Picture Hell and the Devil in your mind. I’m guessing you had visions of fire, and of a man with red skin and a pointy beard with horns and maybe eve a pitchfork.
But here’s the thing, our concept of hell and the devil are formed from thousands of years of symbolism and imagery, much of which we don’t really know today. Early Christian painters used greek imagery of Gods to portray the devil, as a way of rejecting those prior teachings. And while hell is described like a lake of fire this is clearly metaphor for the idea of separation from God. All of the book of Revelation, where we get a lot of our imagery about hell, is metaphor for real world events and political shifts.
As we begin this season of Lent, which is a time of reflection and spiritual practice take some time to think about your own theology of hell and the devil.
I think of hell in line with the Jewish concept of Gehinnom. This is a sort of waiting room where we becomes fully aware of the actions and effects of our choices in life. Where we feel and fully understand the consequences of the way we were in the world. That would mean quite a painful experience for someone like Adolf Hitler, to have to truly understand the pain of all those he sentenced to the gas chamber. I like this because I believe in a God who loves everyone and offers forgiveness. I also believe in God’s justice which requires accountability and compassion. No one is irredeemable, and at the same time we must atone for our actions.
Some folks think of hell like the waiting room for the DMV. A place with little to no activity where a soul is simply cut off form God. This fits with Catholic thought that defines hell as a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed. This is inline with early Christian thought who saw things outside of God as a gray area of nothingness.
What do you believe? Is there a hell? A devil? And if so why do you think that way?
I’ll share more about my thoughts on the devil in worship this week as we continue the practice of giving up harmful theology for lent!
Blessings,
Eilidh