Armageddon to Zoroastrianism: Hell, Part 2

April 30, 2006

Rev. Paul Beckel

First Universalist Unitarian Church ~ www.uuwausau.org

Last time[1] I described the incredible variety of hellish afterlives available within religions around the world – from unbearably hot to unbearably cold, from active torture to endless boredom and emptiness. Within the Christian tradition, however, there was very little speculation about hell for the first couple of hundred years after the death of Jesus.  There was vague talk of punishment, but nothing definitive about the nature or the duration of that punishment.

The most prolific and influential theologian of the early Church, Origen, wrote in the second century about universal salvation – the expectation that all people would be saved. And though Origen was criticized by his contemporaries for many of his views, the notion of universal salvation was uncontroversial in his time.  Not until 300 years after Jesus’ death did the concepts of original sin and endless punishment really start to catch on when the north African bishop, Augustine (who had an awful lot to feel guilty about) chiseled these ideas into the doctrine of the Roman Church. About a thousand years later, during the Protestant Reformation, the inherent depravity of human beings became the basis for the severities of Calvinism...which then sailed to the New World with the Puritans in the 1600s...and emerged again in the early 1900s with the development of christian fundamentalism.

So, yes, the notion of hell is woven into the fabric of Christian history, and it is pervasive and enduring. But it’s origins are more likely rooted in Egypt and Persia than in the teachings of Jesus.

Within the American colonies it played out this way: John Murray started preaching universal salvation in New England in the 1770s. Murray’s theology was revolutionary, heretical, and socially unacceptable, but in many ways he was unoriginal.[2] Murray was essentially a Calvinist. He believed that Christ had to suffer and die in order to atone for our sins. He preached a message which was pretty orthodox. But Murray got himself into trouble by giving the doctrine one little twist: that Christ’s sacrifice was perfect, it was complete, it would effectively redeem all people for all time.

Then along came Hosea Ballou. (Happy Birthday Hosea – 235 years today!) In 1805 Ballou gave the old doctrine another twist (almost to the point that it looked like its Origen). Yes he affirmed, everyone will be saved. But not because Jesus died for us. Atonement through suffering? That’s just cruel. No, everyone will be saved because God is all-loving. It wouldn’t be in keeping with the nature of God to have even one of his creatures tormented for eternity.

Ballou’s Universalism has also evolved in the 201 years since his Treatise on Atonement. It first evolved to focus less on the nature of the afterlife, and instead to emphasize the social imperatives for here and now for those who believe in a God who loves people regardless of their race and gender and sexual orientation and so on. It has continued to evolve to incorporate the humanistic view that all people should be treated with dignity – whether there is a god or not.

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Today there are tens of millions of Americans who do not believe in hell. It’s really not that exceptional a belief. But there is a difference between a negative universalism – that is, not believing in hell or not really caring one way or the other... and a positive universalism, which is something else altogether.

The covenant we made with Jessica and Andy[3] today was not merely a negative covenant to leave them alone to make their own decisions and take the consequences. We promised something positive: to walk with them, to be honest with them, and to model a positive living Universalism which makes evident our commitment to human equality... a Universalism which offers insight, grace, and hope... a Universalism which helps us to come alive, which lightens our load, which enables us to enter into relationships, and gives us courage to engage with the brokenness in our community.

But back to hell. Mike DeSciscio[4] speculates that the accordion is associated with hell because, unless it’s played very well, it sounds like hell. The accordion, he says, amplifies its player’s imperfections. It is an “unforgiving” instrument. Unforgiving. What a wonderful metaphor for hell!

Which brings us to the Left Behind series. The Left Behind series is a string of 12 novels telling of the end of days. Like the notion of hell itself, apocalyptic visions of the end of the world have had multiple peaks in the popular imagination over time. In this one, the biblical book of Revelation is interpreted to foresee that the end times will begin with The Rapture – when those few chosen by God will suddenly disappear from the earth and into heavenly bliss. Those who are left behind will endure horrors on Earth...and the era of the antichrist.

Published since 1995, these books have sold over 60 million copies, and have spun off movies, graphic novels, kids books,[5] CD-ROMs, calendars, greeting cards, and screen-savers. The books have been at the top of mainstream best-seller lists (and since Christian bookstores do not report their sales to these bestseller lists, clearly they are selling phenomenally well even among the general population).

