Why Don’t Most Churches Teach The Bible?

           The Bible should be studied, not read. Unless the Bible is studied, its rich content cannot be understood. The Bible is the Word of God; the 66 books that make up the Bible belong to different genres, or types, of text (Narrative, Poetry, Wisdom, Prophecy, Gospels, Epistles, and Apocalypse). One cannot understand poetry as he/she understands a narrative. Hence the need to study the Bible gains greater credibility.  

            Christians’ faith in God and their relationship with God is always consistent with the extent and intensity of their Bible study. It’s more likely that the Christians’ relationship with God be deeper and better if their study of the Bible is rigorous. This is a no-brainer.

            The term ‘churches’ in the title refers only to those churches subscribing to Historic Christianity. Hence, it does not include the postmodern, the liberal, the progressive or the emergent churches. So the title, “Why Don’t Most Churches Teach The Bible?” incriminates only those churches subscribing to Historic Christianity that do not teach the Bible.

            Quite a few churches take great effort to teach the Bible to its members. These churches preach from the Bible and they conduct sincere and intense Bible study programs. Blessed are those who utilize these opportunities to study the Bible. Even those worshipping in such churches are blessed because they have a convenient opportunity to study the Bible.

            However, many churches do not teach the Bible to its members. Hence, those worshipping in these churches are deprived of an opportunity to study the Bible.

Why Don’t Churches Teach The Bible?

            Indifferent Pastor: The pastor is the leader of the church. If the pastor is not keen on teaching the Bible to its members, then, more often than not, the church would not teach the Bible.

            There are many reasons for a pastor to be indifferent towards teaching the Bible. A pastor may not have the time to prepare for the Bible study or he may have other priorities. But the fact remains that he is indifferent to the importance of Bible study, hence his church does not focus on teaching the Bible to its members.

            Institutional Church: If the church remains bogged down in a package of programs, committees, policies, team, ministries, initiatives, budgets and events, then the church may be an institutional church or on its way to being one. There’s nothing different between this church and an organization.

            A church is an institutional church when its primary agenda is in the material, and not in the spiritual. Such a church would not be interested in Bible study since it is not interested in the spiritual growth of its members. Instead, the church would be scrupulously interested in its material growth (number of people attending the church, increased offering, and the likes).

            Ignorant Members: The Bible is filled with unpleasant truths. For instance, the Bible unequivocally states that unless a person believes in Christ, he/she cannot inherit eternal life. But a convenient lie to mask this unpleasant truth is that God saves everyone – those who believe in Christ and those who do not. This convenient lie is the doctrine of universalism or inclusivism.

            There are churches that choose to not preach the unpleasant truths. Instead, they preach the convenient lie. Such a church would rather let its members remain ignorant of the Bible. An ignorant mind cannot distinguish between a lie and the truth so it will accept the convenient lie as the truth. Hence the church leadership will have an easy time preaching the convenient lies.

            Intimacy With Culture: If the church prefers to be intimate with the popular culture, then it will refrain from teaching the Bible. However, the Bible consistently opposes the popular culture.

            If the popular idea is to accept homosexuality, a church that desires to be intimate with the culture would approve and endorse homosexuality. Such a church would not desire to teach the Bible since the Bible is explicit in its condemnation of homosexuality.

What About Small Group Bible Study?

            Some churches promote small groups within their congregation to teach the Bible. How effective are these small groups?

            Small group Bible studies can be very effective if there is a strong leader to lead the Bible study. Any small group will be effective only if the leader excels in teaching the Bible and guiding the Bible study.

            A temptation the devil throws at the small group Bible studies is to morph it into a social group where friendships, business collaborations, and whatnot, are cultivated diligently. Small group Bible studies will always need to fight the good fight to remain a Bible study group instead of morphing into a social outfit.

            Small group Bible study would also do better if it manages its time effectively. Any effective Bible study requires a minimum of 60 minutes to a maximum of 90 minutes per session.

            Bible study should consume the entire 60-90 minutes. Singing, prayer etc. should be outside this time. Anything less than 60-90 minutes for Bible study cannot lead to an effective study.

            The small group Bible study should meet every week. Apart from meeting every week, there should be homework for the participants to keep them engaged in the study during the week.

What If You Are Worshipping In A Church That Does Not Focus On Bible Study?

            Approach your church leadership and request them to begin a Bible study program. If they do not implement your sustained request, then you are probably left without an option but to look out for a private Bible study program or another church. 

