In Conclusion...

With this ISP, I was hoping to gather a general historical knowledge of the role and development of the Hell myth in American evangelicalism. I am most interested in Hell’s relationship to justice and punishment, but also wanted to explore symbols and physical representations and how they might relate to our understanding of Hell as a place. Unfortunately, since the physical nature of Hell wasn’t of particular interest to evangelicals, I wasn’t able to explore that element as much as I would have liked to.

Some specific questions I wanted to address were the following: What is Hell like? Is it a physical place? Why does Hell exist? Who goes there? It turns out the answers to these questions are pretty complex. Evangelicals haven’t spent a great amount of time telling us what Hell is like, but the Bible does give us fire and brimstone, so we know that’s there. The physical existence of Hell I think is still a debatable issue, along with its existence all together, really. Hell seems to serve a different purpose for different people, but I think it generally justifies evil and unfairness on God’s good Earth by punishing those who deserve it. And who goes there ranges from everyone who’s not a good Bible reading Christian to no one at all, but I think most contemporary evangelicals are in the Billy Graham category: good people can know the grace of God even if they never had the opportunity to consciously accept Jesus Christ.

Our ideas of Hell, like other theological trends, move and change with the culture – as I’ve discussed in previous posts, in trying times, we tend to be more interested in death and Hell, and vice versa. I discovered an interesting arc over the course of early Christianity and into the evangelical movements – a heavy interest in the topology and nature of Hell taken over by a theological debate about its function and importance. Prior to this project, I associated evangelicals heavily with the language of “hellfire and brimstone”, but found that it’s a much more complex issue than that. I think the recent trend towards the rejection of the Hell myth is really interesting (and unexpected). Though, we have seen a rise in fundamentalism in the past decade, which I think may put an at least temporary damper on this trend.

In future research, I’d be interested in reading more about older afterlife myths, in other parts of the world, and comparing their similarities and differences. Most American students are relatively well versed in Greek mythology, but reading about the Egyptians and Sheol was pretty eye opening. I’d also like to explore how our understanding of justice is influenced by the Hell myth, and how it has perhaps shaped our image of punishment and even the formal justice system itself.

Contemporary Thoughts: Challenging the Tradition

Evangelicalism grew tremendously in the United States in the last century and now, according to a 1996 survey, an estimated third of Americans identify with Bebbington’s four principals of evangelicalism (conversionism, Biblicism, activism, and crucicentrism), and over half identify with at least three [7]. Needless to say, evangelicals have become a major part of American culture over the course of the last century, and their beliefs have been influential.

Hogan says “even the church is drawing back from the hell myth, realizing that it has no Biblical basis and is simply incompatible with a loving God,” [6]. Gomes argues that like many fringe groups before them (e.g. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists), many mainstream Christians are now rejecting eternal damnation in favor of annihilationism [5]. He says “the rejection of eternal punishment is but one incident in the larger campaign to construct a kinder, gentler theology,” [5]. More generally, I think this movement for a gentler theology and kinder God is reflective of our (perceived) refined society. A violent, angry God who punishes his enemies with eternal physical torment was acceptable in a culture where public hangings were a regular spectacle, but is disconcerting to the politically corrected modern eye. On the flip side, a God of forgiveness and providence may have seemed unrealistic to the impoverished masses of earlier societies, while it might seem perfectly necessary to a first world resident.

Annihilationism retains the justice of the Heaven and Hell system by reserving Heaven for believers, but replaces the vengefulness of eternal torment with the simple gift of death. The threat of punishment is replaced with the promise of reward. Sinners can’t go to heaven and live eternally in the presence of the divine, but they don’t have to suffer eternally either – death (or the Second Coming, in some theologies) is simply the end. Gomes quotes Clark Pinnock who expresses the preference of death over damnation: "Everlasting torment is intolerable from a moral point of view because it makes God into a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for victims whom he does not even allow to die," [5].

An inverse theory to annihilationism is conditional immortality, which also includes the cessation of existence for sinners, but rather than treating it as annihilation of the soul, teaches that the soul is not inherently eternal, but that eternal life is granted by God to his followers through salvation [5]. This theory is even more salvation based than annihilationism, but from Gomes argument, I gather that it’s less popular. Some more radical evangelicals may go so far as to accept universalism (everyone is saved), but evangelical churches have officially rejected it [5].

