RELIGION
Guess Who’s Going to Hell? (According to My High School Bible Teacher)
The list was longer than I thought
During the first years at my conservative Evangelical Christian high school, I heard whispers by the lockers about the “scary” Bible class required for all juniors.
A lifelong Christian school student, I scoffed. I had this in the bag. From sword drills in second grade all the way to last year’s sophomore Old Testament class, my cup of biblical knowledge overfloweth.
But this class taught me more than I ever wanted to know.
On paper, the class looked rigorous but still innocuous: a hard-core dive into biblical theology with analyses of secondary texts including Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer and The Screw Tape Letters by C.S. Lewis.
The course description for the class included a battery of “ologies”: hamartiology, eschatology, and pneumatology (studies of sin, the afterlife, and the Holy Spirit respectively).
The “Course Objectives” included Objective B.1, an outcome I would describe as ambitiously yet moronically ironic:
“Students will understand the concepts of God’s Incomprehensibility.”
Wrap your head around that one!
As the fall semester progressed, we learned the attributes of God: omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, etc.
Comforting, right?
Wrong.
My teacher Mr. Spoelstra did not teach these attributes in a way that was “comforting.”
God’s infinite power, constant presence, and all-knowing nature came across as threatening.
In this theology class, we learned that God did not come to play.
We also learned soteriology, which is the study of salvation.
Curious teenagers that we were, we asked question after question about who was and who wasn’t saved.
Mr. Spoelstra, what actually constitutes a conversion?
Mr. Spoelstra, do death-bed conversions “count”?
Mr. Spoelstra, what sins can make you lose your salvation?
The question of what sins can negate salvation always caught my attention.
According to Mr. Spoelstra, salvation-revoking sins included living “in sin” with a partner before marriage, indulging in homosexuality, and skipping church. Not “one-time” sins, but people repeatedly and actively rejecting the Christian life.
We asked what happens if a Christian commits these sins, and he equivocated with “That person was likely not saved to begin with.”
Even though I committed none of these supposed “sins,” the agonizing punishment of hell loomed large.
Each night I had to ask for forgiveness for gossiping and worse.
I began to question whether I was actually saved at all.
Am I going to hell?
I confessed my sins and asked for forgiveness every day. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for you, I even wrote these confessions down in notebooks.
Enjoy a close reading of my teenage prayer journal in this piece:
Mr. Spoelstra taught a very specific definition of those who are saved from hell:
- a person who at one point in their life said the name of Jesus,
- believed in Christ’s death and resurrection on the cross,
- asked him for forgiveness, and
- then lived a Christian life.
I definitely had the first three, but the fourth seemed subjective. How could I know for sure I was really “living the Christian life”? Who would tell me if my life wasn’t “Christian enough”?
Then it occurred to me that this four-part process had even more potential pitfalls.
The “name of Jesus” part got me thinking.
What about people who never heard the name of Jesus?
I reasoned to myself that God probably had a little compassion and would not cast them away for something they couldn’t help.
But according to this specific salvation formula, they would go to hell.
That didn’t seem fair.
I raised my hand. “There are some people in the jungles of Africa who will never see the Bible and never hear the name of Jesus. Do they have to go to hell even if it is not their fault they never knew the name of Jesus? That’s not fair.”
He didn’t miss a beat.
“The people in Africa WILL go to hell if they don’t say the name of Jesus. It IS fair because hell is what all people deserve. We are just very lucky to be here in America where we have access to the Bible.”
I thought to myself, well, that’s harsh, but…
He added, “Also, Hope, that shows it is imperative for YOU to go take the Bible to Africa to save them.”
Whoa, hold on, now. How did this become MY problem?
I was not a “missionary” type of person. With my youth group, I went on short-term missions trips to Mexico, but the missionary lifestyle scared me. Living without hot water and electricity and running from the natives who want to kill you sounded horrible.
The missionary kids I knew in real life were weird and for some reason didn’t wear shoes. I had just bought a pair of patent leather Doc Martens.
From then on, I just decided to pray that the people in Africa would accidentally think of the name “Jesus” and then things could fall into place from there.
More pressing concerns about my own salvation kept me up at night.
During yet another class discussion on salvation, Mr. Spoelstra stated, “Anyone who does not say the name of Jesus and claim a personal relationship with him will not go to heaven, and will instead spend eternal afterlife in hell.”
A student raised her hand.
“What if the person didn’t have a chance to say the name of Jesus?”
“Then they can’t go to heaven,” he replied.
“Does that include kids who are too young to understand?”
“Yes, that includes kids.”
“Even babies?” she asked, getting worried.
“Anyone who is not saved does not go to heaven.”
We sat quietly ingesting this information.
Let me think this through. So a baby who dies will not be in heaven waiting for their parents? What an awful thought.
Evangelicals do not believe in infant baptism, so I supposed it lined up.
But Evangelicals also did not ascribe to a philosophy of purgatory or annihilation, so… my mind reached the horrifying conclusion the same moment the other student asked:
“So babies go to hell?”
“Yes, they go to hell.”
Silence.
He must have felt our horror because he quickly added:
“But they only understand hell as much as they understood Earth, so it’s not as bad. It’s a similar situation to people with mental disabilities.”
What?!?
Oh my God.
My brother. My autistic, mentally disabled brother.
Was he going to hell? Did he understand the Bible enough to be saved?
The thought was too overwhelming.
I silently cursed God for being so cruel, then immediately asked him to forgive me.
Junior Bible was supposed to strengthen my commitment to Christ through truth. However, these painful “truths” about salvation left me emotionally depleted with nothing left to say.
I half-heartedly prayed for strength for the upcoming week.
Because in April of 1997 in junior Bible class, things got much worse.
The time had arrived for Crucifixion Week.
Read about it here:
