, which has been passed down through holy tradition. This means that in theory, their view of Hell is closest to the view held by the earliest Christians.   The Orthodox church believes that both Heaven and Hell are one plain of existence, or to put it differently, they are both the same place. Hell is not in one location, whilst Heaven is in another, they are both one. In the Orthodox faith, Heaven and Hell are experiences of God’s presence. Those who love God, experience the Divine presence as infinite joy, and eternal life. Those who hate God, experience that same p...

If you go back to your semi decent translation of the Bible, then in the Old Testament you will find Sheol, and in the New Testament you will find Hades, but you’ll also find Hell making an appearance. The ‘Hell’ that we see printed in our Bibles, is actually the word ‘Gehenna’ in the original Greek texts. It’s a name which doesn’t really mean anything to most Christians, but to first century Christians and Jews, it would have been loaded with significance. Gehenna comes from the Hebrew word ‘Gehinnom’, which means ‘Valley of Hinnom’.   The Valley of Hinnom was a significant place in Jewish history, because it was where the people of God, including some of the kings of Judah, sacrificed their children as burnt offerings to the god, Baal. As a result of their actions, God proclaimed that the Valley of Hinnom would be known as the ‘Valley of Slaughter’, and that the enemies of God’s people would attack them and fill the valley with their corpses. As a result of all this, the Vall...

  You can’t really talk about Heaven without talking about Hell. I feel I’ve been able to have a bit of fun talking about Heaven, because as a Christian, I am assured that I will be with God after I die. We might be open to the mystery of what that will look like, or we might have strong opinions and beliefs about it, but it doesn’t really matter, because we believe that it will be a positive existence.   This is not the same for Hell. Hell is much more negative, and unless you are one of those sociopathic Christians who relish in the idea of unbelievers being tormented for eternity, Hell is a serious matter and it has implications for people we know and love, who don’t know God. Hell also feels different from Heaven, because while our views of Heaven might be elusive, mysterious and ethereal, the theologies that we have of Hell, feel a lot more certain, and are much heavier, and so I wish to approach it accordingly.   Most of us will be familiar with the common v...

The first depiction of Heaven that I remember seeing was from a Jehovah’s Witness leaflet that was posted through our door.   I can’t remember it exactly, but having seen other leaflets since then, I think it’s fair to say that they are “distinctive” in their style and theme. They are usually colourful drawings of people in the countryside, perhaps in a picturesque valley where the sun is shining, and people of all colours are enjoying outdoor activities like having picnics, running, jumping, hugging and holding hands.   There is usually some kind of petting zoo element, like a child stroking a baby deer or cuddling a wolf, and also some fruit eating activity taking place. I distinctly remember one leaflet which showed a young boy feeding berries to a tiger, which really tickled me for some reason. From most of these depictions of Heaven, it seems that people live in the open fields and valleys, like sheep. There are never any pictures of houses or even of tents, so I ...