Hell Cools Down
OR How the Church of England Filled the Great Divide
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Church of England, however, is beginning to wonder if maybe you can't get there from here. The church's Doctrine Commission this past spring released a 200 page document entitled The Mystery of Salvation which affirms first that hell exists, second that every human can choose hell, and third that, "Hell may be a state of non-being, but not a state of eternal punishment." Translated this means that hell is a place where you go if you so choose and when you get there you won't be there because you won't be, maybe. One thing they're quite sure of is that it won't be so bad.

Thus far the report is "non-binding." I would suggest it's downright cozy; any less binding and it would be a blanket, a big asbestos one to quench hell's unquenchable fire. Perhaps the Anglicans will eventually send this document back to the real pit from which it came. Perhaps they will embrace it. Probably, though they will do what the PCUSA did with its controversial (and equally appalling) sexuality report a few years ago, send it back for further study, i.e. send it into doctrinal purgatory.

It was the Anglican C.S. Lewis who said that the problem with the atheist is not that he'll believe nothing, it's that he'll believe anything. The same could be said of England's cassocked modernist clergy. Once you jettison the authority of Scripture, and treat your forbears as ignorant, superstitious rubes, you are left affirming all kinds of hooey. If Scripture will give no definitive answer as to the fate of the unbelieving, well then we'll have to make something up. And if you're going to make something up, at least make it pleasant. One gets the feeling from reading their tortured syntax that they only affirmed hell's reality not as a sop to the Bible believers but so as not to offend the Satanists.

Wise men however, turn to the Word. It tells us that it is our source for wisdom. It wisely warns us that its wisdom will be called folly by the world. It warns further that it is in our nature to long for the approval of the world. We have, we do and we will long for the applause of men. How the Anglicans must be satisfied now that they have jettisoned the repugnant doctrine of hell. How they must drink in the roaring cheers of the worldly, except that the world has been largely silent. Showing up at the modernist party a hundred years late will not garner the church any fanfare. The world has responded with a yawn.

The Word is also crystal clear in its affirmation of eternal torment for those who despise God. The church has not been misled by an unclear teaching in Scripture for the last 2000 years.

As with the issue of birth control, when "Christians" start changing the rules millennia into the game, you can bet they're just playing catch-up with the world.

Jonathan Edwards, when asked what God was doing before He created His world replied, "Creating hell for the curious." I fear he had it wrong; hell is for the dubious, those who doubt the very Word of God. I fear that those who fear to trust in God, those who balk at being considered fools by the wise of this world, that they are headed for destruction.

I fear that those who would mute the wrath of God are in truth worshipping a god who is mute, and provoking to wrath the God who has spoken. And I fear that God has prepared a special place for those who at the same time deny that He has spoken and yet presume to speak for Him.

And I fear for the thousands of us who would never deny that hell is real, but who nonetheless give it not its due. Hell is real. Hell is crowded with the anguishing souls of fools. And hell is yet very young, and shall live on into eternity. Fools die for want, of wisdom. And He who wins souls is wise.