If you die without becoming a Christian you are condemned to an eternity of conscious torment.
That's the traditional Christian view, expressed vividly by some of the great evangelists and pastor of previous ages including Jonathan Edwards and CH Spurgeon. But it's one that is being increasingly criticised by modern evangelicals who are uncomfortable with the ethics of this position and unconvinced by the scriptural arguments for it. How could a God of love possibly make a world in which the majority of his human creatures would burn in hell forever, simply because they happened to have been born in in a country that was Muslim, or Hindu, or atheist? And is the scriptural underpinning for this belief really as secure as evangelicals, in particular, tend to think?
Critics of the doctrine point to support from evangelicals such as John Stott, who wrote: "We need to survey the biblical material afresh. I do plead for frank dialogue among evangelicals on the basis of Scripture. I also believe that the ultimate annihilation of the wicked should at least be accepted as a legitimate, biblically founded alternative to their eternal conscious torment."
What started as a debate among scholars is becoming a movement with a website, RethinkingHell.com. It says there are other ways of conceiving what happens to people after they die, notably Conditional Immortality – the view that those who die without Christ simply die, whereas those who die as Christians are assured of eternal life.
Its third international Rethinking Hell Conference is to be held in London on October 7-8 at the Highgate International Church. Speakers include Roger Forster, author, theologian and founder of the Ichthus Fellowship, New Testament scholar Rev Dr David Instone-Brewer, and Rethinking Hell contributor Chris Date. It is entitled Conditional Immortality: Past, Present, Future.
Instone-Brewer told Christian Today it was important to return to a careful study of the scriptures when thinking about contested issues. "It is always a good thing for evangelicals to examine the Bible for the basis of their faith," he said. "Unfortunately none of us are immune from being influenced by our culture, so we can be fooled into finding what we want to find in the Bible. Past generations have been just as prone to this, and this doctrine is a case in point. In the past people wanted to find eternal conscious punishment, and today they do not, so this is an issue that needs careful examination."
His own paper, he said, would examine the scriptural basis for the doctrine of eternal conscious torment. He said the scriptural basis of "conscious" torment is "a misunderstanding of an ambiguous Latin word that translates an equally ambiguous Greek word" in the apocryphal book of Judith.
He added that the scriptural basis of "eternal" with regard to human punishment is Matthew 25:46, where the word for "punishment" is used elsewhere in Jewish Greek literature to mean either torture or execution. "In one case it is used to describe suffering followed by death, which fits perfectly with its use in the Gospels where Jesus taught about both punishment in hell and destruction in hell," he said.
Instone-Brewer added: "I was very impressed by the quality of papers at last year's conference at Fuller in Pasadena. Although I didn't agree with the conclusions of most of them, because they presented a wide variety of views, they were well reasoned and presented without any rancour against opponents. It was a model of how a confessional Christian conference should work.
"The papers this year will be based mostly on the Bible rather than theological systems. It will be a unique opportunity for those who base their faith on the text to examine this doctrine with rigour."
Tickets for Friday evening and Saturday cost £20. Admission to the Friday only session is free but must be booked.
