And you’ve made some other pretty good points. That your workaday ‘Christian’ isn’t making much of an effort to serve, or even love, or even stop sinning occasionally, and that monotonous life is antithetical to the life Jesus preached, the kind of life he promised if you come to God through him. And you talk about the ‘institutional’ church. I grew up being forced to go to one like that, and it inspired me to disavow spirituality altogether until I was 21. Sweet deal. I also don’t understand why anyone would say that simply because a bunch of theologians believe something about the Bible that it must be true of the Bible. Since when did men doing or not doing something change the truths that God established? Maybe the Lord would ‘pffshaw’ that. I dunno.

I get the impression you genuinely believe what the Bible says about salvation, or you wouldn’t be arguing about it with anyone. While I think this whole post is pretty sad and, frankly, a little aggravating (especially some of the quotes, if those are actually their very words and haven’t been embellished, from the people you’d talked about this with – these slow-to-listen-quick-to-speak-quick-to-become-angry dispositions), I have to admit (and most probably won’t agree with me, but I’ll say it anyway) that I don’t feel the Bible is very specific about hell. Jesus talks about ‘hell,’ the Valley of Gehenna, quite a bit, and from some serious study I’ve learned a bit about what he was talking about. Without going into detail, it was essentially a landfill of Jerusalem’s garbage that was constantly being burned up. So I can imagine him using this, in the context of talking to the Jews in Jerusalem, as a very illuminating illustration for how terrible it would be to be separated from God, if God is, as (the apostle John said and) you said yourself, love. But I can’t say for sure that’s a normative x-is-like-y statement. He doesn’t exactly describe heaven in detail either, he just gives illustrations. I don’t see the Bible being “plain about hell” at all. What would it look like? Would it look like anything? Would it feel like anything? Is it just another way of describing utter destruction, a ceasing to exist? Will/would God make them suffer physically, or is it more of a mental or spiritual anguish for having refused to love God? I dunno! Pretty bizarre.

But you quoted Paul a few times. What about where he said, “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God,” in Galatians 5:19-21? Or in Philippians 3:17-19, when he said, “Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things”? Here’s a long one: “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God….So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised…But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.” Hebrews 10:26-39 (with a paragraph and a half omitted for the sake of saving space)

You quoted some pretty brief verses in your article. Those quotes were taken out of context, but not just the context of the passage, or even the whole chapter. Maybe including that context doesn’t do anything to refute your point about universal salvation, but I definitely think the context of the rest of the Bible does. I can’t use the context of the verses you quoted to describe why I feel you’re mistaken, because I imagine you’d want to link references to destruction, or perishing, or hell, etc., to physical death or a very difficult life on earth ending in disgrace, or as you said “hell on earth” or some such thing.

But the Bible’s pretty clear when it sets them side by side and talks about ‘being saved’ and ‘destruction’ – the writer of Hebrews, just before that long quote, says in verses 19 and 22, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus..(then some sentences I don’t feel the need to put down because they don’t detract from or add to my point)..let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith…” First he talks about how we come to God through Jesus, and then he goes on and makes the point that one can either shrink back from faith in him and be destroyed, or believe and be saved.

I’d like to say more but I’m not sure it’d do any good. I’m sorry you had a ‘manipulative prayer’ prayed over you. I don’t like those either. And I don’t know that I’m right about everything I believe, so I won’t pretend to be coming at you with all of it figured out. But this universal salvation idea makes this very powerful God out to be a very small and sissy ‘god’ – a ‘god’ who is not just, a god who has no desire to reward anyone for love and obedience, a god who is not patient because he doesn’t have to bear with any objects of wrath while giving them abundant time and opportunity to appreciate his love for them, a god who is not a father but an old and senile benefactor who can’t tell a rat from his children. I guess I sound a little upset there at the end. Again, I’m sorry.