Biblical Illiteracy Is Hurting Christians Big Time

            Almost every Christian home owns a Bible, but how many Christians actually read the Bible? Statistics reveal very poor results! Majority of Christians do not read their Bible.

            It seems Christians do not have an urge or a desire to read the Bible. That deep desire to read and study the Bible seems to be lost in time.

            Here’s another perspective. If a lay Christian is in conversation with his Muslim friend about Jesus, it is exceedingly possible that the Muslim friend knows more about the Bible than the Christian. This is the plight of Christians today.

            An article in Christianity Today, authored by Ed Stetzer, emphasizes the problem of biblical illiteracy with facts:¹

Christians claim to believe the Bible is God's Word. We claim it's God's divinely inspired, inerrant message to us. Yet despite this, we aren't reading it. A recent LifeWay Research study found only 45 percent of those who regularly attend church read the Bible more than once a week. Over 40 percent of the people attending read their Bible occasionally, maybe once or twice a month. Almost 1 in 5 churchgoers say they never read the Bible—essentially the same number who read it every day.

Because we don't read God's Word, it follows that we don't know it. To understand the effects, we can look to statistics of another Western country: the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom Bible Society surveyed British children and found many could not identify common Bible stories. When given a list of stories, almost 1 in 3 didn't choose the Nativity as part of the Bible and over half (59 percent) didn't know that Jonah being swallowed by the great fish is in the Bible.

British parents didn't do much better. Around 30 percent of parents don't know Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, or the Good Samaritan are in the Bible. To make matters worse, 27 percent think Superman is or might be a biblical story. More than 1 in 3 believes the same about Harry Potter. And more than half (54 percent) believe The Hunger Games is or might be a story from the Bible.

            Biblical illiteracy is an epidemic that continues to soar. It is not limited to the USA or UK. This is a worldwide phenomenon. Biblical illiteracy may even be prevalent in our homes.

            Why should we read the Bible? If we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then as God’s people, we ought to know God’s Word. Significantly, God has commanded us to learn HIS Word.

            Today, we have unlimited access to the Bible, yet we do not read it. An article from Biola University reveals why we should read the Bible:²

In the book of Amos, people who experienced a “famine of hearing the words of the Lord” are portrayed as undergoing divine judgment. Amos paints a picture of people without access to God’s revelation searching for a message from God like desperate people — hungry and dehydrated — in search of food and water (Amos 8:11–12). In Amos they want it, but are not permitted it. In our case, although we have unlimited access, we often don’t want it…

When God commissioned Joshua (the son of Nun), he charged him with these words: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it” (Josh. 1:8). How often should you meditate on it? Day and night. Why? So that you do what is in it.

The Old Testament book of Psalms leads off with these words:

          Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. (Ps. 1:1–3)

And in another psalm: “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Ps. 119:97). Have you ever wondered how it could be his meditation all the day? The psalmist didn’t have the Bible on his smart phone. Did he carry around a big scroll under his arm? No, he had memorized the passages he was meditating on and was thinking about them. He had committed large sections of the Bible to memory…

Are you aware that the New Testament authors included in their writings more than 300 direct quotations from the Old Testament writers — not counting hundreds of other allusions and echoes of Old Testament language? There is no evidence that any of these authors actually looked up the references as they wrote. They simply knew their Bibles — that is, the parts of the Bible that had already been written. How did they come to know it so well? They worked on it “day and night.” They saturated themselves in it. (Emphasis Mine).

            What are the effects of Biblical illiteracy? Ed Stetzer says that those who do not read the Bible could easily be deceived by the plethora of false doctrines that are in vogue today, “…Our lack of biblical literacy has led to a lack of biblical doctrine. LifeWay Research found that while 67 percent of Americans believe heaven is a real place, 45 percent believe there are many ways to get there—including 1 in 5 evangelical Christians. More than half of evangelicals (59 percent) believe the Holy Spirit is a force and not a personal being—in contrast to the orthodox biblical teaching of the Trinity being three Persons in one God. As a whole, Americans, including many Christians, hold unbiblical views on hell, sin, salvation, Jesus, humanity, and the Bible itself.”³

            If we do not know the biblical doctrine, we could believe in any false doctrine as if it were the biblical doctrine. The danger of not knowing the truth is that we could believe in falsehood as if it were the truth. Truth cannot contain even a speck of falsehood in it. But falsehood could have one or more strands of the truth. However, falsehood will remain a falsehood despite the presence of one or more strands of the truth.

