Hell may be out of style, but according to recent studies, the majority of Americans still believe that there will be some form of afterlife realm of unending suffering.
In fact, a Pew Research survey revealed that approximately 60% of Americans believe in hell, with Evangelical Christians having the highest belief rates at around 82%.
Even if they could claim to believe in Hell…
Even while most Christians claim to believe in Hell, their actions reveal a very different set of beliefs.
What makes me say this?
Having a belief in Hell has some obvious effects on how people behave in this world.
Logic says that you would act swiftly and decisively to avert the death of a friend or family member if you believed they were in immediate danger. I have no doubt that I would try to shove my child out of the path if a bus was about to strike them. I might even provide a hand to a stranger who was in danger of being struck by a bus.
It would come naturally.
Imagine that instead of physical death, the risk was a type of spiritual death that you believe has more severe repercussions than any physical death since this spiritual death, in your opinion, lasts forever. The end of physical life occurs instantly. But according to many Christians, Hell is an eternal place.
It stands to reason that if I truly believed in this impending and terrible spiritual death, namely Hell, I would do every effort to “rescue people.” In fact, I would adamantly shout it from the rooftops, stop random people in the street, and constantly be in my family’s faces.
Now, you could know Christians who engage in these behaviours; God knows they exist. But most Christians don’t behave in this way. That is a proven fact, and research backs it up.
Furthermore, among Christians, 56% of Evangelicals and 48% of Protestants concur that Christianity is the only way to eternal life. Yes, over half of all Evangelicals think it’s the direct route to hell.
According to Barna, the majority of active Christians believe that sharing their religion involves bearing witness to Jesus (varying from 95% to 97% across all generational groups) and that knowing Jesus is the finest thing someone could ever do for them (94% to 97%).
Therefore, almost all Christians think that one of Christianity’s highest purposes is to spread the gospel, yet 80% of those same Christians think that there is a place called Hell. So, you might anticipate a great deal of missionary zeal, right? Since Christians think they have the greatest message of all and that their message has eternal repercussions, one would assume that nearly all of them would actively spread their faith.
However, it appears that 90% of Christians do not.
Less than half of all Christians (45%) have told someone how to become a Christian in the last six months, according to Lifeway Research. Most of those who had discussed becoming a Christian with someone had only done so once or twice (24%). Approximately 10% of churchgoers only have at least one evangelistic discussion every month on average.
What can we infer from this?
How do we reconcile the reality that the majority of Christians don’t bother telling others about Jesus with the fact that the majority of Christians think the best thing that could possibly happen to someone is for them to know Jesus?
Perhaps a more significant issue is: Why do most Christians fail to warn others despite holding the view that those who reject Jesus are doomed to a painful, eternal spiritual death in the burning of Hill?
We could draw a few possible inferences from these statistical abnormalities. First, you might get the conclusion that Christians don’t really care about their loved ones who are ostensibly perishing. However, despite what you may think about Christians, there is no solid evidence to support the notion that they have less concern for others than non-Christians.
So that brings us to a more likely second conclusion. The mission of “warning others” may not be a top priority in terms of statistics since, despite what they claim to believe, even Christians may have difficulty accepting the notion that an all-loving God would send people to Hell for all eternity. Could it be that even most Christians find it difficult to retain the notion that God will punish the majority of humanity with endless conscious torment?
You could despise those fanatical Christians who never tyre of talking about Heaven and Hell and attempting to “rescue” people. But the truth is, at least in the evangelical interpretation of Christianity, these are the genuine believers. Even if their ideas are incorrect, you have to admire them for actually acting on them.
Hell is difficult to believe in.
Personally, I believe that one of the main reasons why so many people are reluctant to communicate their Christian beliefs is that the Christian religion has gotten so intertwined with ideas about sin, punishment, and damnation that it is difficult to refer to it as “Good News.” In reality, one must deny a certain amount of what might seem to be common sense in order to maintain the belief that it is “Good News” that everyone who rejects Christ is doomed to an eternity in fiery misery.
Christians may claim to believe in Hell, but their inaction says something else. And the fact that so-called Spirit-filled Christians are doing nothing tells you pretty much all you need to know about Hell.
