I believe that Jesus’ description of hell was meant for that audience over 2000 years ago and it worked. Today, those words have become too familiar, misunderstood and even underappreciated. We can dismiss this “fanciful” version of hell because it doesn’t sound real to us anymore. So why should we believe we’re going there if we can’t even believe in it?

Wright, very simply and precisely addresses this issue by “reinterpreting” hell and who it is meant for. Even as a Christian I welcome any help in interpreting scripture passages on tough issues like this one.

Is that what draws us to God? No. Perfect love casts out fear. We know this. But I think Wright would be more well-served speaking of hell in terms like Jesus did. Tough call for a guy who speaks to academics mostly.

Also, thanks for the background and clarification on your brilliant comment. I don’t know if I’d go as far as calling him the most important theologian, but he’s certainly up there.

Ok, that being said (which I’m sure I’ll need to qualify later), I don’t agree lockstep with everything he says, but at the same time, I know that I have a tendency to read in to what a lot of people say. I remember Piper sharing a story that he took like 6 weeks to carefully read through Wrights position on Paul and write out a 10 page response asking for clarification and gaining understanding to his different terms…something like 3 hours later he got a 6 page response from Wright explaining and clarifying what Piper was asking. That’s for entertainment, further proof of his brilliance, but more importantly to add to the discussion that there is a lot of clarification and assumption that has to go on when dealing with Wright.

Wright can appeal to the purely scholarly – Resurrection of the Son of God, and equally the masses – Surprised by Hope. I’ve listened to many of his lectures especially when it comes to his position on the resurrection and restoration. And how else do you explain that but to say that the Bible never talks about a disembodied future and always talks about Heaven/kingdom coming down…and yet for most of my adult life I never saw it! In my western, platonic thought I just assumed that Jesus was coming to get us the hell out of here! Now, it makes so much more sense. It’s clear in Scripture – the kingdom is HERE, the resurrection was HERE, the promise to Noah was about God’s creation and making it new, not trashing it. For the first time I didn’t look back at my nightmares as a kid regarding Jesus coming as a thief in the night and taking my mom and dad and me waking up in some post-rapture existence. It completes missiology for me. It makes evangelism so much more than “believe in Jesus so you can go to heaven when you die.” it makes Jesus’ declaration of the “good news of the Kingdom” and even the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount so much more fulfilling. But, my impression was still that if I was dealing with NT Wright that I was moving toward liberal theology, evangelistic heresy, etc… Just to clarify, I think he’s wrong on Paul.

Ok, so there’s probably more background than you needed, but this is why i suck at writing blogs and responses to blogs and just don’t do it very often:)

I don’t really think that Wright is that concerned with dramatizing hell, speaking to his delivery. I think his view on restoration (to me and probably to him as well) is SO amazing, all consuming, appealing, desiring, reaching to the very core of the imago dei, that to suggest anything other than being caught up in that is travesty. Jesus gives descriptions of what this will be like (literal or figurative…we can debate, but hopefully we’ll never know:). Wright’s greater emphasis, which has to be informed by his understandings mentioned previously, is that just as all the pain and hurt and mourning will be made new for the believer, just as the return of Christ will set the world to rights and all creation will be as it should at the conclusion of the grand narrative, to that extent it would be just as painful and wretched to not be a part of that. I don’t think he’s trying to handle hell casually, I think, even his quote about “wanting to be universalist if he could” is that he is so much more about the restoration that the thought of anything other is simply horrifying and moving further and further away from that would be even worse than immediate “worst scenario imaginable.”

does that even make sense? I’m a verbal communicator so if this sucks, let me know.

I think that is the problem I have with it. However, in Wright’s defense, isn’t that we are trying to show the goodness and majesty of God for His name sake alone and not to scare people away from hell?

I am not denying the doctrine of hell at all. I will preach on it but it will not be the centrality of my teachings. That place alone is reserved for the gospel of God and Christ crucified. To use this imperfect analogy,
do you not cheat on your wife because of the temporal ramifications of having an adulterous affair or do you not cheat on your wife because you so love her, you get to be with her and you get to enjoy her and she is so lovely?

I guess what I am don’t weaken the doctrine of hell. Call a spade a spade. But don’t let hell be our focal point either.

That being said, I don’t have a problem necessarily with Wright’s conception of hell as a dehumanization and continual removal from God. The absence of God is of course the worst thing that can possibly happen to a person. We see this in Christ’s absolute despair on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The reality is that we have no concrete conception of what hell is actually like since it is only spoken of in metaphor. But as Will rightly points out, those metaphors are terribly frightening. Whatever Jesus refers to by everlasting and unquenchable fire, by gnashing of teeth, and so forth, he clearly means to speak of some kind of existence that is absolutely horrendous and tormenting–and one that is everlasting.

I’m wondering if maybe Wright’s teachings on hell are not so much wrong as is his delivery on hell. I find his description to be tepid, and indeed a possible comfort to those who already don’t care about God and reject him. A shrinking of human life, as Wright describes it, does not do justice to Christ’s words, “And these will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt 25:46).

To be sure, I find the doctrine of Hell extremely hard and distasteful. I’d love nothing more than to speak of it terms that are easier to swallow, as a I believe Wright does, and so comfort unbelievers. But I’m not sure we can do that and still be faithful to Christ’s intent in speaking of hell.

Thoughts?