            How could we recognize a false doctrine when we are oblivious to the truth? Unless the truth is in us, we can never identify a false doctrine. If we do not read the Bible, we would not know the truth. This is the primary reason why so many Christians believe in false doctrines. 

            What are the churches doing? Churches are one of the most significant reasons for this debacle says Albert Mohler, “Christians who lack biblical knowledge are the products of churches that marginalize biblical knowledge. Bible teaching now often accounts for only a diminishing fraction of the local congregation’s time and attention. The move to small group ministry has certainly increased opportunities for fellowship, but many of these groups never get beyond superficial Bible study.

            Youth ministries are asked to fix problems, provide entertainment, and keep kids busy. How many local-church youth programs actually produce substantial Bible knowledge in young people?

            Even the pulpit has been sidelined in many congregations. Preaching has taken a back seat to other concerns in corporate worship. The centrality of biblical preaching to the formation of disciples is lost, and Christian ignorance leads to Christian indolence and worse.” (Emphasis Mine).⁴

            How do we overcome this biblical illiteracy epidemic? Those who haven’t read the Bible tend to think that Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple! Unless we read the Bible, we cannot think and believe in the truth.

            Albert Mohler believes that the ball is in our court i.e. the Christian’s court:⁵

This really is our problem, and it is up to this generation of Christians to reverse course. Recovery starts at home. Parents are to be the first and most important educators of their own children, diligently teaching them the Word of God. [See Deuteronomy 6:4-9.] Parents cannot franchise their responsibility to the congregation, no matter how faithful and biblical it may be. God assigned parents this non-negotiable responsibility, and children must see their Christian parents as teachers and fellow students of God’s Word.

Churches must recover the centrality and urgency of biblical teaching and preaching, and refuse to sideline the teaching ministry of the preacher. Pastors and churches too busy–or too distracted–to make biblical knowledge a central aim of ministry will produce believers who simply do not know enough to be faithful disciples.

We will not believe more than we know, and we will not live higher than our beliefs. The many fronts of Christian compromise in this generation can be directly traced to biblical illiteracy in the pews and the absence of biblical preaching and teaching in our homes and churches.

This generation must get deadly serious about the problem of biblical illiteracy, or a frighteningly large number of Americans–Christians included–will go on thinking that Sodom and Gomorrah lived happily ever after.

            Finally and more importantly, let’s not blame our parents or our churches for not teaching us the Bible. Let’s blame ourselves.

            Unless we have a great love and a burning desire to read and study the Bible, we would not listen to our parents or our church leaders, even if they teach us the Bible. If we do not read our Bible, our love for the Lord our God is seriously lacking. So if we do not read the Bible, then let us repent of our sin and begin to read and study God’s Word.

Endnotes:

¹https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2015/july/epidemic-of-bible-illiteracy-in-our-churches.html

²http://magazine.biola.edu/article/14-spring/the-crisis-of-biblical-illiteracy/

³https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2015/july/epidemic-of-bible-illiteracy-in-our-churches.html

⁴https://albertmohler.com/2016/01/20/the-scandal-of-biblical-illiteracy-its-our-problem-4/

⁵Ibid.

Is Abusing Children Sexually A Spiritual Encounter With God? Identifying & Responding To Fake News

            What do you do when a church leader describes sexual abuse of children as a spiritual encounter with God? What do we do when abuses against the Christian church goes viral on the internet?

            Recently a news flash accusing the Archbishop of the Catholic Church went viral on the internet. Apparently, this man claimed that Pedophilia Is ‘Spiritual Encounter With God:’¹

One of the highest-ranking officials in the Catholic Church says sexually abused children can experience “a spiritual encounter with God through the priest” while being molested.

Australia’s most powerful clergy, Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart, says the Catholic practice of confession is satisfactory for dealing with pedophilia in the church as it helps priests absolve “their own guilt” after sexually abusing children.

Asked whether he was prepared to be jailed for failing to report child sex abuse by Catholic pedophile priests, Archbishop Hart confirmed he was willing to serve prison time.  He also claimed the right to cover for pedophiles in the church is an “absolutely sacrosanct communication of a higher order.“

He made the shocking statement in response to the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which stated there should be “no excuse, protection nor privilege” for Catholic clergy who failed to alert police of abuse within the church.

But Archbishop Hart disagreed and insisted that sexual abuse was “a spiritual encounter with God through the priest” and was “of a higher order” than criminal law.

            Online news is gaining popularity. Harvard University quotes Pew Research Center’s finding that “people under age 50 get half of their news online. And for those under 30, online news is twice as popular as TV news.”² But not everything that we read online is factual.

