I have recently become a fan of Dr. Glenn Peoples. Glenn is a contributor to Rethinking Hell and also hosts the podcast and writes the blog found at rightreason.org.
Dr. Peoples and the team at Rethinking Hell are Evangelical Christians who believe and defend conditional mortality. They believe the Bible does not teach that the soul is inherently immortal and that well, the soul that sinneth shall surely die.
For me growing up in fundamentalist churches the idea of Hell as eternal conscious torment was a given. It was also a given that one way to find yourself there is by listening to rock music, especially heavy metal! When I found out that Dr. Peoples was also responsible for the kick ass theme song for Rethinking Hell and several other podcasts I laughed out loud. I also could hear (in my head) the fundamentalist preachers from my youth making a connection between the music and being deceived by the lie of denying Hell.
So I thought it would be interesting to see if Dr. Peoples is really deceived and if possibly the heavy metal music was the deception that lead to this heretical view of Hell or did this erroneous view of Hell lead him to heavy metal. So with fear and trembling, here we go!
Did you always believe in conditional mortality or did you ever believe in Hell as eternal conscious torment?
Great to talk to you Mike! No, I certainly didn’t always see things this way. I was raised in the Catholic Church and until I was into my teenage years I had begun to form what I would consider very standard, orthodox Catholic views about things because of the teaching I received: Our souls don’t die but our bodies do, and when you die (I would have said that the soul was really “you,” so I didn’t really think that “you die,” but you know what I mean) your soul goes to purgatory, heaven, or hell. I believed in the resurrection too. It was part of the creed but I never really heard much talk about it.
When I first heard that there was another way that some Christians thought about hell, and that they didn’t believe in eternal torment but they thought that some people would die forever and that would be the end of them, I didn’t want to accept it. It ran contrary to everything I had thought about hell for my whole life and I had never heard an alternative view mentioned. I rejected it outright until somebody lent me a book that explored this point of view and – quite in spite of myself – I at least came to accept that it was a serious possibility. I was about seventeen at that stage I think. After that I didn’t rush out and become a crusader for this view, but over the next few years as I revisited what the Bible had to say about it more and more, I became convinced.
It seems that sometimes non-traditional views are really derived from extra biblical sources or some mixture of odd belief systems. For example – At Johns church they are foot washing, Calvinist, post millennial, dual rapture followers of a 16th century snake handling mystic, so obviously they don’t baptize red heads. Is your view a combination of outside belief systems you are imposing onto the Bible or can your view of conditional mortality be derived sola Scriptura?
I’m often struck, actually, by the way that some Evangelicals approach not just this subject, but virtually any subject in theology, where they will say something like “Well here’s one view that these Christians over here hold, and there’s another view that those Christians over there hold, but I prefer to just go with what the Bible says,” as though believing the Bible is something that never occurs to people in other traditions. All of us within the broadly conservative, orthodox Christian faith think that our beliefs reflect what the Bible teaches, or at least we hope they do. At the same time, we’re all influenced by social and cultural factors whether we wish to be or not, and I think the modern Evangelical culture has a huge influence on the way a lot of Evangelicals think about hell and on their conviction that the traditional view of hell is biblical – after all, there’s a large, loud and massed published Evangelical culture all around them saying that it’s biblical, so it must be! The truth is that it’s very hard to know the degree to which cultural, social, historical etc factors have influenced the way we read Scripture.
That being said, I think the biblical evidence for conditional immortality is simply overwhelming, and the only reason I came to adopt this view is that I was struck by that evidence, and also by the realisation that it was tradition, rather than Scripture, that had led me to hold the mainstream view. A lot of Christians assume that everybody gets immortality, possibly because they think the soul is immortal. Augustine for example argued that since the soul or spirit can’t be destroyed it makes sense to think that it can endure eternal suffering in hell without being destroyed. That’s just one example of a widely held but unbiblical view entering Christian theology. People talk about those with alternative views like mine as though they’re just caving in to some sort of emotional or cultural pressure, without really appreciating the huge cultural pressure within their Evangelical world and the wider Christian tradition to conform to what others think. We know what we’re “supposed” to think so that’s what we find in Scripture. How many times do people who believe in eternal torment gloss over biblical passages that talk about the wages of sin being death, or that warn of the destruction that God’s enemies will face, or the promise that what God offers us in Christ is the only hope of having eternal life? This has all become part of the traditional vocabulary because it’s in the Bible, but being so familiar with this terminology we just take these words as tokens of our familiar theology and we don’t really let them speak. Death and destruction really means suffering and separation from God, and life means a special, higher quality of life. Of course that’s not how we talk in everyday life, but somehow when talking about theology we forget that. I’ve come to think that in Scripture God did his darndest, using human instruments, to clearly express the fact that fallen human beings can only receive immortality through Christ, that one day all traces of evil will be no more, that God in Christ has taken away the death that we deserve, and that one day those who reject the gift of eternal life will be destroyed and gone forever because they don’t have this gift. The evidence is sitting right there in the pages of Scripture from cover to cover, and yet with linguistic twists and turns we’ve done our darndest to make all of these biblical proclamations mean something else. I have to wonder sometimes just what the biblical writers would have needed to say in order to convince some people. Would they need to say that the lost will die? They did! Would they need to say that they will be destroyed forever? They did! Would they need to say that they won’t have life? They did! Would they need to compare them to weeds that are burned up and disposed of? They did! You get the idea. The Bible says everything that we would expect it to say if God wanted us to understand that his enemies would one day be gone forever.
