What happened to hell?

Current media, local and national, is filled with reports about our society’s problems dealing with criminal activity. Iris and I were discussing this and I wondered if some of the problem is the lack of religious influence. I was not talking about any particular religion because most of them have integral teachings about right and wrong, something akin to the “Golden Rule.”

Having been raised in a moderately religious family and school environment, it was well understood that bad behavior carried the potential for far worse punishment than a mere spanking or standing in the corner. Negative? Sure! It was bad enough with Santa Claus snooping around, but then there was God. This matter was a column in spring of 1986. There is truth here:

“REPENT! Repent you sinners while there is yet time. The devil is after your soul. Turn to the paths of righteousness … or you will burn forever in the depths of hell.”

That is “hellfire and brimstone preachin’.” We older folks have heard it all our lives. Those terrifying phrases were touted by preachers who thumped their Bibles and broadcast “the message” from the backs of wagons, from pulpits and then over radio. Now those colorful evangelists are scarce. The ones left on TV spend more time begging for coin than saving souls and a majority are in trouble. Oral Roberts’ basketball team did not make the finals this year.

What has gone wrong? It is harder and harder for even the best Bible thumpers to scare HELL out of people anymore. Gone are once popular paintings and drawings of a grinning, horned devil with his pitchfork and pointy tail. As a tad, just the thought of what the devil used that pitchfork for, would make me behave for days at a time.

Once when I was 7, I got caught snitching rhubarb from Mrs. Burgess’ yard. She said the devil was going to get me if I did that again. The coming years will see more and more rhubarb being ripped off and what can we do? The average modern kid is more afraid of losing the headphones off his Walkman than he is of the devil.

The big Christian churches aren’t helping matters. Their theologians are softening church views regarding damnation. Most are turning their backs on the picturesque concept of unsaved sinners sitting around in underground caverns where flames scorch their butts while they sniff brimstone for a trillion years. The Latter Day Saints, a relatively new religion, never preached that vision of hell, and now the Catholics are backing off. Writing in a recent Lutheran magazine, religious historian Martin Marty says, “hellfire and damnation” have “lost their wallop to cause trembling.” He never checked with me.

Marty’s article is entitled, “What Ever Happened to Hell?” and it says that specific details of purgatory are purely speculation, unsupported by scriptures, and modern scholars are being forced to give up that image of the hereafter.

Dante, the 13th century Italian poet, earned eternal fame for his Divine Comedy, “The Inferno,” wherein he toured all the dwelling places of the damned. The German genius, Goethe, wrote a story of Faust who sold his soul to the devil for a life of sensual pleasure, then Gounod made it into a popular opera. We stand to lose all that scary stuff.

The Bible may not get down to specifics about hell and the devil, but remember … it does tell of the archangel Lucifer being booted out by God for getting loud-mouthed and insubordinate. Lucifer is not the kind of guy you want headin’ up your boy scout troop. He’s probably out there now and not being in Civil Service, is working overtime, promoting evil.

If I catch any kids stealing my rhubarb I’ll tell ‘em Lucifer is going to get ‘em. If that doesn’t work I’ll squirt the hose in their ghetto blasters. 

We may be losing the fiery purgatory, but there are still several kinds of hell around.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning columnist for Hungry Horse News. He lives in Kalispell.