            Let us be diligent when we encounter derogatory news against Christianity. Beware of fake news websites and the detractors of Historic Christianity, whose intent is to spread lies in order to abuse Christians and Christianity.

            In fact, the news about the Archbishop of the Catholic Church is fake/false news. Take time to verify the credibility of the news that you read. Do not share anything and everything that you read. Respond only to the credible news items.

            There are quite a few fact-checking websites that identify fake news; some of which are:

            (1) www.snopes.com

            (2) HoaxSlayer.com

            (3) TruthOrFiction.com

            These fact-checking websites will enable us to verify the high-profile and international news. These websites may not be of much help in verifying the credibility of the local news – local church politics, accusations against your church leaders etc. Double-check or triple-check your local news with credible sources.

            Snopes.com has determined the news about the Australian Archbishop as fake, “Fake news web sites gave a blatantly manufactured account of a statement by Archbishop Denis Hart.” Furthermore, Snopes offers a detailed description of this fake news:³

In 2017, after a five-year investigation into child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Australia, a specially-appointed Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse published their findings.

The report included a section on criminal justice reform, including a recommendation that clergy members become legally-mandated reporters of abuse, even if they obtain the information during the rite of confession.

The notorious fake news web site Neon Nettle reported that Archbishop Denis Hart, a leading member of the Catholic hierarchy in Australia, had rejected the confessional proposal and shockingly, described sexual abuse as a spiritual encounter:

Australia’s most powerful clergy [member], Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart, says he’s prepared to be jailed for failing to report child sex abuse by pedophile priests. He made the shocking statement in response to the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse saying there should be “no excuse, protection nor privilege” for clergy who failed to alert police of abuse.

Hart insisted that sexual abuse was “a spiritual encounter with God through the priest” and was “of a higher order” than criminal law.

Neon Nettle correctly reported that the commission recommended “that there should be no excuse, protection nor privilege in relation to religious confessions” when it comes to the legal obligation to report suspected child abuse.

However, the claim that Archbishop Hart called sexual abuse a “spiritual encounter with God” is blatantly false. Despite that detail, the claim has been the basis of many subsequent republications and reiterations of Neon Nettle’s article — including one published by the equally dubious YourNewsWire.com — in February 2018.

In reality, Archbishop Hart said that confession, not sexual abuse, was “a spiritual encounter with God through the priest.” In a statement released in August 2017, Hart wrote:

Confession in the Catholic Church is a spiritual encounter with God through the priest. It is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion, and it is recognised in the Law of Australia and many other countries. It must remain so here in Australia. Outside of this all offences against children must be reported to the authorities, and we are absolutely committed to doing so.

It is true, however, that Archbishop Hart told Australian media that he would be willing to face criminal conviction and go to jail rather than report to police information about abuse that he had received in confession:

When asked if he would go to jail to uphold the sanctity of the confessional, the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, told ABC Radio Melbourne he would.

“I’ve said that I would [go to jail.] I believe that this is an absolutely sacrosanct communication of a higher order.”

Archbishop Hart denied suggestions priests would be above the law.

“I would go to extreme lengths outside of the confessional to make sure that the law was observed,” he said. “But there are some matters which are of a higher order, things to do with God.”

In its proposal to change Australian law and remove the confessional exemption from the obligation to report child sexual abuse, the Royal Commission said the right to religious freedom is “not absolute,” and should be limited in the interests of public safety:

We understand the significance of religious confession — in particular, the inviolability of the confessional seal to people of some faiths, particularly the Catholic faith. However, we heard evidence of a number of instances where disclosures of child sexual abuse were made in religious confession, by both victims and perpetrators.

We are satisfied that confession is a forum where Catholic children have disclosed their sexual abuse and where clergy have disclosed their abusive behaviour in order to deal with their own guilt. We heard evidence that perpetrators who confessed to sexually abusing children went on to reoffend and seek forgiveness again.

…We have concluded that the importance of protecting children from child sexual abuse means that there should be no exemption from the failure to report offence for clergy in relation to information disclosed in or in connection with a religious confession.

            To conclude, the Internet allows the presence of the good, bad, and ugly. As diligent Christians, we should verify the credibility of every [contentious] news item we encounter on the internet and then respond appropriately. Let us not waste our precious time and energy in responding to the fake news on the internet and in the process let us not slander the names and reputations of organizations and individuals who have been falsely accused.  