So the short answer is yes, this is a point of view that can easily be supported on the basis of what Scripture teaches. The reason so many Christians don’t accept this view is that they have already adopted so much that isn’t in Scripture.
You hold a PhD in Philosophy and a Masters of Theology. Normally people who pursue these higher degrees want to work in an academic field. Your view on Hell would seem to close many doors for employment in Theological Institutions including Church work. Why not keep this view to yourself? Why do you think Hell is important enough to not just keep quiet about?
Honestly, I really never intended to get a name as somebody who talks about this, but I just couldn’t help it! And you’re right, there’s no doubt that doing so means that a lot of doors are closed to me, professionally speaking, which is a bit of a shame. Of course that raises the question: Would I really want to work at a place that can’t handle open discussion on this subject? Would that be liveable for someone who wants Christians to use their minds a little more? Probably not, but it does make me wonder how institutions like that can ever be improved if the people who might do the reforming are blocked from ever taking part.
So why do I do it? That’s a good question, because I don’t always think about why I do it. I just do. Maybe the fact that there is such a reaction from those who think differently shows that this issue needs to be kept in front of the Christian (and non-Christian) public. If Evangelicals are still in a place where they just can’t accept that conditionalists really belong to the Evangelical fold – and there are still those who think this way, then they have to be continually challenged because that’s not OK. Real Evangelicals are interested in revisiting cherished beliefs in light of Scripture when necessary.
Another reason is a love of the truth and the conviction that pursuing the truth and encouraging other Christians to do likewise is really good for us and for the church. If we just let this “slide,” if we let Christians use bad methods of biblical interpretation on this issue (for example, thinking that the reference to worms and fire in Isaiah 66:24 indicates that hell is eternal torment, even though in context it obviously refers to the destruction of dead bodies), then we’re reinforcing sloppy ways of thinking and of handling Scripture. We need to use the highest standards possible when we’re talking about something that’s not trivial, we’re talking about what God has revealed. If people get into patterns of thinking and using Scripture that way on this issue, they’re going to be doing it on other issues, and bad thinking and bad hermeneutics infects our thoughts about all sorts of issues that Scripture addresses. We’re God’s image bearers and we should want to do all things with excellence, especially when it comes to handling the word of God in Scripture.
Another reason is just the basic drive to tell the truth about God and about the Gospel. If the traditional view of hell is true, then that tells us in part what God is like. His justice demands endless suffering. His wrath is never satisfied. The Gospel is a message that is just as much about staying out of hell as getting into heaven. But in fact the Gospel is good news. On our own, we die. We can’t live forever, we don’t have immortality, we depend on God for our very being, and God has – not provided a plan A and a plan B, one in glory and one in agony – but provided a rescue. The Gospel isn’t about better housing in eternity. It’s about life and death.
This last point also provides an important response to a concern in apologetics, namely the challenge that a loving God wouldn’t subject anybody to eternal suffering in hell. The good news here is that Scripture doesn’t say that he will, so this is just an unnecessary stumbling block that we can remove by showing people what Scripture really says about eternity.
So what is a Biblical definition of Hell?
The word “hell” itself has actually largely disappeared from the pages of the Bible. In older translations it was used to translate the Hebrew word sheol and its Greek translation, hades (not to be confused with the Greek god Hades or his underworld in mythology where the shades of the dead roamed). In better translations these words are usually translated into clearer English words like “the grave” or “the pit.” But the main word of interest, the Greek word gehenna, refers to the final punishment or the final fate of those who are not saved. Gehenna was the Greek equivalent of a Hebrew term for the Valley of Hinnom, a place where idolatry and child sacrifice had taken place – a place that gained the name “valley of slaughter.” Even when this word isn’t used, the biblical writers still refer to the concept of final punishment or judgment a number of times. When they do, they make it very clear what they were trying to say. The best known verse in all of Scripture reminds us that through faith in Christ we will not “perish” but have eternal life. Jesus compares the last judgement to a scene where a farmer burns up weeds in a furnace. Although the punishment is certainly eternal (something defenders of the traditional view frequently point out), as St Paul points out when writing to the Thessalonians, it is not eternal torment but “everlasting destruction.” In perhaps the most direct statement, Jesus warned his followers not to fear men who could just kill you in this life and that is all, but rather to fear God who can destroy both body and soul in gehenna.
