When Willow Creek Community Church was celebrating their 20th anniversary, I was a regular attendee. At a celebratory anniversary service, Bill Hybels, the head pastor, shared the story of how WCCC came into being. One of the main driving forces behind the founder’s efforts was the idea that so many people were facing an afterlife of eternal torment because they had not come to faith in Jesus Christ. I remember him talking about all night prayer sessions in which this issue brought people to tears and God was begged to allow everyone to hear and be open to his message of saving grace. And despite all the stereotypes about wishy-washy, doctrine-free mega-churches, every single service at WCCC included a plea to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior lest one spend eternity suffering complete separation from God in hell. Other non-denominational Evangelical churches I have attended also included this message in each and every service they held. It’s on their website. It’s part of their statement of belief. Members are told of their responsibility to spread this message to those around them – even if it makes them uncomfortable and unpopular. After all, a person’s eternity is at stake.

Now, if the doctrine of eternal hell were true, one would expect that the early church would put this message front and center in the evangelization efforts as well. Surely those closest to the events, who had access to the apostles or those taught directly by the apostles would recognize how important it was to let people know that they were facing an eternity of torment if they did not convert to Christianity. Surely these people who weren’t at the mercy of translations but were learning the faith in their native tongues would have responded to this teaching as strongly as we do today. And yet, this is simply not the case. In fact, any discussion of the afterlife in very early church writings are surprisingly hard to come by. Continue reading “From Greek to Latin and Grace to Condemnation”