A free download of their PDF book on the Biblical basis (or lack thereof)
of an eternal hell of conscious torment.
I think one thing that would help this debate is to realize that the Bible doesn't
speak of eternal hell where terrible people are consigned to simply because they do bad things and reject Jesus.
SDAs believe in the annihilation of the wicked
instead of an eternal hell, and believe that Christians who die enter a state of soul sleep and that a person must observe the Saturday Sabbath in order to be saved.
Quite apart from the fact that
talk of eternal hell insults our modernity, we reject the hell talk of Jesus because we reject the right of anyone — son of man or son of God — to speak to us in such terms.
Indeed, many of the arguments for women in the pastorate are also often applied to allowing gay marriage, supporting sex outside of marriage, denying the
existence of eternal hell etc...
Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the
flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story.»
The
idea of an eternal hell as a punishment for the wicked certainly is scary, for instance, but the Church sees itself as only passing on what Jesus taught.
While preaching to a large crowd, he proclaimed:» Thou shalt not tax and spend thy brothers or ye shall suffer the
pains of eternal hell....
I think that the next step for pope Francis would be to recognize that the
concept of eternal hell is also completely incompatible with the love of God.