I should know better. Really. But I just can't help myself. This kind of thing used to make me angry. I am a tad irked by the thought that someone would presume to know the Divine mind and plan so thoroughly as to declare, unequivocally, on the ultimate status of any individual.
Now, though, I think the entire project, while leaning toward an arrogance of faith, is also just silly and pointless. In the first place, there just isn't any Biblical support for the idea that we are going to hell unless we say a certain magic word or phrase. In fact, the whole idea that after we die we have only two choices as to where our "soul" goes is such a misreading of Christian eschatology, both personal and communal, that it would take far longer than I have desire to point out the glaring Biblical errors. Also, I don't do that kind of thing anyway; that's Neil's metier, and I'll leave it to him.
In the end, whether it's Ghandi, or Mother Teresa (another fundie target for "She sews socks in Hell!"), or whomever - even me! - the whole idea is unbiblical and, in the end (for me, at least) uninteresting. If after I die there's the whole tunnel thing, or perhaps a pit opening up beneath my feet, I might have a "thought" that I was wrong before facing whatever awaits me. For the most part, though, these kinds of things really don't interest me. Jesus Christ did not come in to this world, teach, suffer, die, and rise from the dead in order to secure for Neil, or Mohandas Ghandi, or me, or anyone else, a place in "Heaven"; the denial of Christ, or an insouciance concerning his person or work, is not a one-way ticket to "Hell". None of this has anything at all to do with who Jesus was and is, what the Biblical message of salvation is really about, or the call to serve the coming of the Kingdom of God.
That there is still so much of this kind of thing out there only shows that it is still possible to waste all sorts of time an energy on the contemporary equivalent of angels dancing on needles.
All this means, I suppose, to someone like Neil, that I am not only a false teacher, but obstinate in my falseness. At least I haven't blasphemed the Holy Spirit.
Yet.
Virtual Tin Cup
