At this juncture in my writing, I would strongly remind you, dear reader, that these thoughts are strictly my own. They are the ruminations of a mind trying to make sense out of new information and cast off the shackles of deliberate darkness and threats that have existed in the Church for centuries. You have every right to look at what I have written and turn away, shaking your head and muttering under your breath, “Good Lord! What a clown show!”

I find it mystifying  to look upon the first milenia of the Church and observe how the Church went from Apokatastasis to Eternal Conscious Torment in a matter of a few centuries. The only thing I can see as possibly happening to effect this change in doctrine would be that certain men in the Church – both Orthodox East and Catholic West – felt a need to use the threat of eternal, conscious hell as a means to keep the population of sinners in line.

Although the following is not directly a story about threatening people with hell, it is in the same genre – threatening people with God.

In my younger years I attended a couple of different Fundamental Baptist churches. You know the kind – the sign in the yard says, “KJV Only. Independent. Fundamental. Bible-Believing.” Some will even have the name of the pastor with a little note underneath which states that he is a Bob Jones University graduate. Fundamentalist churches like this are fond of having what they call “Revival Services.” They all follow the same pattern: Monday night preaching against drinking alcohol. Tuesday night preaching against long hair on men and pants on women. Wednesday night preaching against other denominations (they are wrong and all going to hell because they are wrong).  Thursday night the sin of going to the movies. Friday night all about the Rapture of the Church and the coming of the Roman Catholic one-world religion of the Anti-Christ. Saturday night is Preacher Appreciation Night (“What a GREAT pastor you folks have!”) with emphasis on how you should support him by giving the biblical tithe. All of the messages are heavy on threats and warnings against bad behavior (i.e. not following your Fundamentalist pastor’s teachings) and how God will punish those who disobey.  But it’s the one on tithing I want to talk about.

I particularly remember a message I heard on one particular Saturday Tithing Night at one particular revival. The evangelist told a story – a true story, mind you! – about a man whose money was always tight. One Sunday he gave into temptation and decided not to put his tithe in the offering plate. And wouldn’t you know it, that very same week, the starter in his car went out and he had to buy an new one.  And surprise of surprises, the starter for the car came to the exact same amount – to the very penny – that his tithe would have been that week!

That’s right, folks. You don’t cheat on God!! He will GIT YOU!!!

That’s a very good example of how to modify behavior by threatening people with God. If you don’t behave just right (i.e. the way our denomination tells you to behave) you are gonna be in deep kimchee when God comes by to get what is His! To this day, I still have a problem giving less than 10% to whatever church has my membership. This Fundamentalism is not just found in Anabaptist Protestantism. Those I call “Orthotraddie” and “RadCathTrads” are full of it also, warning anyone who will listen that fiery, eternal hell awaits all who are outside their fold.

The seminal thought regarding the treatment of people outside the Christian faith began with St. Iranaeus and devolved from there:

“Towards the end of the second century Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, saw the dangers of numerous opinions developing. He attempted to establish an orthodox body of teaching. He wrote a five volume work against heresies, and it was he who compiled a cannon of the New Testament. He also claimed that there was only one proper Church, outside of which there could be no salvation. Other Christians were heretics and should be expelled, and if possible destroyed. The first Christian Emperor agreed. Gibbon summarises the edict which announced the destruction of various heretics:

After a preamble filled with passion and reproach, Constantine absolutely prohibits the assemblies of the heretics and confiscates their public property to the use either of the revenue or of the catholic church. The sects against whom the Imperial severity was directed appear to have been the adherents of Paul of Samosata; the Montanists of Phrygia, who maintained an enthusiastic succession of prophesy; the Novatians, who sternly rejected the temporal efficacy of repentance; the Marcionites and Valentinians, under whose leading banners the various Gnostics of Asia and Egypt had insensibly rallied; and perhaps the Manichæans who had recently imported from Persia a more artful composition of oriental and Christian theology.”

The design of extirpating the name, or at least of restraining the progress, of these odious heretics was prosecuted with vigour and effect. Some of the penal regulations were copied from the edicts of Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded by the same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression and had pleaded for the rights of humanity”

“Further laws against heresy appeared in 380 AD under the Christian Emperor Theodosius I, who laid down the new rule:

We command that those persons who follow this rule shall embrace the name of Catholic Christians. The rest, however, whom we adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of our own initiative, which we shall assume in accordance with divine judgement.”

During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the empire’s greatness and reconquer the lost western-half of the historical Roman Empire. Justinian’s rule constitutes a distinct epoch in the history of the Later Roman empire, and his reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized renovatio imperii, or “restoration of the Empire.” One of the most important aspects of reviving such an empire is control and uniformity.

The behavior of Emperor Justinian was simply the next epistemological development in such an understanding. God will send them to hell forever, therefore, we kill them here and now, and we are doing the work of God by doing so!. Because of the idea that the divine judgment against heretics is to destroy them, and because he wanted an empire under complete control, Justinian energitically opposed the idea of God’s salvific plan eventually restoring all things and all people.