I’ve seen the films based on the first three Left Behind books. They present a dim picture: bad acting, bad writing, and endless clichés. The antichrist looks like an effeminate Vladimir Putin. He has a seductive blond sidekick. And this is how he rises to power: he starts off as someone who feeds the poor. Then he proposes that we eliminate all the nuclear weapons on earth. Terrifying.[6]

Once established as Secretary General of the United Nations, the antichrist proclaims that we now have the technologies to feed the hungry all around the world. So we should put aside our differences; become religiously tolerant. He says there is no heaven and no hell for us to fight about. Imagine![7] He suggests that what matters is here on earth...that we should look to each other, not to the beyond. Yes, the antichrist sounds exactly like a spiritual progressive (surprise?!). But fear not, Christ will return to destroy him in the final bloody battle of Armageddon, and reign over a new millennium.

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“Millennialism” has taken different forms over the years. One view is “postmillennialism,” which predicts that Christ will return after 1000 years of peace, and that we can prepare the way for him by building the kingdom of god on earth. This view was popular in 19^th century.

But in the early 20^th century, religious orthodoxy perceived a grave threat in the rising strength of science, and new understandings of human psychology. This fear gave rise to modern christian fundamentalism and a new kind of millennialism called premillenialism, which is the view that Christ will return before the 1000 year era of peace.

Now who cares about such theological trivia? Does it really matter if you think that Jesus is coming pre-or-post millennium? Well, it may not matter what I believe, and it may not matter what you believe, but it does matter if 60 million people believe that in order for Jesus to return, things have to go terribly wrong. This is a decisively different social vision from, “let’s try to bring peace to the world so Jesus will return.” This is the belief that utter chaos is good. Social decay is something to hope for. And if we just happen to stir up a global conflagration centered in the middle east, fear not, that’s what the bible predicted all along. Alleluia! Jesus is coming!

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How weird is this? The president of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, calls “the entire Left Behind series an unbiblical flight of fancy....” Though Missouri Synod Lutherans take most of the bible literally, even they acknowledge that portions are figurative, including the book of Revelation.[8]

A mainline Christian notes: “I think that the neglect of the study of eschatology [the end times] in the church is a serious mistake, and it’s one of the reasons that stuff like Left Behind becomes so popular. People are hungry to have some information about what the Bible says about the future. And if you don’t give them something good to eat, they’ll eat junk food. And the Left Behind series are kind of the Twinkies and the Hostess Cupcakes of the theological world.”[9]

Now this would be funny if it didn’t bring to mind a murder case from the 1970s. You may remember Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to the San Francisco board of Supervisors.[10] When Harvey Milk was murdered by Dan White, the case got national publicity for what became known as “the Twinkie Defense.” That is, the murderer claimed insanity by reason of eating too much junk food. No kidding.

Spiritual junk food. Perhaps. But another christian writes: “I was not brought to Christ through fear, exactly, but through sorrow.... I was moved to rededicate my life to Christ not because I feared getting left behind after the Rapture, but because I wanted my pre-Rapture life to be meaningful.”[11]

OK. I saw a great deal of this kind of good intention in the Left Behind films. A sincere determination to resist liberal brainwashing. The genuine pain they feel in being considered foolish, for believing in God. And there is at least one over-riding concern of the Left Behind series which I share: the determination not to be subject to the control of centralized political power. On this we agree: dictatorship and empire-building are not in the best interests of civilization.

Back in the 1920s and 1930s, fundamentalists expressed similar concern about the concentration of power in chain stores. That is, they believed chain stores were representatives of the antichrist because they threatened to undermine the local mom and pop stores.

So maybe we can be allies. We do share concerns and hopes and common needs.

We may even share universal archetypes. That is, perhaps this hell mythology has troubled and consoled souls from Scandinavia to Africa to Micronesia because it is an archetype rooted in the human consciousness.

Even without religion there is a huge market for end-of-the-world scenarios: in science fiction and political fiction, in predictions of our collective demise via environmental degradation, or natural disasters...via state-sponsored nuclear holocaust, or via the lone terrorist. The notion of chaos and conclusion haunts our imaginations.

Is this a function of modern despair: a sense that I can’t win (I can’t elude death) but damn, I’m sure not going out alone! ...Or is it just easier to contemplate global cataclysm than to contemplate our own individual demise?

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Popular culture is filled with stories about the struggle between good and evil. Whether it’s noble cowboys versus Mexican desperados, The Lion King versus the hyenas, or Han Solo versus Darth Vader. Whether depicting cosmic battles or down-to-earth everyday challenges, four themes tend to dominate our mythology:[12]

1.      Evil comes from the outside. Even when the bad guy is an insider, his character or physical appearance always indicates that this person is different – he’s not like us.

