Most Evangelicals believe that one day the virgin-born, sinless, resurrected Son of God, Jesus Christ, will return to earth to judge the living and the dead, granting Christians eternal life in the Kingdom of God and consigning everyone else to the Lake of Fire. Christians will spend eternity worshipping and praising Jesus, while non-Christians will be endlessly tortured in flames of intense fire. Of course, the bodies of non-Christians would immediately sizzle away as the fat on a steak as it’s broiled, so God plans to give these unfortunate people whose only crime is worshipping the wrong deity, a special body that will survive torture for millions of years. What an awesome God Evangelicals serve, right?
After believers are resurrected, they will receive new bodies. Gone will be the pain, suffering, loss, and death of their former bodies. Their minds will be wiped clean of all thoughts except those of Jesus. Gone will be thoughts of their unsaved families, spouses, and friends. The overwhelming majority of people who populated the earth will end up in the Lake of Fire. Billions upon billions of non-Christians will face untold suffering, all because they worshipped the wrong deity or none at all. Finite crimes will receive infinite punishment. It matters not if you lived a moral, ethical life. All that matters, according to Evangelicals, is that you believe the right things, pray the right prayer, and worship the right deity. Putting extra money in the offering plate helps too. The vile Dr. David Tees and Revival Fires of the world will receive great rewards from Jesus, but those who practiced the Golden Rule and followed the second part of the Great Commandment to love their neighbor as themselves will be rewarded with eternal pain and suffering, all because they weren’t Christians. What a perverse religion, yet millions and millions of Evangelicals worship this version of the Christian God.
When asked where the Lake of Fire is located, thoughtful Evangelicals will say “I don’t know.” Others will cobble together Bible verses and reinterpret them to provide an answer to this question. One Southern Baptist evangelist, the late Rolfe Barnard, believed the Lake of Fire was located outside the gate of the New Jerusalem; that believers would see the smoke of the Lake wafting into the air like the smoke of a Burger King on a busy Friday night — a constant reminder of the punishment they would have received had Jesus not saved them from their sins.
Barnard went on to say that when the redeemed saw this smoke, they would fall on their knees and say:
Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God: For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia And her smoke rose up for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia. And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. (Revelation 19:1-6)
That’s right, Christians will praise Jesus for the true and righteous judgments their unbelieving families, friends, and neighbors are receiving as just recompense for their sin and rebellion against God. I suspect this is why preachers tell fellow believers that their minds will be wiped clean from thoughts of their former lives. If not, what kind of people would praise Jesus for torturing their parents, spouses, children, and grandchildren? Psychopaths, that’s who.
Is this a God worthy of our worship? Not in my book. Christianity is a blood cult, and Evangelicals, in particular, revel in the workings of a violent, bloodthirsty deity who will someday, beyond today, inflict horrific pain, suffering, and death on everyone who didn’t worship him. I have often been asked if I would worship the Evangelical God if I found out he was real, and the answer is “no.” Such a deity is unworthy of my worship, and I will not bow a knee to a deity who takes pleasure in torturing his created beings.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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I have never understood the love and desire for Evangelical Heaven. Besides the cruelty, an eternity of nothing but worshipping at the feet of God/Jesus? What an empty and meaningless existence. At least Jehovah’s Witnesses get to believe they will be helping restore the Earth while frolicking with tame wildlife. Having your mind wiped of memories so you can do nothing but praise the Leader is the very definition of a cult.
Well said. I couldn’t agree more. A violent, vile god worthy of no worship.
The omniscient Christian god knew his creation would be full of pain and misery but proceeded anyway despite being omnipotent and able to find a different way. He was a perfect and fully actualized spiritual being who was somehow lonely and in need of creating physical flawed beings. He gives the dead new bodies which will endure never ending torture to satisfy his desire for revenge. He will either give his chosen few the desire to accept and delight in witnessing this torture or erase their memories thus creating a legion of robots only existing to satisfy his need for constant praise. This is a monster worthy of nothing but contempt.
I always found the idea and possibility of the Lake of Fire incredibly repulsive, once I found out about it. Becoming a believer only enhanced that feeling,at least for me. I’m not alone in being vexed by Hell / the Lake. As a Christian that is, and the actions of the noisy, belligerent ” Christian” Nationalists in the US only throw gas on the fire,so to speak. It’s a very deep subject, and it’s not hard to see why people don’t want to look too closely. Life is cheap to these elites, especially the Hard Right. You wouldn’t have such indifference to average citizens,if this wasn’t true. Because Fascist policies result in more deaths, especially preventable ones. It’s as bad as Communism, just a different label for totalitarianism. It sounds like the only real way to avoid winding up in said lake, is to not be born, or have kids ! Yet conservatives argue for more births, even knowing that most people don’t convert to Jesus( the dirty little secret).
I don’t remember ever being told at Southern Baptist church nor at IFB Christian school that our memories would be wiped. It used to really bother me that Christians in heaven would witness people being tortured in hell. That didn’t seem like eternal reward or bliss in my young mind – it seemed unnecessarily cruel – and not like heaven.
It’s no wonder US Evangelicals are so cruel, delighting in the suffering of the poor or those here in the country illegally or those who have made poor choices or committed crimes. They only seem to care if a policy affects them directly. I have heard people say, “I don’t want my tax dollars paying for THEM.” “THEM” is a term used for someone evangelicals deem unworthy. There’s no grace, just judgment, with the evangelical as the judge.
I’ve always envisioned the church fathers who wrote the Bible saying, “Hey, how about let’s write (whatever gives them more control). Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s write that.”