Without control, as a ruler, you have nothing. Justinian said of Apokatastasis:

Will render men slothful, and discourage them from keeping the commandments of God. It will encourage them to depart from the narrow way, leading them by deception into ways that are wide and easy.

In other words, it will make them unmanageable, because in their spiritual darkness, their natural sloth, and their tendency to sin, they will lose fear of sin and live lives that are morally decrepit, based on knowing that eventually they will go to heaven. This is a very legitimate concern, however, the whole issue could have been handled in a much better manner by reminding men of the words of our Lord: that those who do evil will be punished, and by stressing the punishments to come without necessarily mentioning the fact that these punishments will end. Several of the Early Fathers who taught Apokatastasis are on record as saying that this doctrine should only be shared with those who are spritually mature.

For a man who murdered in cold blood 4,500 of his defeated enemies because they wouldn’t be baptized into Christianity, this thinking seems utterly normal. You control through power and fear, and those who will not submit will die. End of story. This act of wanton brutality towards the Saxons is why I refuse to call him “Saint” Justinian. Saints behave in certain manners, and according to the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:43-48, murdering your enemies is definitely not one of them. Perhaps some day the Orthodox Church will wake up and strip Justinian of this title which they so gratuitously bestowed upon him simply because he chose the right doctrinal side of the Christian fence upon which to stand.

Fast forward to the eleventh century, slightly before the schism of 1054. The Roman Catholic church is a wreck. Bishops and priests were involved in every kind of immorality, publicly living with concubines or illicit wives, or furtively engaging in homosexual practices, following an example set by the scandalous Pope Benedict IX.  St. Peter Damian undertakes to reform the Roman Church. “For Damian, the issue of homosexuality within the clergy is deeply related to the dignity of the priesthood.” Damian believed that the profligate and licentious behavior of the clergy undermined ecclesiastical authority and was beginning to provoke outbursts of violence from an outraged laity, which threatened civil order.

The Papal Reform of Pope Gregory seeks to restore the dignity and glory of the Roman Catholic Church. As part of the reforms of Church, the Western church finds herself dealing with the schism of 1054 AD and various sects who are teaching doctrines opposed to that which the Church is teaching. The response of  St. Peter Damian was to solidify the power and authority of the Chair of Peter. One of the approaches to this is to teach that there is no salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church and absolute obedience to the Pope of Rome:

“There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.)

“We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 1302.)

“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.)

I cannot help but think – and perhaps you see as I do – that this is more of a political power play designed to bring unity and tranquility to the Church, than it is a statement of truth. I think at this point, the Roman Catholic Church lost Her way and became more of a political entity than a church. But think with me now as thinks the average illiterate peasant in the 15th century. I am told there is no salvation outside the Church. And if there is no salvation, all that is left to me, according to the warning homilies and sermons that I hear, is the certainty of an eternal, burning hell, described in gruesome detail by the poet, Dante.

Inferno is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem, The Divine Comedy. After meeting his guide, the eminent Roman poet Virgil, in a mythical dark wood, the two poets begin their descent through a baleful world of doleful shades, horrifying tortures, and unending lamentation. The various descriptions of each level of hell, with increasingly horrifying torments, are enough to scare most people into terrified obedience to both the Church and the Pope.  Peace is maintained.

In listening to Fr. John Strickland’s excellent podcast series, PARADISE AND UTOPIA, (I cannot recommend this series highly enough!) I was struck with the manner in which the Church, both East and West, devolved into more of a political empire than a religious community. What I heard described were frequent episodes of political intrigue, especially in the Caesarpaproism of the Orthodox East, in which rather than treating each other as brothers in Christ, bishops and clerics strove against each other to obtain and maintain power. I have the feeling that threats of eternal damnation were used more as a tool against enemies than as a warning in love against experiencing the consequences of evil behavior.

As did the Early Fathers who believed in Apokatastasis, I believe that there is a hell. It is real, and consists of the torment and deep regret we shall experience when all falsehood is stripped away and we must face our deeds in the presence of He who is truth and love.  Fr. Aiden Kimel writes of this in his blog piece

St Isaac the Syrian: Hell and the Scourge of Divine Love

But what of those who do not love God and do not desire his eternal company? What of the damned? How and why are they punished? How do they suffer? Here we enter into the most controversial dimension of St Isaac’s mystical knowledge. We begin with one of the most frequently quoted passages from his homilies:

I also maintain that those who are punished in Gehenna are scourged by the scourge of love. For what is so bitter and vehement as the punishment of love? I mean that those who have become conscious that they have sinned against love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is sharper than any torment that can be. It would be improper for a man to think that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God. Love is the offspring of knowledge of the truth which, as is commonly confessed, is given to all. The power of love works in two ways: it torments those who have played the fool, even as happens here when a friend suffers from a friend; but it becomes a source of joy for those who have observed its duties. Thus I say that this is the torment of Gehenna: bitter regret. But love inebriates the souls of the sons of Heaven by its delectability. (I.28, p. 266)

If you really want to threaten me, don’t threaten me with hell. Threaten me with the possibility of losing the divine love that my heart  – and all hearts – so longs for.