Almost every time I ask a Christian if non-believers go to heaven or hell, they answer that it’s not up to them. It’s up to God.
My experience of talking to Christians indicates that, for many of them, passing the buck on to God is good enough. But should it be? Honestly — if you really, deeply care for your friend, wouldn’t you want to make sure that they weren’t going to spend eternity in torment, instead of just being resigned to a third party? Wouldn’t you want to make sure God let them into heaven with you?
That’s how I felt, eventually, as a Christian. “It’s up to God” wasn’t good enough. I wanted to know for sure. Did hell exist? Who was going there? Who wasn’t?
And I also asked myself an arguably more difficult question: “What does it say about me that I believe in and worship a God whose law indicates that this person I care about might go to hell forever? What kind of person would I have to be to even think to worship a God like that?”
Part of the reason I left (in addition to powerful evidence against God’s existence) is that, as I contemplated many a sleepless night, I didn’t like the face I saw in the mirror after asking that question. And I know it may be tough, but I’m not asking any question I haven’t asked myself.
When someone passes the buck by saying “it’s up to God,” what they’re saying to me is that I might, just might, deserve to burn in hell forever. And I can kinda tell from their tone of voice that if that’s what God they’re giving their hear to decided, they might just be OK with that.
In other words, far from showing me that the Christian cares, this response shows that they think that maybe, just maybe, I might be deserving eternity in torment. And they’re also telling me that possibility isn’t one that’s important enough for you to thoroughly investigate. It’s something they’re fine shrugging about. And if I go to torment, which I might, I deserve it.
Now, after I’ve had time to think of it, I think that neither you, me, nor anyone else deserves eternity in torment. Not even Hitler. I mean, really, eternity? Even if you tortured him for a million years for each person who died by his hand…that would be more than enough, wouldn’t it? Does anyone really deserve eternal torment?
That’s part of why I left Christianity. I was not satisfied with thinking that maybe, just maybe, some of people who seemed beautiful deserved eternity in hellfire (or separation from God, or any way you define that place) if God said so. I decided that their dignity and their value was worth fighting for without apology and without any hint or slight suggestion of a “sinner” label. For me, that’s what love began to look like. “Love your neighbor as yourself” was, ironically, one of the commands in the Bible that eventually led me to reject Christianity altogether.
I’m not challenging you with anything I have not challenged myself with. I’m asking same questions that life asked me.
So…I think that, instead of saying that it’s up to God…maybe think about what decision you would make about people if it were up to you? Because if God doesn’t exist, your questioning is just you saying, “Well, maybe you’re going to hell. It’s up to this made-up being.” That can color relationships in some disturbing ways.
Try this out:
Forget about God’s judgment. You appreciate all the things you love about humanity. You see the beauty where you can glean it. You open up your heart and your mind. Forget about God.
When I tried that out…God began to fade. Oh, people still do things that upset me from time to time. They still do harmful things that make me upset, and rightfully so, I think.
But those are things that I judge myself. It’s just me and them, in real existence. Without any interference from the judgment of a supposed God. Makes things more straightforward, simplistic, personal, grounded. And it allows me to love them without wondering if, inside them, there’s something God will judge them forever for.
Do with that as you will.
Thanks for reading.
Note: In these discussions, people usually say that my discussion of hell is naive — that most Christians don’t believe this. In the United States this is not true:
About 6 in 10 Americans (61 percent) say hell is a real place. Black Protestants (86 percent) and Evangelicals (87 percent) are most likely to say hell is real. Catholics (66 percent) and Mainline Protestants (55 percent) are less convinced.
Furthermore, Evangelicals are the largest group of Christians in the United States, and the category that’s held most steady as people have begun making an exodus from religion in the United States. Progressives are already leaving the church, and there are fewer of them. So the most fruitful critiques of the church seem to be on the more evangelical versions of Christianity. However, it seems most versions of Christianity do have a disturbing concept of hell in them — there are a ton of sects, and no thorough agreements between any two Christians, that it’s impossible to get one view that all would agree with. But this post, I think, addresses the clear, dominant majority.