How Should We Talk about Hell in our Day and Age (Ligon Duncan)
"What is the preacher to do with hell and eternal punishment? In our day and age these truths strike some as comical and others as cruel. To some, hell is a joke. It's about little devils in red tights (so teach the cartoonists). It's a place where illicit pleasures are indulged (if we believe the entertainment media, not to mention the porn industry). It conjures up images of old-fashioned, red-faced TV preachers (before they figured out that only "nice" plays on the tube) preaching the disdained "hellfire and brimstone" sermon. On the other hand, in more thoughtful settings - major universities, mainline seminaries, serious print media - the mere admission of one's belief in such a destination for the unredeemed evokes sheer horror from the enlightened. How could you possibly believe something so primitive, so backwards, so mean, so exclusive, so intolerant? A rampant relativism and universalism makes hell the only heresy...."
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