Gomes ultimately argues that while censure of the glee “with which some evangelicals speak about Hell” is legitimate, there is sufficient Biblical evidence of eternal damnation to prove its existence, and I think many fundamentalists are still dealing with this issue of Biblical authority and interpretation.

The Age of Mass Media

Turner suggests that the scientific developments around the turn of the century (in psychology, specifically) changed the way religion functioned (as do many scholars of religion) [8]. Turner compares Hell to the “existential wastelands” that appear in pop culture hits like Apocalypse Now and Catch 22 and implies that Hell of the 20^th century is more of a psychological battleground than a supernatural land of physical torment [8]. Like generations before it, this new pop culture twist effects the imagery used by religious leaders as well.

In the first half of the 20^th century Evangelicalism was on the decline as non protestant immigration, inner city cultural growth, and secularization of higher education were on the rise [7]. Some groups, however, did expand during this time, like the Moody Bible Institute, a religious education center, and some smaller local church communities [7]. Also during this time, evangelicals starting pressing for radio time, bringing a new era of evangelizing. By the 1950’s when religious leaders like Billy Graham took the stage, and loosened some of the more strict facets of fundamentalism, creating a more positive image of evangelicalism, these groups started to grow, especially in the public eye.

Since modern evangelicalism is so diverse, beliefs about Hell among evangelicals must vary. For some fundamentalists, the lack of Biblical proof of Hell’s existence is enough grounds for its rejection, while other Christians find it necessary to justify evil in the world. Still others argue that it’s incompatible with the loving God that evangelicals believe in.

For example, Billy Graham told Robert Schuller in a 1997 interview that he believes everyone who knows Christ, even non Christians who may be unaware, are saved and will go to heaven [6]. An influential evangelical leader, Graham didn’t want to fully reject the doctrine of Hell that’s become common Christian tradition, but he didn’t want to focus on it either.

Early evangelicalism was more reflective of its Puritan ancestors, and as they could have learned from early Christians, Hell is an effective tool of evangelism. However, as evangelicalism took its own form, emphasizing the goodness of God and the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, Hell was no longer a compatible focal point. In other words, newer evangelicals have chosen the love over the fear route to sell their religion, and it turned out to be incredibly effective in the age of mass media.

A Little History: Evangelicalism in the 19th Century

American Evangelicalism, born and raised in a tumultuous time of revolutions, has retained the sense of urgency of its birth. Bivins suggests that early evangelicals weren’t fighting just for their religious values, but for social and political justification throughout the industrial revolution and the Civil War as well [2]. Bivins also suggests that evangelicals conflated their political enemies with enemies of God, or demons doing the Devil’s work on Earth [2]. For many Christians, the evil of Hell and the Devil seeps up into the Earth where it can possess, tempt, and taunt the living. This and the fact of eternal damnation, as opposed to its nature, seems to be the concern of modern evangelicals.

Turner suggests the 19^th century had a revisionary view of Hell, concerned with the sublime and the infinite [8]. Hell in 19^th century literature took an amoral turn in the rise of the gothic novel and an interest in Hell on Earth – it was more of a pop culture interest than a religious one [8]. Romanticism, specifically, saw Satan as a heroic rebel against an oppressive tyrant, reflective of slum life during the industrial revolution [8].

The 19^th century got a kick start in the evangelical world with the Second Great Awakening, when evangelicalism really started to grow [2]. In the late 19^th century, there was also a new fascination with death not seen since the 15^th century [8]. This could be that the newly industrialized world mirrored the troubles of the Dark Ages. In general, Bivins says that in times of crisis, a preoccupation with “darkness and demonology” emerges [2].

In Our Own Image: The Anthropocentric Design

While more recent trends seem to be moving away from constructing the topology of Hell (maybe Dante was too good an act to follow), humans spent centuries creating detailed designs of the underworld, imagining its inhabitants, and envisioning the brave souls who challenged its master. But minding that no one’s ever really seen it, it’s interesting how much Hell resembles the planet Earth, the souls of the damned resemble rotting corpses, and Satan is just a really mean King or some animal that people don’t like very much (i.e. a snake or a goat).