Endnotes:

¹http://yournewswire.com/catholic-archbishop-pedophilia-god/

²https://www.summer.harvard.edu/inside-summer/4-tips-spotting-fake-news-story

³https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/archbishop-pedophilia-spiritual-encounter/            

No Hell, Pope?

            Pope Francis has a penchant to be embroiled in controversies.

            In an interview published on March 28, 2018, Pope told his longtime atheist friend, Eugenio Scalfari that there is no hell. He also claimed that the condemned souls just disappear, “In another interview with his longtime atheist friend, Eugenio Scalfari, Pope Francis claims that Hell does not exist and that condemned souls just "disappear." This is a denial of the 2,000-year-old teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of Hell and the eternal existence of the soul.

            The interview between Scalfari and the Pope was published March 28, 2018 in La Repubblica. The relevant section on Hell was translated by the highly respected web log, Rorate Caeli.”¹

            This, apparently, is the transcript of Pope Francis’ interview with Scalfari, “Scalfari says to the Pope, "Your Holiness, in our previous meeting you told me that our species will disappear in a certain moment and that God, still out of his creative force, will create new species. You have never spoken to me about the souls who died in sin and will go to hell to suffer it for eternity. You have however spoken to me of good souls, admitted to the contemplation of God. But what about bad souls? Where are they punished?"

            Pope Francis says, “They are not punished, those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and enter the rank of souls who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls."”²

            Quite immediately, on March 29, 2018, the Vatican debunked this report, “In a statement released on Mar. 29, after Scalfari's report garnered worldwide attention, the Vatican said:

            "The Holy Father Francis recently received the founder of the newspaper La Repubblica in a private meeting on the occasion of Easter, without however giving him any interviews. What is reported by the author in today’s article [in La Repubblica] is the result of his reconstruction, in which the textual words pronounced by the Pope are not quoted. No quotation of the aforementioned article must therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father."”³

            Whether the Pope believes in hell or not is not the matter at hand. Hell, if it exists, would not cease to exist just because Pope Francis does not believe in it.

            But hell should exist because God is a just and a loving God. Consider my thoughts from a previous blog entitled, ‘Hell In The Presence Of A Loving God:’⁴

We believe a loving God would not send HIS children, even under the pretext of unbelief, to eternal torment. How would a loving parent gift his child with prolonged suffering? Would the parent not do all within his means to prevent this horrendous occurrence? This is our painful dilemma. In other words, we question the credibility of God’s love with respect to hell.

True love respects and educates, but never enslaves. A parent who truly loves his child will educate him of good and evil. A parent will do “everything” within his power and will to stop the child from pursuing evil, but that “everything” excludes enslaving his child. If a child is bent on pursuing the path of evil, the parent will choose preventive actions, but will never imprison the child into solitary confinement. The circumstantially handicapped parent may opt to allow the child to have his way; this is the respect the parent shows to the disobedient child’s cognizant volition. A defeated and emotionally fatigued parent will allow the child to continue in willful disobedience. Nevertheless, the parents’ love for the child will never diminish even if the child willfully rebels to disobey.

The father of the prodigal son not only heeds to the property share request of the son, but he goes a step further by not preventing his son from departing to a distant country with his share of wealth (Luke 15:12-13). The son willfully disobeys the loving father, and departs. The loving father expectantly longs for his son’s return and when he does return, the father rushes to welcome the son even before he repents. This is father’s love. A parent’s love will never cease and always hope for the best, but at the same time, a parent’s love will respect the child’s conscious decision.

Was it not C.S Lewis who opined that there are two groups of people in this world of which one group would acknowledge and believe in Christ, bend their knees to HIM and say ‘Your will be done,’ and God would have this group living with HIM unto eternity (in heaven). To the other group who refuse to acknowledge and believe in Christ and bend their knees to God, HE will say ‘your will be done’ and grant them their wish to be away from HIM (in hell). God keeps those who desire to be with HIM, but respects and allows those who reject HIM to be away from HIM. This is true love – a love that provides all, but refuses to enslave. (Please remember the Bible’s proclamation that God has given mankind enough evidence to believe in HIM.)

Let’s travel back to the creation account in Genesis. God placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of it (Genesis 2:9, 16-17). Even though it was a command, Adam and Eve were given the freedom to accept or reject God’s command. Thus God exhibited true love, and HE desires mankind to love HIM. True love can only exist in the conscious reality of freedom. Freedom to accept or reject the lover is intrinsic in true love. Therefore, God’s love for mankind warrants the presence of heaven and hell.