Like all doctrines that are clearly taught in Scripture, this biblical concept of final punishment has some well-known passages that some people think create problems for it. For example, there are those who think that the book of Revelation was written, in part, to literally show us what hell looks like, a lake of fire that burns forever and where God’s enemies will suffer forever. One of the main reasons that some people think this is that they’re just not familiar with apocalyptic literature in the Bible, the type of literature you see in the book of Revelation. Virtually nothing that you see in these picturesque visions can be taken literally, at face value. Everywhere you look you find symbols, objects that refer to something else. Bowls of incense represent the prayers of the saints. Lampstands represent churches. The Lamb represents Jesus. The beasts represent world empires (drawn from the book of Daniel). The dragon represents the devil and so on. Similarly, the lake of fire represents “the second death,” and not a literal lake of fire. In this vision John sees the dragon and the beasts being tormented forever in this lake, and yet when Daniel described the fate of the beast in the Old Testament, it was slain and its body was burned up with fire. This isn’t a contradiction. The writer of Revelation was obviously aware of what Daniel had written and was making the same point. These are all highly figurative ways of expressing the same idea: That God will defeat all of his enemies and reign supreme. God will defeat death too, and death is cast into the lake of fire, according to the book of Revelation. This just means that death will be gone forever, not that death will be suffering in hell forever.
So while there are a few passages that require a bit more effort to handle properly, easily the clearest passages in Scripture – and there are many of them – depict the fate of God’s enemies as final death and destruction. They will be gone forever, and the only way out is to find eternal life in Christ Jesus.
You are a part of the Rethinking Hell team and have been a guest and a host for the podcast. What is the mission of Rethinking Hell?
Rethinking Hell is a collaboration of Evangelical Christians from different backgrounds who have all reached the conclusion that the majority view among Evangelicals is just not biblical. So we started this initiative to get that message out there in a clearly Evangelical Christian context. In some parts of the church – presumably parts of the church where people aren’t encouraged to understand much about the wider body of Christ – there are folks who automatically associate our view with heretical groups like the Christadelphians or the Jehovah’s Witnesses, both of which reject the doctrine of the Trinity. There’s some historical quibbling to be done there (for example, Charles Russell who founded the Jehovah’s Witnesses appears to have been influenced by more orthodox Christians who were conditionalists before founding his new movement). But the main point is that we want people to realise that actually this is something that you can – and should – believe as an Evangelical, orthodox Christian. Through the blog and podcast we’re providing resources on this subject in an Evangelical context in an effort to reach out primarily to an Evangelical audience. Apart from providing biblical reasons to rethink hell, which is our main interest, we also look at historical and contemporary debates about this subject, and through the podcast we interview a range of guests. One of the great things about the podcast, I think, is that it exposes listeners to the reality that actually across the wider church there are some top notch Christian thinkers who have changed their mind about hell. That’s a good way of challenging the mistaken perception that serious Evangelicals will inevitably conclude that the traditional view is correct. Far from it!
You also blog and host a podcast at rightreason.org. What other topics besides Hell do you discuss and think are important to the Church today?
A lot! Some of it is about really trying to push Christians to think more and where necessary to challenge some of the beliefs they take for granted. Hell is one of those areas, and so is my view on human nature. Quite some time ago I became convinced that the biblical view of human beings was a holistic one, where we aren’t immaterial souls that live in physical bodies. Actually we’re flesh and blood, physical beings who will die and we depend on the resurrection of the body to live again after death. I also have plenty to say about what usually gets called “apologetics,” thinking about the evidence for what we believe and responding to the intellectual challenges that people make to the Christian faith. I don’t really think of it as apologetics, I just think of it as discussing Scripture, faith and reason and so on. I look at all sorts of issues here, including some discussions about the historical Jesus, for example, but the relationship between God and morality is one that I’m particularly interested in.
I’m also pretty passionate about the way that Christians engage the world around them, socially and politically. Actually my PhD dissertation was about the role of religious convictions in public and political life. I think it’s something we need to do better, in a way that’s culturally literate, intellectually credible and faithful. Sometimes Christian focus entirely on the last of these and the result is that we rob ourselves of a voice because we come across as simply out of touch and cranky. We need to think and act carefully here because there’s a lot at stake, and to be honest it’s an area where I’d like to do more work, but as all of this is a side project (I work a regular day job), time is something I just don’t have enough of to do the sort of work that I’d like to.