Hell is usually imagined as a physical place that exists under the ground. It has deserts, rivers, mountains, entry gates (like a fancy estate) and guards to watch them. It has a fiery furnace (or sometimes is a fiery furnace) and icy cold lakes. It has rainstorms and hailstorms and bridges and mansions (some speculate that these belong to the souls of Limbo). And that sounds a lot like Earth. The difference is that everyone there is in a state of eternal suffering (maybe it isn’t all that different), but that suffering is also pretty mundane (albeit sometimes extreme): hunger, thirst, worms, terrible smells, whipping, teeth gnashing, severe heat or cold, severe dryness (from the heat), being gnawed by violent beasts. It sounds remarkably like being poor in the Middle Ages (except maybe the gnawing part?), which is a perfect punishment for the rich, indulgent sinners of the era! Jesus did say “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven,” (Matthew 19: 24). Those who spend life on Earth suffering can spend eternity in the riches of Heaven, and those who enjoy the pleasure of wealth on Earth can spend eternity suffering like those to whom they refused help in their lifetime. This exact sentiment is expressed in the story of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus: the rich man refuses to help Lazarus, and when he dies and goes to Hell, he asks Abraham to send down Lazarus from his bosom with a drop of water to cool his tongue, but Abraham reminds him, “you have received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented,” (Luke 16: 25).

By the same token, Heaven has been less often described in such detail (at least by Christians). Heaven is some unidentifiable place in the clouds where God lives and angels dance on the head of a pin (and other things we can’t do here). Some historians believe that our affinity for Hell, as opposed to Heaven, is an issue of relatability. It’s a lot easier to imagine eternal suffering than eternal paradise, and it’s a lot easier to understand a sinner than a saint. Basically, we’ve all been in Lucifer’s shoes, but God is inaccessible. We know what it’s like to be hungry and cold, to be angry and envious, but human euphoria is pretty limited.

Hell has overtime retained its primal aspects. It makes sense that the afterlife of the ancients was built on nature (especially since most early religions were born from nature), but a modern construction of Hell could theoretically include a whole array of new tortures and technologies that weren’t available to the ancient imagination. However, I think the primitive nature of Hell plays an interesting role for the modern believer, in that its primitiveness would seem more frightening and mystical (in its unfamiliarity) now than it did to the old world. As I’ve stated in an earlier post, some Gnostic Christians literally and intentionally conflated Hell with Earth. A long time ago, Hellish suffering could be found in the streets; now, to your average first world believer, such suffering seems unfathomable. This may be why so many modern believers reject the physical existence of Hell in favor of a transcendental one. The underworld has gone from a place that could be physically accessed through an opening in the Earth to a place that mystics can only access in their dreams…

The Great Awakening

Noll marks the birth of Evangelical trends at the publication of Philip Jakob Spener’s Pia Desideria in 1675 [7]. The Pia Desideria was an appeal for reform in the Lutheran churches of Germany [7]. Similar but seemingly independent trends around the same time include John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress in 1678 in England and poetry by Congregationalist minister Edward Taylor in colonial America [7]. English poet, John Milton, also published Paradise Lost in 1667 [8]. Paradise Lost is an epic poem about the temptation of Adam and Eve, which includes a description of Hell [8]. Like many before him, Milton includes the Greek rivers Archeron, Cocytus, Phlegethon, and Styx in his landscape and describes the flaming furnace, the eternal darkness, torture, and sorrow, and the disgusting smell of sulphur [8]. This may, however, be the end of the Protestant interest in landscaping Hell.

The evangelical movement really picked up steam in a series of religious awakenings in the 1720’s and 30’s [7]. Turner places the origin of the first Great Awakening in New Jersey with Presbyterian evangelist Gilbert Tennent [8]. Though, the real life of the evangelical awakenings was in the ordinary people who experienced them [7]. Noll eloquently describes the evangelical movement like so:

“The most overt religious factor in the transformation of Protestantism was the spiritual renewal expressed as a multifaceted protest against ecclesiastical formalism and an urgent appeal for living religion of the heart. The form of Christianity that contemporary Americans recognize as evangelicalism originated in this pietistic revival,” [7].

Evangelicals, tired of the exclusivity born of the Catholic Church and revived in the Puritan movements of the previous century, sought out a personal and accessible Christianity. British historian David Bebbington identifies conversionism, Biblicism, activism, and crucicentrism as the key ingredients of evangelicalism – in other words, emphasis on the new birth in Christ (conversion), the authority of the Bible, active evangelizing, and the redemption of the crucifixion [7]. The evangelical movement also coincided more or less with the Enlightenment, and may have been a response to the extreme emphasis on science and rationalism at the time. Some Enlightenment thinkers considered Hell a coercive device [8]. Such criticisms may have been responsible for the later downplay on Hell.

Leaders in American evangelicalism were Minister George Whitefield and theologian Jonathan Edwards. In 1741, Jonathan Edwards made his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” [8]. This sermon, while mentioning hellfire and brimstone focuses more on the function of hell than its physical nature. At its most descriptive, he says,

“The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them” [4].

He wants to emphasize the imminence of Hell for the sinful, that the souls of wicked men already are damned. Edwards emphasizes the urgency of conversion by describing such imminence, and reminding his listeners that, while most men will convince themselves of their secured salvation, most men, in fact, go to Hell [4]. He invokes in his defense divine justice, which “calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins,” [4]. Further, for Edwards, Hell seems to exist in the souls of the damned, rather than externally (or perhaps both). He says, “if sin was not restrained, it would immediately turn the soul into a fiery oven, or a furnace of fire and brimstone,” [4].

Unlike earlier authors, the damned, for Edwards, are simply “the unconverted” as opposed to a long list of particular sinners (e.g. adulterers, the envious, the greedy). This reflects the emphasis on conversionism that Bebbington would later observe. Edwards also frequently quotes the Bible (maybe a third of his sermon is direct quotes), showing the emphasis on Biblicism.

It seems that for evangelicals, unlike their Christian ancestors, while Hell may be a very real place with very real threats, its landscape and topography are less important than its service in God’s plan.

The Formation of Hell

Early Christians

According to a History Channel special on Hell [1], the first thousand years of Christianity had no real emphasis on Hell, but rather, I assume, on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Neither the writings of Paul nor the majority of the Gospels specifically address Hell [8]. The Gospel according to Mathew is the only Gospel that takes an admonishing tone, warning of the darkness (25: 30) and the furnace of everlasting fire (13: 50, 25: 30) [8]. That being said, Hell is best (only?) described as a physical place in the Bible in the Gospel of Luke, when the rich man, who rejects the beggar Lazarus, dies and speaks with Abraham from the flames of Hell (16: 19-31) [8]. Punishment for sin varies throughout the Bible; in the Old Testament, it is frequently a curse from God (reflective of its Greek and other Pagan ancestors), and in the New Testament, it is often simply death, as stated in the Book of Romans: “The wages of sin is death” (5: 6) [8].

The Book of Revelation, which differs greatly from rest of the New Testament, addresses Hell and punishment, but only in terms of the End Times. While the End Times have been important for Evangelicals, this isn’t a subject I want to focus on (it really deserves a whole discussion to itself). I do believe though that the imagery of fire and grotesque monsters in Revelation has helped shape our image of Hell in general and outside of the apocalypse.

Early Gnostic Christians rejected the existence of Hell altogether, but instead believed that life on Earth was something of the sort, and that Jesus came to Earth to save us through gnosis, or secret knowledge [8]. Gnosis was too esoteric to spread the way stories of a burning and fear giving Hell would, so this version of the story took a back burner to what would become canon [8]. One thing the Gnostics and other Christians agreed upon was that the Earth was in the hands of the Devil and that Earthly bodies were evil and gross [8].

Some scholars mark the beginning of the turn towards sin and Hell as a theological interest at the publication of St. Augustine’s Confessions [1]. When St. Augustine published his Confessions at the end of the 4^th century, many Christian readers began to think about sinfulness and their eventual fate [1]. Augustine describes a fiery Hell as the punishment for the unsaved [8]. The Confessions also sends a message that even after years of pagan decadence, all hope is not lost, which was likely an attractive idea for new converts.