2.      People are either good OR evil, not both.

3.      The solution is to destroy the evil-doers. They are beyond redemption; they will not be transformed; we must kill them.

4.      Good wins. This is the only acceptable and emotionally satisfying conclusion. If good doesn’t win, fear not – there will be a sequel.

Of all the clichés of the Left Behind series, these are the worst. Global cataclysm is all part of god’s plan. Don’t let it interfere with your hymns of praise.

Good always wins. If good doesn’t win there will be a sequel. This week was the 20^th anniversary of the meltdown at Chernobyl. But the world did not actually come to an end. So we can look forward to a sequel(?).

This week was also Yom Ha’Shoa – holocaust remembrance day. The Left Behind books describe the re-building of Solomon’s temple as a trigger for the Apocalypse. So we can celebrate the survival of the Jewish people on Yom Ha’Shoa either because they are human beings...or because now they can rebuild Jerusalem and usher in an era of global holocaust.

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Of all the ten commandments, I think this one sums them up: don’t take what isn’t yours. Of course, sometimes we do take what isn’t ours. So even a loving, merciful God would require justice. Any effective secular civilization would require justice. Punishment to fit the crime.

What is justice? Justice is the ability to recognize one's debts and to pay them. Since most people have felt wronged at some point in their lives...have felt that someone else has taken what is ours, we’ve experienced a yearning for justice, a desire to see that they get what they deserve. And since it often appears that evil triumphs in this world, it’s not surprising that we’d imagine ultimate vindication – a balancing of the scales of justice – in another cosmic dimension.

This kind of thinking, then, is probably natural, archetypal. It’s been going on for eons. But that doesn’t mean it’s civilized. It happens in the name of religion. But that doesn’t mean it’s spiritually healthy.

Yes, we all have been wronged. People in our lives, strangers and people we trusted have taken away our innocence, have taken our material possessions, have poisoned air and water which is our common heritage. All of this demands justice. But nursing our resentments, wishing evil upon our oppressors, this is not justice.

Justice requires amends, not obliteration. It requires mercy, not vengeance. I don’t believe in the doomsday scenarios of the Left Behind books. But I do believe that people can influence one another for good or for evil. And I believe in self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Jesus told a scandalous parable about the workers in the vineyard. Those who came early in the morning and worked all day received a full day’s pay and thanks from the master. Those who came at noon and worked the rest of the day received a full day’s pay and the thanks of the master. Those who showed up just before quittin’ time received a full day’s pay and thanks from the master.  The kingdom of God, he said, is like this.

But that’s not fair!! It’s like universalism – you don’t have to be good if everyone’s saved! Or, wait, it’s like fundamentalist christianity – you don’t have to be good, you just have to proclaim Jesus as your lord and savior at the last minute. Or wait, it’s like Catholicism, you don’t have to be good, you just have to go to confession to be absolved of your sins. It’s not fair! It’s not just.

These arguments are stupid. Why are they stupid? Because they imply that salvation is all that matters. Happily, I think that most Universalists and fundamentalist christians and Catholics have other things on their minds. We have common needs and concerns that transcend sick obsessions with the end of the world or personal salvation.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead teaches that one’s reincarnation state is determined by one’s frame of mind in the moment before death. Thus we must live at all times in calm mindfulness. As if we are about to die.

A liberal view is more stoic: we can accept the evils of the world as transitory. I don’t mean “accept” as in we are indifferent, but we don’t see evil as a fundamental concept, as a primary category of being, as if we know where it comes from and what it looks like and fantasize about eradicating it. Instead, we endure its inevitability while opposing the specific cases however we can.

Early universalism argued that suffering is transient and god will redeem even the worst sinner. Early unitarianism argued that ideas are transient and that open expression and examination of even the ugliest ideas will not hurt us – because truth will find its way forward. To maintain the optimistic kernel of these philosophies today takes great courage.

To maintain the optimistic kernel of these philosophies today takes a positive Universalism. Let’s go out and bless the world with it. While we’re here, while we can. Let’s continue to build for tomorrow.

SENDING SONG      We’ll Build A Land                     #121

BENEDICTION       

And how will we build such a land?

We will build on foundations we did not lay.[13]
We will sit in the shade of trees we did not plant.
We will drink from wells we did not dig.
We will benefit from lives known only through the tales of the elders.

 

Forever bound in community, we will build for those who come after us.

May we build with joy.