Good Dr., you have some killer chops! You do the theme music for Rethinking Hell and several other podcasts. You also operate http://www.thememusic.co.nz. Can you fill us in on your musical background, influences and endeavors?
Music was my first love, and may still be. I loved music at school and started playing the guitar as soon as my parents would get me an electric one. After I finished school, before I studied theology or philosophy I studied music, and I was in a band for a while. I’ve played in church as well off and on over the years. So music has been with me for quite some time.
My musical endeavors were revived because of my podcast, Say Hello to my Little Friend, which started back in 2008 (my blog started in 2006). I wanted theme music, so I recorded it myself. It had been years since I had recorded anything and I really loved it, so I just kept doing it. I change the theme music ever now and then, and I’ve done music for other podcasts like Rethinking Hell. Shortly after I started recording podcast theme music I launched Theme Music New Zealand to showcase the sort of thing I do, and since launching that site I’ve made music for a few short movies in competitions, some of which is at my SoundCloud page. I certainly haven’t made any money from it though.
I generally find that musicians like a whole range of different styles of music and I’m no exception, especially when it comes to making music. I generally don’t like the kind of pop music you’re likely to hear on a lot of radio stations and I’m not much of a fan of rap music. I’m probably not a big fan of some kinds of country either (but only some kinds, I do really like Johnny Cash). Since I’m not in a band and I just make music for random projects I try to capture a different feels for each piece I’m making. I make classical music, funk, Sherlock Holmes-esque sounding things as well as the heavier stuff. But when it comes to most of what I listen to for pleasure, I definitely prefer the louder stuff, from hard rock through to ridiculously heavy metal, which explains the podcast theme music I use. As far as influences go, that’s pretty broad as I try to cover a range of styles – even among the heavier music I make. So it will range from classic metal like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest to grunge like early Soundgarden to Metalcore like Killswitch Engage to thrash metal like Slayer or something with a bit of flair Tourniquet (one of my all-time favorite bands), right through to European black metal like Slechtvalk and orchestral metal like Nightwish or Within Temptation. One thing I really like to do is take older hymns and reboot them as metal instrumentals, and I’ve used a few of those in my podcast. But for the more classical styled pieces I record I really couldn’t say what influences me. Probably theme music from movies that I’ve seen because it was written to be really evocative and to draw you in to what’s happening, which is what I try to do when I’m writing music for the screen.
Would we have been burnt at the stake for having this conversation about Hell 500 years ago?
No, you’d be surprised actually! I know that some writers seem to think that their view is the one that virtually all real Christians have always held, and any other view is heresy, but those with a bit more knowledge of history realize that actually it’s not that simple. We know that some of the Church Fathers held to conditional immortality (e.g. a couple of the Apostolic Fathers, Irenaeus, Arnobius and perhaps even Athanasius). The view that is now called the traditional view (namely, eternal torment) was really given a boost by the influence of Augustine and did become the dominant view, but nobody can justify saying that it was ever the only serious Christian view. Conditional Immortality is certainly compatible with the earlier Creeds like the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed. A few people have claimed that that conditional immortality was condemned at the second Council of Constantinople (AD 553), but that’s a mistake, it’s just not true: the council actually condemned universalism. I’m not personally aware of anyone even being excommunicated, let alone executed (!) in centuries gone by for thinking that the Bible teaches conditional immortality. Almost ironically, that sort of thing (the excommunication – not the execution!) is most likely to happen in a very modern Evangelical context, a context where at times people are painfully unfamiliar with the history of the faith we share as followers of Christ.
It’s funny in a sad sort of way that a number of Evangelical Protestant Christians have this view of Church history where they think that once upon a time they would have been persecuted as heretics and now we’re free of all that dogmatism – while at the same time they have such detailed statements of faith of their own that they end up making heretics of everybody else in the church, especially when it comes to what we think about hell. Fortunately that’s changing, and if God sees fit to use me to do just a small part of that work, then I’m grateful. The point isn’t just to reject traditional beliefs so that we can be hip and edgy, and of course there’s a risk that people will latch on to what I’m doing for that reason. I don’t want to promote that. The point of being a Reformer isn’t just to abandon traditional beliefs and come up with something new. Reform is about calling people saying “maybe we’ve made some wrong turns and we need to take a few steps back here.” It’s about calling people back to their roots, and for me (I certainly identify as an Evangelical), those roots are in Scripture, and also in the church, the body of followers centered around Jesus. Ultimately it’s not the end of the world if others in the church don’t share my conclusions. I’ll keep trying, but it’s not the end of the world. The point is that I really think we all have to be willing to go back to the source and be willing to find out that we’re wrong.
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