Middle Ages

The attributes of Hell and Satan didn’t really become convention until the Middle Ages [8]. The Middle Ages were a time of great theological development in Christianity in which Christian scholars began asking question about their beliefs and trying to solve some of religion’s greatest puzzles. A rediscovery of Aristotle’s work had a great influence on Christian thinkers of the time, creating an interest in logic and rationalization of Christian doctrine [8]. It’s important, however, to mind that theology didn’t necessarily represent popular belief.

In small towns and villages, weekly sermons may have been the only source of entertainment [8]. When the Church realized that stories about Hell brought more spectators to the pews, hellfire and brimstone quickly became common subjects of the sermons [1]. The narrator of the History Channel special [1] compared Hell to horror films – such sermons touched a nerve for fear and excitement – and Church leaders used them to increase the Church’s power in numbers. One could also make the Machiavellian argument here, and say that fear is more convincing than love, Hell a more powerful tool than Heaven.

The obsession with Hell in the Middle Ages appears not only at the pulpit, but in literature, artwork, and theatre, as well. We have a plethora of religious art from the Middle Ages depicting the depths of Hell and stories of Satan and other Hell dwellers. Satan is frequently depicted in blue, to show his distance from the warmth of Christ, and as enemies of the Church (i.e. Jews or Muslims) [1].

While Hell is directly discussed very little in the Bible, Christians began to seek out symbols and signs of the Devil and his kingdom, finding him even in the Old Testament. For example, the snake that tempts Eve in the Garden of Eden was originally just a snake (a serpent?), though many Christians interpret the tempter as a manifestation of the Devil [1].

Some less doctrinal literature of the Middle Ages, frequently influenced by Norse mythology, adopted a more fanciful view of Hell, a place of adventure and excitement [8]. One author went so far as to have his protagonist desire Hell: “old priests, old cripples, old maimed, who hunch in front of altars and old crypts day and night, and those in ragged old cloaks and old rags, who are naked and shoeless and dying of hunger and thirst, cold and misery. They go to Paradise, and I want nothing to do with them,” [Aucassin et Nicolette, 8]. This sentiment might represent the non Christian of the era; however, most literature of the time was dominated by the clergy.

A more typical genre of the time were vision tours, in which the protagonist is guided through the underworld, and then, perhaps, Heaven, as well [8]. Such visions frequently described a bridge crossing over the typical river to Hell – sometimes a “black, smoky river” and sometimes a river of fire – as well as unpleasant smells and sounds, such as evil laughter [8]. One describes people emitting flames from their mouths and noses [8].

Dante’s Divine Comedy is probably the most popular vision tour and was quickly translated into nearly every European language [1], and thus has been a defining image of Hell in Western culture. Dante borrows a number of images and concepts from the Greek afterlife, including the river of Acheron, which in the Divine Comedy, must be crossed to enter the gates of Hell [3]. An interesting event concerning the river in the Comedy is that the souls of the damned turn from fearful to desiring while crossing the river as a means of weeding out good souls [3]. In other words, those sinners who feared their fate while on Earth crawl willfully to their punishment from the shores of the river.

Dante also, like other visionaries, elaborated on the sensational experience of hell, the awful sights and smells, the “horrible dialects, accents of anger, words of agony,” [3]. As in the Book of Enoch, Dante’s Hell also has “eternal shades in heat and frost” [3]. The top few circles, with the exception of Limbo, are merely eternal storms, but as we step down the ladder, turn into rain of fire, and eventually, in the ninth circle, home to history’s greatest traitors – Lucifer, Judas, Brutus – is a frozen lake [3].

As far as I have read, Dante is the first to organize sin and punishment so thoroughly, perhaps a reflection of the hierarchical organization of the Catholic Church. Dante divides hell into nine circles to appropriately treat the severity of each person’s sins. The first circle, also known as Limbo, belongs to the virtuous pagans and the unbaptized; the second to the wanton; the third to the gluttonous; the fourth to the avaricious and the prodigal; the fifth to the irascible and the sullen; the sixth to the heresiarchs; the seventh to the violent; the eighth to the fraudulent and malicious; and the ninth to traitors [8].