God’s justice can also be questioned with respect to hell. How can a just God eternally punish HIS children for the sin of unbelief committed during the specific period of time of their existence in this world? Isn’t the eternal punishment disproportionate to the sin committed in time? This is another painful predicament we struggle with.

Human life was designed to be with God unto eternity through mutual love. Sin separated man and God. God, in HIS foreknowledge, designed a way out of this predicament through the one time sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. HE has also done everything for mankind to believe in HIM, so mankind will be without excuse against God. When man refuses to believe in Christ and thereby rejects God, God simply allows man to be away from HIM unto eternity. In other words, the creational intent is an eternal fellowship with God or an eternal banishment from God. Mankind makes the choice, and God honors that choice. This is Justice. Therefore, God’s justice warrants heaven and hell.

            We could consider this theme from another perspective as well. Consider my thoughts from a previous blog entitled, ‘Why The Hell:’⁵

Instead of asking “why should there be a hell?” we could ask “what would happen if there is no hell?”

So if there is no hell, there would be…

No Punishment & No Justice

Hell is the perfect punishment for evil. Since evil exists, punishment should prevail. If there is no hell, there will be no perfect punishment for evil…

Sovereignty of Evil

Evil people prosper in this time and age (cf. Psalm 73: 3). If evil people prosper, the weak and innocent would suffer deeply…When evil rules, evil would be the superior moral. If there is no consequence for evil deeds i.e. if there is no hell, good cannot be the superior moral (good need not be stronger than evil). If evil rules over good, evil would be the sole standard for life. Hence evil will pulverize the good.   

Amoral World

…If evil is sovereign, this world would be amoral (evil would be the only superlative moral). Wouldn’t morality cease when the right-wrong moral distinction is erased?  

…Predicated on the fact that life is more valuable than materials, it might be of less significance to the victim and the society if a thief who robbed a pen was not convicted of his crime. But it is of a great significance if a murderer of a child remains unpunished for his crime.

The thief who habitually steals pens could progressively deteriorate into robbing millions. During this progressive deterioration, the thief could also become a killer. Thus the possibilities for the lesser evil to transform into greater evil are endless…If evil rules, violence would be rampant and peace would cease, for the world we live in would be amoral.

God’s Non-Existence

A world without hell could only be postulated under the condition that God does not exist i.e. an atheistic paradigm. It is very reasonable for evil to prosper and justice and peace to be non-existent in the atheistic worldview.

The atheistic paradigm would not (or cannot) offer any reasonable or logical answers to the problem of evil. Such is the moral bankruptcy of atheism.

Ask an atheist to explain the presence of evil. More often than not, they would quote Richard Dawkins in his work “River Out of Eden” and say “there is no such thing as evil.”…So an atheist who denies God’s existence will deny evil and will deny hell. He has no other option. So if there is no hell, there is no god.

Conclusion

If there is no hell, then:

1. Evil would be unpunished.

2. Evil would be sovereign (rule over good).

3. World would be amoral.

4. There should be no God (for hell is only plausible if God exists).

But this is the existential reality…We are not living in a world where evil is sovereign. We are living in a world where God is sovereign. Although Satan is the temporary ruler of this world, the sovereign God is in total control.

We know that God is in total control since our world is not amoral. There are punishments for evils. Evil does not rule over good. 

Good still rules over evil. This is precisely why a good number of people enjoy a rather peaceful existence. The presence of God entails peace.

God has temporarily allowed evil to reign. But HE has assured us that not a hair from our head will perish.

God is good. God does not tolerate evil.

If we repent of our sins, believe and remain in the Lord and Savior Christ, we will be saved. Those who do not believe in Christ remain evil, since their sins remain unforgiven because of their conscious rejection of Christ.

Such an evil person sins against an infinite God. Sins against an infinite God mandate an infinite punishment in the form of hell. Hell then is the eternal abode of all those who reject Christ.

In case you have not received Christ yet, please pray and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your God and savior. I pray that you repent of your sins and ask Christ to forgive you. The merciful and loving Lord will forgive you and you will be with God forever and ever. I pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.

Endnotes:

¹https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/pope-francis-there-no-hell?utm_source=sumome&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=sumome_share

²Ibid.

³Ibid.

⁴http://rajkumarrichard.blogspot.in/2013/02/hell-in-presence-of-loving-god.html

⁵http://rajkumarrichard.blogspot.in/2016/02/why-hell.html

Websites last accessed on 6 April 2018.