Two Misconceptions That Lead Some to Reject the Idea of Hell

God as Judge There was a very famous secular philosopher, an atheist by the name of Bertrand Russell, who wrote a number of things in the twentieth century against Christianity. He had many complaints about Christianity and about the existence of the Christian God. But when it came to the person of Jesus, he was generally favorable, and he liked many things about Jesus. But there’s one thing that Bertrand Russell did not like about Jesus and that he objected to in this core resistance to the person of Christ. He said that the thing that Jesus said that bothered him the most is that Jesus believed in a place called hell. In other words, Jesus believed that God would eventually judge those who were rebellious and operate against him. And Bertrand Russell has a view that a lot of people have today, which is that Christianity seems like it could be okay, except for the idea that God would judge sinful people. How could he ever do that? That seems so cruel and so mean. And people will say things like, The God of the Bible seems to be sadistic, and my God would never do something like that. Surviving Religion 101 Michael J. Kruger Writing in the form of a letter to his college-age daught...